What I'm Watching: Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones: Season 1, Episode 4 “AKA 99 Friends” (B+)

This show does a masterful job of building up its main villain by rarely showing him, and instead making it clear that the effect he has on people is truly devastating. Hogarth bringing in people who claimed to have come under Kilgrave's influence seemed less than genuine, and weeding out some of the people who were trying to use his existence as a way to justify their own troubles, particularly a pregnant girl who claimed that he made her have sex despite her conservative upbringing, was a definite challenge. But beneath all that were the more haunting true stories, like the woman who had to keep smiling and the man who was charged with child abandonment because he had to drive Kilgrave around for a full week. What to me was most powerful was how Will, who appears to be becoming a regular character, couldn't let what he did go so much that he stopped by Trish's apartment to apologize by getting to know her and really talking out some issues. Jessica is inarguably on edge, and it didn't help that her paranoia about her latest client being sent by Kilgrave turned out to be something even worse. Jessica Hecht's Audrey Eastman incurred Jessica's full wrath when she revealed her true purpose, which was to make enhanced humans, or whatever they're called in this universe, suffer for the misdeeds of others. As if Jessica's fury wasn't bad enough, Hogarth showed her true nature when her ex-wife dared to call her out on bringing her new girlfriend to the spot where she proposed. She is not someone who should be crossed, and I'd be very worried about Kilgrave getting to her and using that rage to his detrimental advantage.