Keeping Up With Jones

I just finished the third, and last, season of Jessica Jones.  It picks up where season two ended, and features the regulars--Jessica, Trish, Malcolm, Hogarth, Dorothy, Costa--along with a few newbies.

The show's best season was the first.  It not only introduces (to TV) Jessica herself, but also the world she lives in, where some have special powers.  And it gives Jessica a dynamite villain, Kilgrave, who can control people's minds.  The second season was a letdown, where Jessica meets her biological mom, who's like Jessica--two characters with the same powers facing off lacks contrast.

The third season is better than season two, but still falls short. Before I go on, please be advised spoilers will follow.

The basic idea was good--instead of a villain with special powers, make him a regular person.  This is Sallinger, a sociopathic killer who has trained and educated himself as much as he can, and who resents the specials whom he feels haven't earned their place. (A bit like Syndrome in The Incredibles, though that character and his abilities are more fantastic.) There's also Erik, Jessica's new lover as well as someone with the power to tell if a person is evil.

However, once establishing the villain (it takes several episodes to discover him, as is the Jessica Jones style), they don't know quite what to do with him.  He's a bit too pathetic, and seems too easy to catch. That he's so much trouble seems less due to his ingenuity than the fact that Jessica and others keep making dumb mistakes.

There are also a number of side plots that add motivation but not enough interest: the amorous adventures of Malcolm, now a top-notch but morally compromised security specialist; Hogarth's attempts to reconnect with an old lover; the troubles of Erik's sister, whom he takes off the street.

But perhaps the most questionable thing is Trish's arc.  In fact, season three concentrates on her story so much that she's arguably the lead.  And, arguably, the true villain.  In the aftermath of season two, she's now got powers, but has trouble handling them.  Eventually, she goes off the deep end and starts killing "bad" people without due process (or remorse). In the penultimate episode, she kills Sallinger, so the finale is about Jessica trying to capture her sister.

Not a bad plot, necessarily, but it's hard to buy Trish going over the edge.  Sure, she's pushed (Sallinger kills her mother, for one thing), but she goes from zero to sixty pretty quickly, and simply can't be reasoned with.  If you're not buying the motivations of the alpha bad guy, there's trouble.

Krysten Ritter is still fine as Jessica, and Rachael Taylor is equally solid as Trish.  And Rebecca De Mornay does a good job as Dorothy, especially in the flashback episode that shows how she was the stage mother to end all stage mothers.

So the show didn't exactly go out with a bang.  But it was good enough that I wish it weren't over.