The Defenders: The Defenders

 "It's just a city, They rise. They fall..."

Hmm. I mean, there's nothing wrong with this. It's finale stuff. It does the job. It wraps things up. It's exciting. But... is it me who's feeling perhaps a little underwhelmed?

So Luke, Jessicaand map go down into the bowels of our metaphorical Hell beneath New York. They blow the baddies up. Matt stays behind to try and persuade Elektra to turn good... but she's a baddie precisely because she wants to be with him forever in deatyh and, as she says, "This is what living feels like." It's all very dramatic, but also a bit cliched.

There's so much weight placed on the police captain wanting our heroes arrested, too... but then, at the end, all charges are dropped, no questions asked, part of the cover-up. Oh, there are a few good character moments, I suppose, although not that good. Misty losing her arm is a genuine shock. I have no idea about these nuns who have in some way rescued Matt. But, well, this is a bit of a let down after some good recent episodes.

I'm going to continue blogging all of the formerly Netflix Marvel stuff, fear not. But there's less of a mad rush now, as Daredevil: Born Again won't be rushing upon us on Disney Plusas soon as we thought. Besides, despite Jon Bernthal's impressive performances, I'm not a great fan of the Punisher as a character, and next up is thirteen episodes of him. So I'll be taking a short break and watching a certain animated series in this "slot".Fear not, though. It will be just a short break.

The Defenders: Fish in the Jailhouse

 "Karen, this is my life."

Structurally, this is your typical penultimate episode, maneouvvring everybofy into position for the finale. Matt, Luke and Jessica begin in the police station with tough questiins to anseerr, but by the end they're ar the lair of the Hand, fighting its three remaining fingers. Meanwhile, Elektra tries to persiuade Danny to side with her, abandoning his prior allegiances as she abandoned hers.

But the heart of this episode is about character. It's about trust,and integrity. The integrity of Luke, who puts his city and its millions of people above the risk to his hard-won liberty. The trust placed in him and his friends by Misty, risking her entire career. And the trust of Foggy in Matt, smuggling in his Daredevil suit. The Hand and Elektra are divided, broken. But our gandg are, in the end, united. Even when it comes to Colleen's explosive plan.

Some of these relationships are fascinating. The deep mutual respect between Misty and Luke, and Misty's equally respectful understanding with Claire, perhaps the wisest character. The slow journey undertaken by Karen and Foggy to understand that Matt is Daredevil, and denying that is pointless.

It's all nicely done, and the characterisation is good. The episode is, perhaps, necessarily formulaic, and seeing protagonists in unfair legal trouble is never fun, meaning this episode isn't quite as entertaining as the last couple. But we seem set fair for a finale worth waiting for. Let's hope it lives up to its promise.

The Defenders: Ashes, Ashes

"Any questions...?"

Wow. The Defenders is on fire as we approach the endgame. So many twists and turns.

Not that it's all shock moments- we get lots of fun plotting and skulduggery between the four surviving fingers of the Hand. We get some good little chatracter scenes- between Luke and Danny; between Luke and Stick; between Matt and Jessica. We see Danny versus the others- who are right- in a hero versus hero fight that actually makes sense. We see Matt and Jessica make a significant discovery about the Hand's intentions, although I'm not sure exactly why Matt starts to play that piano.

And then we get the final few minutes. We don't expect Stick to drug Luke so he can kill Danny. No hard feelings, of course: Danny would be useful to the Hand, so he has to die. Fortunately everyone is able to race back... but so is Elektra. It's an even bigger shock when she kills Stick- who, to be fair, has just assured his own doom by the karmic rules of television drama- and brings Danny to Alexandra.

So Alexandra triumphs yet again. She's won the prize, she's got the Iron Fist, the key to K'un Lun and the elixir of life she seeks to cure the disease that is killing her. And she's proved to her restless colleagues that she was right....

So Elektra kills her. And takes over, her agenda unclear. Wow. Just wow. This is brilliant in every way. Yet the shocks work, because the characterisation does.

