1x13 AKA Smile

Let's start with the good stuff. Rosario Dawson is great, and I am so pleased that she is essentially the Coulson of the Netflix corner of the MCU -- the common character among the different shows. There's a good-hearted but world-weary quality to her performance that makes any scene she's in a better one. Seeing her and Jessica bounce off of one another was a treat, and I hope we see more of it in the future.

Also, I was a bit bearish on Kilgrave's dad when he first showed up, but his desperate, exasperated scenes when he was mind-controlled by his son were very well-done and disturbing. The horror of what he has to do, of how he knows what he's participating in, came through very well.

By the same token, Kilgrave himself has been an unending highlight in this series. David Tennant's given a virtuoso performance, showing how deluded Kilgrave is, how upset he is by the "loss" of something he never really had, and the childish fantasies he harbors of getting his revenge on the woman he "loves". His scene on the balcony risked laying it on too thick, but Tennant's performance saved it.

That said, the end game didn't really do it for me. The "Say something you'd never say" "how about 'I love you'" didn't land the way it was supposed to. Again, I buy the setup in theory, it just felt too corny to work in the moment. I like that Jessica and Trish are, essentially, the central relationship in the show. That includes Luke, who was involved in his best and sweetest scene in the show so far when Jessica laid down with him and spilled her guts -- it's unfortunate that the most compelling their relationship has been takes place when he's unconscious. But Jessica and Trish are the core of the show, and you saw that in the final Kilgrave scene, but that moment in particular just felt too obvious.

It's also time for a nitpick. While I can appreciate the "Kilgrave's trying to increase his power so he can sway Jessica again" story, it bugged me, in a Comic Book Guy sort of way, that he was able to command people over the hospital P.A. system after it had been previously established that his power didn't work through wires. Boosting his range or abilities shouldn't change that, especially if, as his dad claimed, his powers work through a virus. It's a superhero show, and so by definition you have to cut it some slack in the science vs. plot-necessary magic department, but it was an inconsistency from what the show had already established and handwaving it with "he's more powerful now" felt like an insufficient rationale for the change.

I also thought the ending was too predictable. It was fairly obvious that Jessica was faking, and I even called the neck-snap to close it out. They at least tried to handwave it by having Kilgrave initially skeptical, and wanting to test it out first with Trish. But Kilgrave has shown himself to be far more sadistic than just making out with Trish to test Jessica. Why didn't he tell Trish to start slitting her wrists or jump into the bay or something along those lines to really test Jessica? It seemed out of character for him to go with something as mundane as a smooch-session and "I'm really leaving this time." That really hurt the ending of his story, even if the performance was still good.

And the final scenes were a bit too on-the-nose for my taste as well. "They say everyone's born a hero." Who? Who's said that? Ever. I'm not really a fan of voice over, and that whole bit attempted to tie things up a little too neatly. The whole idea that Jessica can "fool herself" by helping all those people who are calling her (see, the world thinks she's a hero now! Get it!) is a fine theme to go with, but making it so literal as to just put it out there is too hamfisted. As seems to be the case with the show, I like what they're trying to do, but don't really like how they do it.

Overall, I walked away from this season pretty lukewarm. There were some extraordinary episodes, some godawful episodes, and a good chunk that was more of a mixed bag. There's a lot of promise, and a lot of interesting ideas at play, but hopefully in the next season, now that the show has found its voice and settled down a bit more, they can nail down some of those themes into a tighter show.