Jessica Jones - The Octopus

 

“The Octopus” is full of great scenes and moments. This is my favorite episode of the second season. It has been difficult to recover without the presence of Kilgrave because he was such a charismatic villain, made all the more memorable and special thanks to Tennant. The mystery IGH superhuman that is more powerful than Jessica Jones finally gets a bit more revelation in this episode when her home is shown at great length. A neighbor passes by with her teething baby, hoping the mystery woman will continue to play her piano in order to keep the child happy and quiet for a bit. The mystery woman is anti-social and clearly hesitant to let anyone in her home. But the mystery woman looks down at the child, even holding her, until brief piano play is interrupted by anxious hands that seem to fail her. The baby’s eventual cry gradually unnerves the mystery woman until she destroys her piano with relative ease in a rage. Jessica in a cell, handcuffed to an interrogation table, seemingly trapped, using her phone call to dial up Malcolm for help (finally using his offered help, needing him to get more info about IGH, like how her nurse colleague died and why an innocent man is serving time for the crime). There is a cool “looking down from the sky” view inside the cell as Jessica paces; the cell is expertly staged to look very claustrophobic and quite a daunting enclosure. There are all of these very elaborate and composed shots from different angles inside rooms, the direction of this show always trying to make simple scenes involving characters—like Trish vomiting in her bathroom as the dutiful (and success-starved) mother looks to get her daughter to a news network for a potentially lucrative gig—far more visually and aesthetically interesting. Even Jessica and Jeri in the interrogation room going over IGH and the killer of Pryce’s thief left a slaughtered mess in a van with two detectives (one of the detectives appreciative of Jessica for killing Kilgrave, still rattled by the gun he had to hold to his own head against his will) reluctantly letting her go that is shot in different ways to get the most out of such a limited location. Mama produces the daughter in a red dress to Griffin, not a news network and he proposes with Jessica lured there as a guitarist croons and family gathers around. Griffin proposing produces a new little wrinkle in the complex friendship of Trish and Jessica. Jessica always looks out of sorts when around her friend enwrapped in romance and relationships, not knowing when to stay or go although she looks as if she’d rather be anywhere else than around Trish when she’s with Griffin. And Trish’s mom…well, Jessica offers to greet her with a plant if she keeps mouthing off. Jessica’s developing relationship with her badge-photo making artist building super after rescuing his son from falling out a window seems to further iterate a distance of Luke Cage, but seeing him with the kid and his mother gathering around a dinner table (the meal and drink offered to her, with Jessica even stopping a moment to get an eyeful this happy little evening, smirking at how precious it is…a family she’s missing, again getting away before accepting their invite to stay) encourages a glimpse at normalcy she’s not accustomed to. Trish, though, is lost in addiction…the same addiction Will had prior to her, totally hooked on the juice it gives her, that adrenaline, thrust and surge of superpower that eventually does dissipate but not before the thrill she experiences remains a lure too good to give up. When she realized that it wasn’t a job, but was instead a proposal, Trish tells her mother (who wanted her to finally dedicate herself to a “hero”, a real find of a man, someone that wasn’t the assortment of losers she often has moving through her life) that she wanted to be Griffin, not married to him, disappointed instead of excited. It ends with Trish slapping her mom, mother storming out, and Trish taking a hit from her “superjuice”, as her pupils dilate. Jessica, on the other hand, uses the badge to get into a psychiatric hospital holding imprisoned a grown man with a kid’s mind convicted of the murder of Nurse Luanne, mentioning to her his responsibility for it even as she challenges it much to his dismay. Dr. Karl is brought up, along with a visit to an octopus aquarium where he would talk with the scientist about any number of topics. That is when Jessica, perched on a second floor, notices Dr. Karl (remembering him looking down at her, perhaps at a IGH facility) and the mystery woman who has been a thorn in her side. The mystery woman breaks the glass on an aquarium tank, the fade to black, and SPLOOSH! Quite a way to set up the next episode, as Jessica continues to get information on her new nemesis and Dr. Karl. Trish’s situation only appears to be worsening…her career and love life apparently on the way to a careen off a cliff into a crash upon the rocks if she can’t get her shit together. 

4.5/5