The Defenders: Take Shelter

 "You are the dumbest Iron Fist yet!"

This is a fascinating episode. The heroes are not yet fully a team, not least because Matt is hiding the truth about Elektra from them... but it's great to see them interact. But the greater friction is, of course, within the five fingers of the Hand. This is a particularly strong episode. All the pieces are out and the mid-game phase is underway.

Plot-wise, things are pretty simple. The heroes' loved ones are threatened by the Hand, so Misty is persuaded to give them protection. Elektra is the catalyst to everything. Matt is forced to confess her backstory, and insists that some part of the resurrected "Black Sky" remains Elektra- something which the ending seems to prove. Meanwhile, the baddies turn against Alexandra for her going off-piste in resurrecting Elektra. Oh, and Stick beheads Sowande, as you do.

There is so much lore being hinted at. Does Gao blind her acolytes, and does this explain Stick's origins? There are hints that there may be more to K'un Lun than is known to Danny. The Hand has "always" owned New York. Alexandra had a daughter before her pilgrimage to K'un Lun.

Deeper than this, though, is the characterisation. Karen and Stick are pulling Matt in opposite directions. Claire is utterly devoted to Luke, and a wise friend to Colleen. This is very well written and acted. It's nuanced, fascinating television, balancing the action with intrigue and solid characterisation. I'm impressed. The Defenders has been good from the start, but this is more.

The Defenders: Royal Dragon

 "Who hears neon?"

This is my favourite episode of The Defenders thus far. I suspect, although I can't comment on what to come, thatI'm not alone in that. I mean, all four heroes all interacting over a meal for the entire (well, close) episode! Stick turning up after a decent interval both to act as a delightfiully interesting catalyst and to provide much-needed exposition about who the Hand are, all five fingers (including both Gao and Alexandra), the link to K'un Lun, the obsession with immortality... and, as Jessica discovers, Alexandra at least is very old indeed. 

And it's wonderful. Yes, there's a lot of reveals and a lot of cool moments, but the episode wisely takes its time, letting the interactions between the characters not be rushed. So Jessica gets to persuade a sceptical Matt at the start, only to leave when she realises what she's getting herself into... only to return once again when she realises her own case, and the widow and orphan clients she cares about, are themselves threatened by the Hand.

Yet both Luke and Matt are reluctant,,, and Matt is in denial about Elektra no longer being the woman he loved. Or is he right and Stick wrong? Even Alexandra finally gets to feel her terminal illness a little. But it will come to us all. And the rest of us have certainly not lives for two centuries, potentially much, much longer.

A superb episode ends perfectly, with Elektra and a crash. This series took a couple of episodes to build, but right now it's bloody good.

The Defenders: Worst Behaviour

 "The Black Sky! We have it!"

The opening is thrilling. After Alexandra once again hints she may be older than she looks- did she know Istanbul when it was Constantinople and if so under a sultan or a basilius?- we get an incredible sequence in which a vaguely amnesiac Elektra is resurrected, trained, and used by the Hand. Wow.

What follows is equally awesome, as our four heroes follow their different leads to follow Midland Circle and all meet up fighting the rather combat-proficient board of said company... but not without some great character moments along the way. The early meeting between Luke and Danny is priceless. Luke's scepticism about the dragoins and mystic monks is a nice little meta touch, reminding us they're not quite from the same genre. But Luke's reminding Danny of his privilege packs a puch. As does the poor old lady's reaction to the news that Cole, her last surviving son, is dead.

Then their's Stick, escaping from Alexandra like the cool customer he is, casually mentioning a "lifetime of serving "K'un Lun": he's a proper dark horse, he is. And Jessica's private eyeing, finding out about Midland Circle by pretending to be some eccentric tech sis(?), and of course wondering what that suspiciously fleet of foot blind lawyer is up to.

But now, at last, they've all met! I'm loving this, and I can't wait to see what will happen next. But I'll have to, because I'm struggling to keep up with Loki and Gen V...

