Jessica Jones - be careful or you'll be Kilgraved

Title: Marvel's Jessica Jones

Created by: Melissa Rosenberg

Nationality: American

With: Krysten Ritter, David Tennant

Avaliable on: Netflix.

Genre: Science-Fiction, Marvel comics, Crime, Thriller

Number of episodes:

season 1: 13ep (42 min.)

Who in the name of sanity calls himself Kilgrave? That is not the first question that will cross your mind if you are watching Marvel's Jessica Jones, the new series by Netflix about the Marvel universe - first one was Marvel's Daredevil. Because your first question is: where is my teddy bear and my cookies for the bad days?

Jessica Jones is dark, very dark. The image is dark. The story is also dark: it is of a women called Jessica, a private detective in a New York that is not the one you get to see on the postcards - it is poorer, dirtier, more dangerous and very depressing. She has superpowers but is quite discrete about it, except if you piss her off: superforce and jumping. She has been subdued by a man called Kilgrave, who can make people do whatever he wants just by saying it to them. Like "You, put your pants on your head, paint your face in blue and sing La Marseillaise" except he is less funny and more cruel. Much more cruel.

She has managed to get off his grip, but one day, he appears in her world again. And then she will try to stop him from doing evil. The plotline seems to be ridiculously simple and manichean. Believe me, it's not.

Kilgrave is the scariest villain because he does not look like a villain. He is just a dude wearing purple costumes. If you are watching it for David Tennant, who plays the part, then be prepared: you admire him for his charm, his kindness, his beauty? You will be very surprised; there is nothing nice or beautiful in his Kilgrave. He can say to someone "cut off your finger" just because the person has done something that pissed him off. And the person will cut off their finger.

The worse thing about this excellent series is how realistic it could get with just letting out the superpowers. Because as you will see it, Kilgrave is the obsessive abusive boyfriend, who is using all his cishetero male white rich and perfect privilege to make everybody like him, believe him and his version of the story. It is very interesting that in terms of the bodies that are represented, the only two white cisgender male are the most dangerous characters, and that they are the only ones who attack the others on purpose, without it to be defending themselves, and without being manipulated. Even the lesbian lawyer, who is the 3rd least positive character, do not harm anybody without being manipulated; she only asks Jessica to do so, which she does reluctantly. The lawyer can be with this analysis the example of a masculine woman that therefore acts like the dominant do, so she can be one herself - be the best lawyer of New York, and get rid of her ex-wife. Others only do harm while kilgraved, and everybody gets kilgraved during the series. EVERYBODY. Even the closest relatives of Jessica are not safe - her lover, her sister, her boss, her neighbour.

Nobody is safe in front of the dominant white patriarchy.