Jessica Jones: AKA Smile

"You really are an anal crumpet, aren't you?"

So this is it, it’s over, and somehow it all fits into fifty short minutes.

It’s interesting to have the finale be the episode in which Rosario Dawson guest stars as Claire, providing the rather necessary plot function of nursing Luke to health while Jessica has her final confr with Kilgrave. But she also acts as a link to Daredevil and a nice person for Malcolm to chat to about being a “sidekick”- he ends the episode as Jessica’s self-appointed employee, a former social work student finally finding a way to help people.

After a tense set piece with Kilgrave getting everyone in the hospital to want Jessica dead, and an injection into Luke’s optic nerve that we thankfully don’t see, it’s time for the final showdown, and the unhinged Kilgrave has managed to increase his powers even more, even at a 60% risk of death. David Tennant is outstanding for this finale, but Krysten Ritter is extraordinary. Her monologue to the unconscious Luke is quietly devastating. She can’t be with him because, essentially, her self-Loathing means she sees herself as not deserving happiness.

The final showdown- a horribly injured Albert has time to warn Jessica before dying- sees a much more powerful Kilgrave. But a clever bait and switch between Jessica and Trish, and Trish allowing herself to be bait, allows Jessica to trick Kilgrave that he can indeed control her. And it’s when he’s at his very creepiest and his very rapiest that Jessica is able to quickly snap his neck. Visually it feels sudden and even anti-climatic, but thematically it’s satisfying. Kilgrave dies at his most unrepentant.

Hogarth gets a nice little coda to begin her atonement by saving Jessica from being tried for Kilgrave’s murder, but Jessica ends the series still consumed with self-loathing. A magnificent end to a magnificent series, and a character I want to see again.