The Defenders: Mean Right Hook

 "We just go and find another team to join? An army?"

Oh boy. This is quite the episode. Our heroes are all investigating what seems to be a big, multifaceted conspiracy involving the hands from different directions, in what seems to be a well-constructed plot. There's so much going on, but the story is easy to follow, not an easy combination. I'm enjoying this very much.

Sigourney Weaver's dying Alexandra continues to fascinate, and not only because she can order around Madame Gao like an underling. Is she hinting, after her private performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, that she may be considerably older than she looks? Is this why Jessica traces the shell companies back to 1820 and finds it doesn't stop there?

I like the handling of the characters. Jessica is her irrepressible, irreverent self. Luke may be all loved up with Claire, but nothing will stop him doing the right thing. Matt, complete with an intervention by Foggy to give him work to be "another type of hero", is struggling with not being Darevevil: heroism as addiction. Danny is a right mardyarse: I fail to see what Colleen sees in him. Oh, and Misty is awesome.

At the end, excitingly, our protagonists meet. There's a hero vs. hero fight between Luke and Danny, in which we get to see what happens when the unstoppable force that is the Iron Fist meets the immovable object which is Luke. And Jessica's attorney is... Matt.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

The Defenders: The H Word

 "People call me Foggy."

"And you let them?"

It's so good to see so many of these characters for the first time in ages. Danny and Collen I've only just seen, of course, and Darevevil was in She-Hulk, but I've missed the others.

As a first episode, of course, this just establishes where the characters are and develops them a bit. So Luke is freed from prison due to the sterling work of Foggy... and finally gets a room with Claire. About bloody time. Jessica is... drinking lots of bourbon, until she's drawn into a case by sheer stubbornness. Matt lis laying off the old vigilianteeism and realising he's in love with Karen, and the love triangle stuff with Elektra was unwise, despite his real feelings for her. Danny and Collen are back in New York in search of the Hand... the only possible Big Bad.

We meet an intriguing new character played by Sigourney Weaver who is told, in her very first scene, that she hasn't long to live; a fascinating writing choice. And we then find out that Madame Gao, no less, takes orders from her. That's quite a surprise.

For now it's slow, with the heroes not yet meeting. But that's fine; lots of characters to share screen time and be developed. So far I'm very much enjoying this.

Breaking Bad: Abiquiu

 "You, I thought I was gonna see some, like, vaginas."

As we often do in Breaking Bad, we begin with an obliquely symbolic sceene. It's our first flashback of Jesse and Jane- in itself significant- and it's a glimpse of that Georgia O'Keefe exhibition they visited last season. It's played for laughs, of course, with Jesse being his hilariously uncultured self, but we get a discussion of O'Keefe's many painings of doors, which are all different and each of which has its own meaning.

Because doors, of course, symbolise new beginnings. The symbolism of the door, and the fact that we get a flashback to Jane in this of all episodes, means I'm certain that Jesse is going to start a new reationship with the single mother whose name I didn't catch. The morality of this is all over the place. Jesse initially seduced her with the sole purpose of selling her meth while she's trying to kick the habit. This is not a nice thing to do but, for me, the fact the makes out with her and then tries to sell her meth is even worse. 

Then again, you can tell Jesse likes and cares about her son, so it's at once hpocritical and sincere of him to be shocked when she suggests getting high a few months before picking him up.

But there's a shock to come... her little brother is the kid on the bike with the gun from last season. Ouch.

Elsewhere, we have Hank struggling with therapy and feeling utterly defeated yet utterly determined- and hes not coming home until he's well. Dean Norris is amazing here. Of course, it's worth remembering that Hank's treatment is being funded, with delicious irony, through blue meth...

But perhaps most fascinating is the ongoing slow reconciliation between Walt and Skyler, who is dipping her hands further into the blood, meeting Saul and using her bookeeping knowledge to advise- wisely, it seems- on the money laundering. And it seems the two of them are not yet divorced. I think it's clear where this is going.

