Woof. This was pretty awful. Basically every scene where Jessica and Luke talked to each other in this episode made me want to put my face in my hands. It was painfully overwrought, with soap opera level dialogue and acting through most of their quieter moments. The close ups of their hands, whether it's passing along money, or a handshake, or wrapped around his waist on a motorcycle ride, were cheesy as hell. Everything was just laid on way too thick.
Plus the whole Antoine thing felt like it was a leftover plot from Burn Notice, replete with the generic loan shark guy who gets outsmarted and beat up. I just can't take the guy they have playing Luke Cage. Maybe it's the writing, but he's just so milquetoast and bland. He comes alive a little bit at the end of the episode, but his lines are just so cornball ("Out of time." "I was wrong, you are a piece of shit") that I can't take it seriously. The Jessica-Luke stuff was the meat of the episode, and it was really really rough sledding, both in terms of the writing and the performances.
The only thing keeping the thing from being a complete dud were the two minor sidestories in the episode. Hope being pregnant and wanting to get rid of anything Kilgrave left her is a really interesting angle. The fact that Hogarth is trying to study Kilgrave and figure out if his power can be replicated is another interesting twist to the story, which they foreshadowed a bit earlier. At the same time, Kilgrave wanting to get something without commanding it (bolstered by his poker game) is a very interesting avenue to take the character. I can't help remembering Lisa's admonition to Homer in the Stonecutter episode of The Simpsons that getting everything you want all the time would leave you joyless, and I think that's a cool tack to take with a character who, in a short time, has already become one of Marvel's most intriguing villains.
But yeah, this is easily the worst episode of the season by a significant margin. While I still like the plotting, and the concept of Jessica admitting it was her who killed Luke's wife when she thinks the bus driver is going to be killed over it, the execution is so ripped from a bad action movie that what should be a huge moment in the series had next to no impact. This episode should have gone to a different writer and director. Again, woof.
(Edit: Holy crap! I just looked up the director on IMDb, and he directed a bunch of episodes of Burn Notice! No wonder!)
Andy kind of annoyed me in this one. I don't know why all teenagers in TV Land have to be so whiny. Have the people in Hollywood ever actually interacted with a human teenager? Because I've never met one who'd act like this in real life. And I'm still technically a teenager myself. But seriously, his father says that his powers could hurt people and what Andy hears is "you should never, ever, ever use your powers ever again". It makes no freaking sense.
Lauren and Wes' romance (we all know it's headed that way) seems forced as hell. I mean, the Florence/Rome thing was cute, I'll give them that, but there's no chemistry there. There are plenty of good romantic relationships on this show (Caitlin and Reed, Marcos and Lorna, hell, even Johnny and Sonya are fine, although personally I have a soft spot for Johnny and Clarice), but this one doesn't work.
Also, I want Caitlin and Lorna to talk and come to some sort of an understanding. I mean, they both have valid points, but we didn't get any resolution of their conflict in this episode. Can they be friends, please? Maybe I can will it into existence. Also, I bet that Caitlin will be the one to deliver Lorna's baby.
