- Title: Marvel’s Jessica Jones – AKA Crush Syndrome
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Realizing that Kilgrave (David Tennant) is both alive and responsible for Hope (Erin Moriarty) murdering her loving parents, Jessica (Krysten Ritter) works to find the mind-controlling madman by going back to the events of the night she escaped from his control by following breadcrumbs on just how he was able to survive. There’s relatively little actual detective work over the course of the show’s First Season considering that our protagonist is a private investigator. “AKA Crush Syndrome” is probably the best example of Jessica using her skills as a detective in an attempt to uncover the truth. Although she doesn’t find the season’s villain, she does get discover how he was able to cannibalize a victim in order to stay alive, and a short discussion with the doctor involved in saving the villain’s life gives Jessica a weapon to use against Kilgrave when she finds him.
“AKA Crush Syndrome” is also notable for Jessica and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) learning about each other’s super-powers in a bar fight following Jessica exposing Luke’s affair with a married woman. Although she hides the truth of why she was surveilling the bartender, a reveal which will cause problems for the pair later in the season, here the discovery of their commonalities begins to forge a relationship between Jones and Cage that will be strong enough to survive even the exposure of Jessica’s involvement in a Cage family tragedy. That scene, however, is overshadowed by our first look at Kilgrave in action effortlessly controlling a family while teasing us with what’s awaiting our heroine down the line. Although the episode keeps him mostly out of frame, Tennant is terrific here in a second episode that made me question Ritter as a tough enough for the role (I don’t think I was supposed to laugh during the scene where she tells Luke she’s a P.I.).