And yet we end with yet another calm yet tension-filled scene between Walt and Gus, in Gus' very nice kitchen. It's all deliciously nuanced and powerful, not because of what is said but what is left unsaid.

Wow. This is proper highbrow telly.

Breaking Bad: Phoenix

 "If I gave you that money, you would be dead inside a week..."

I've mentioned before that this series is the tale of Walter White's represses sociopathic or psychopathic (I'm no expert) gradually revealing themselves as circumstances and temptation make his drift inexorably from humble respectability to the criminal underworld where life is cheap. But this is the episode, and a superb bit of telly it is too, that proves it beyond doubt.

It's not that Walt keeps Jesse's $480,000 share of the meth deal from him until he's off the heroin; that's the right thing to do, amusing though it is to see Jesse trying to confront him in the classroom and immediately getting alpha maled by a father figure he can't help but defer to.

It sort of is the casual lying to Skyler, which surely can't go on for ever- in this episode he rings her while drinking at a bar with music playing, pretending to be shopping for nappies, bonding with Jane's despairing father (John de Lancie himself!) with unexpected results.

And yes, it sort of is the devastating final scene where, having just been blackmailed by Jane for the $480k with which she and Jesse were talking about a new life in New Zealand but got high instead, Jane vomits while asleep... and Walt just stands there, calculating that her dying now is in his best interests. That's cold, and the scene is shocking.

But even that is not the main thing. It's how he can miss his own daughter's birth and, when he finally gets there, how he's clearly just acting, and trying to hide his coldness. I'm the father of a daughter, and let's just say that the birth of Little Miss Llamastrangler went rather differently.

There are other things in this episode- Walt's problem with being unable to find a way of being able to spend his money with everybody thinking he's nearly bankrupt, possibly solved by an innocent Walt Jr, Saul and two "Rain Man types" in Belarus; Hank not being a fan of public breastfeeding; Skyler's boss and potential lover Ted being at the birth. But man, Walt is cold. And this is as good as television gets.

Breaking Bad: Mandala

 “This game we're playing? You don't got the street cred to survive it."

This ewpisode really raises the stakes and moves things to a higher level. The pressure is on, not only for Walt in keeping both his lives together (Or is it Heisenberg? It's increasingly ambiguous which is the alter ego, with a lot of credit due to Bryan Cranston's facial acting, as ever) but for Jesse and Walt in maintaining the meth dealing in the face of increasingly hostuile competition.

The first scene- with one of Jesse's underlings being killed- is extraordinary in how bloody tense it is, and the horror of the eventual killing (by a kid on a bike with a gun!) really hits home. It hits home for Jesse too, who falls completely to pieces, his rewaction being a total contrast to the now clearly sociopathic Walt. It's clear that Jesse is far from cut out for the role he's occupying- and, implicity, the role that may partly have made Jane fall for him- and he's only there because, as Walt later says out loud, he does what he's told.

Except, of course, having fallen to pieces, he doesn'r- with consequences not only for Walt but for Jane, the poor girl, who has fallen for him hard. After so much effort to give up, she gets back on the heroin wagon for him, and we get a deeply disturbing scene straight out of Trainspotting.

Meanwhile, Walt's life continues to be complex. His improved condition means that further surgery looms- and, this being America, this means forking out a six figure sum, which is a lot of meth. I can't help feeling that the NHS must be keeping this country's drug problem from reaching quite the same level. His relationship with Skyler continues to be deceptively smooth; there's no conflic, but they're increasingly distant, and both have secrets.  Noonly is Skyler clearly close to affair territory with her boss, but a bit of forensic bookkeeping seems set to lead her to dabble in criminality, rather neatly paralleling her husband.

Oh, and the baby is due. Speaking as a father, I can say that this is the biggest thing that can ever happen to a bloke.. yet Walt, with more superbly subtle acting from Cranston, clearly cares about this much less than the meth.

