My Name is Jessica Jones

[Garren Jacobsen]

Good show so far.

 

[FifthView]

I have 3 episodes left, and so far I'm rating it at about 6.5/10.

Many things are good. But I'm finding the plotting/pacing to be extremely annoying.

I don't want to Spoiler Alert screw up anyone's enjoyment, but here's how I would explain the story development:

Spoiler: BIG SPOILER

Fairly weak superhero was previously abducted and used by a psychopathic mind controller, but now a year or so after she managed to escape his control, she's an alcoholic private investigator. Throughout S1 this is all that happens: She captures him; through stupidity he gets to escape; so she captures him again; and someone else stupid does something so he escapes; so she captures him again; and two stupid people do something that allows him to escape; and.....well throw in a totally irrelevant side character/plot so you have at least one more stupid person who can actually destroy ALL EVIDENCE of that psychopathic mind controller's existence soon after other stupid people have enabled one of his escapes.

In summary: Capture him; stupid people allow his escape; capture him; stupid people allow his escape; capture him; stupid people allow him to escape.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Fifth, I understand that sentiment, but I really enjoyed that kind of pacing. That, I think, indicates how Jessica's life was up to that point a series of successes followed by stupidly induced failures. And the emotional payoff at the end, I thought was great.

 

[Devor]

I enjoyed the show a lot. My only complaint is that I felt the subplot with the lawyers was given too much screen time considering how long it took to become relevant. A couple of plot points were also kind of obvious, but I thought they still delivered. I was initially a little skeptical about why they put Luke Cage into Jessica Jones' season, but it paid off well. He added to her thunder instead of stealing it.

I'm eager for a second season and to see how they pull off Luke Cage.

 

[FifthView]

Fifth, I understand that sentiment, but I really enjoyed that kind of pacing. That, I think, indicates how Jessica's life was up to that point a series of successes followed by stupidly induced failures. And the emotional payoff at the end, I thought was great.

I do think that the final three episodes, which I hadn't watched yet, rose the score to about 7/10 or 7.5/10 for me.

A large part of my irritation was the fact that it was the stupidity of those around her that so neatly allowed those failures. Plus some of the general development—I mean, you're in an alley that gets almost no traffic, but you don't notice that 3-4 dark vehicles have followed you into the alley and surrounded you? No one ever glances in a rear-view or side-view mirror or looks out the windshield?

And then there's the "Jessica can leap very, very high while holding a heavy man; but get just one normal man to tackle her and she can't get up very quickly [Because we need Mr. Baddy to escape.]"

There were a lot of irritations like that. I did particularly love how they closed out the season, the final scene.

 

[Devor]

And then there's the "Jessica can leap very, very high while holding a heavy man; but get just one normal man to tackle her and she can't get up very quickly [Because we need Mr. Baddy to escape.]"

This is kind of an aside, but that's not at all inconsistent with how super strength would work. I saw recently that they did studies on the person who is currently the strongest man alive, and it wasn't based on that person's body mass, but on the rapid acceleration of the muscles when he flexed. Mass might keep a person from being tackled, but if Jessica's strength works similarly to the current real world record holder, the mass just wouldn't be there to keep her from being tackled.

 

[FifthView]

Ah, it wasn't the tackling--the issue of balance also comes into play--so much as not quickly and easily throwing him off so she could continue her pursuit that bothered me.

 

[Zadocfish]

Oh, wow. The points Fifth brings up would be dealbreakers from day 1 for me.