More the focus of the plot, though, is our introduction (via Saul, becoming more and more Hyman Roth) to Gus, a distributor who is professional, risk-averse and, I'm sure, important. I know this more, perhaps, than would have been obvious in 2009 as Giancatlo Esposito has since become a well-known actor, courtesy of The Boys and The Mandalorian.

The end shows how clever the plotting is: with Jesse out of it, Walt is under pressure, taking huge risks to get the meth to Gus' underlings. And that's when Skyler's waters break....

An extraordinary, and pivotal, episode.

Breaking Bad: Over

 "You cannot beat the thermal efficiency of the C3!"

This episode may not have the high concepts or dramatic incidends of recent instalments, being very much a character piece. But it's an utterly superb, and very subtle, bit of drama, getting to do subtle little things with all these characters that are made possible by the previous gradual development of all the characters.There's some interesting stuff with Jesse and Jane, with her reluctance to introduce him to her dad seeming to indicate that she likes this stoner with criminal connections, wants to sleep with him and spend time with him, but doesn't see a long term future in the way he does. Ouch.

But essentially the episode is all about being an alpha male, Walt's need for it, and the places he can find it.

He can't find it at home. There's Hank, competing with him as father figure to Walt Jr as well as at being a man generally. His fight with Hank about how much tequila the sixteen year old Walt Jr should drink may be petty, but it's about status, not how much a teenager should drink. And it's revealing that, in the heat of the row, Walt should look at Hank with Heisenberg's eyes- which shows where this is headed.

He's not a man at home, where his over-the-top DIY hardly impresses Skyler. He's at the back of his own party, delivering an embarrassing speech. He's very much the beta male- and, if he only knew, Skyler's boss is being the kind of sensitive, attentive, caring man to Skyler that he isn't. And Skyler is very much noticing.

And yet he's top dog with Walt, who is totally dependent on "Mr White". And he seems to effortlessly switch to being Heisenberg at the end as he warns competitors off his territory. This shows that, much as Walt may imagine he can leave his new life as a budding meth godfather, he can't. It was never really just about paying for the cancer. It was always about being a man, an alpha male.

He needs that. And always will. This, I suspect, is the seed of his destruction.

Superlative telly, as though that needed saying.

Breaking Bad: 4 Days Out

 “You made poison out of beans, yo!”

This extraordinary episode could be summed up quite easily, I suspect. Walt is expecting bad news from his CT scan and expects he doesn't have long to live, with little to leave for his family. So he and Jesse go to the desert and cook, but end up stranded there (after cooking $672,000 worth of meth- each!) and nearly die of dehydration before Walt pulls some chemistry teacher Macgyver superpowers out of his arse and saves them with science.

But there's a lot more going on than that, and I'm not just thinking of the extended meth cooking scenes which no doubt improved the quality of meth in the USA for years to come. There's Walt's death wish, and deep down shame. There's the fact this is an extended two hander between him and Jesse, giving a bit of depth to their relationship. We see them bond over how much they've cooked: they are potentially very wealthy man if they can keep it up long term. And Jesse may whinge, but he sees "Mr White"  as an authority figure and subconsciously accepts his subordinate position, as well as marvelling at his cleverness. Walt thinks Jesse is a bit of a prat- but a trustworthy prat, and one with necessary connections.

Meawhile Walt and Skyler have made up, but the easy, natural couple stuff has gone and the affection they show each other is much less coded as sexual. It's not the same. And even Saul says exactly what we viewers are thinking: this double life of Walt's is simply not sustainable. I suspect that this season will end with a dramatic demonstration of that.

It is, needless to say, peerlessly good.

Breaking Bad: Better Call Saul

 "The Jew thing I just do for the homeboys..."

I was, sadly, aware of the spin-off in advance of watching the episode, so I can't quite say I was completely unspoiled. But Saul is an immediately likeable and cool character, and I hope we see much more of him. He's clever, delightfully crooked, and steals the show completely. That last scene, as he accosts Walt in the classroom and warns him how easy he is to track down, is an act of sheer balls, but gets Walt's attention. He can see, as I think I can, that Walt may not be Don Corleone yet, but promises to be. Saul is clearly an important character, but so is what he represents: another step on the road to what Walt is to become.

As Saul says, Badger won't be the last time an underling is caught.Walt needs to be ready for this, and a thousand other things. The opening scene with Badger and a narc, both sat on a bench filmed by an unmoving camera, is a masterpiece of acting and scriptwriting. This sort of thing is now part of the territory, which is why we need a character like Saul, with his hilarious adverts.

Walt seems again to get away with it at the end, but Hank- whose PTSD is masterfully explored here as he tries to pretend to be his usual self- clearly suspects something is up. Hank can only get close so many times, but the premise of the show means Walt can't be caught. Calling it now: Hank dies at the end of the season.

The family stuff is not much emphasises here, although Skyler is very much getting used to her job, but we discover that Jane (who is getting very close to Jesse) is a former addict, something of which I'm sure we will hear more. There are lots of things subtly happening, but everything points towards Walt Corleone. A superb episode of television.

Breaking Bad: Negro y Azul

 "You act like you never saw a severed human head on a tortoise before..."

It's an unusual beginning, to have the Mariachi band perform a song that seems to have been inspired by the events of the series, but I love it. Breaking Bad is doing things differently,approprate for an episode that seems to signify a bit of a gear change. The status quo is shifting, and so is the dramatis personae. This feels like a phase shift.

Most obviously, Jesse (the "blowfish"- I love how Walt delivers this backhanded compliment) is now seen as a badass who crushes those who cross him with ATM machines (not a sentence I've ever written before), and suddenly the way lies open for Walt and Jesse to corner the market in all of Albuquerque. Jesse is stunned, his underlings more so as they are promoted to "princes or dukes". Yet Walt remains calm, self-assured, amoral and ambitious. By this point he's moved far beyond being a desperate man who just wants the money for his medical bills: he sees life as having dealt him a bad hand, and is going to get a better one no mtter what. He's utterly ruthless- and, oddly enough, whatshows this most of all is his ruthless refusal to fudge a student's grades at the start. The steel is affecting what he does as a chemistry teacher as much as his new existence as a drug lord. At this point, the future looks bright.

Also, Skyler lands herself a job with a bloke with whom she has obvious history- this can surely only go in one direction. And Hank finds himself very much out of his depth in El Paso, intellectually (he's the only one who speaks no Spanish) and in terms of the potential violence, which erupts shockingy at the end. This way lies PTSD.

On a sweeter note, could Jesse and his landlady Jane be attracted to each other? If so, I can't exactly predict happy ever after. The plates are shifting, but things feel precarious. This is, needless to say, excellent stuff. No wonder they managed to get Danny Trejo.

Breaking Bad: Breakage

 "I'm guessing this one doesn't bounce?"

I knew it. This is the episode, I think, where it becomes clear that Walt is on a path that leaves inevitably to his filling that Tuco-shaped hole.

It all happens logically, too. The size of Walt's bill for his chemo is effectively shown by Bryan Cranston's facial acting: we don't need numbers. Meanwhile, Jesse (he has no dea who Jesse Jackson is...) has rent to pay. Cooking must be done, and quick.

Yet they still have that bottleneck. They can't sell as quick as they can produce, especially with the DEA on Jesse's tail. There's an argument, but the only choice is for underlings to do the selling, and them to take a cut and Jesse is actually pretty good at handling said underlings. 

Except... one of the underlings is robbed, which Jesse is prepared to write off as a cost of business. And here we see Walt's ruthless streak. This is fascinating.

There's also more awkwardness between Walt and Skyler, and a fascinating few scenes with Hank, who is now becoming a more nuanced character rather than an alpha male foil for Walt. Even macho men get PTSD, and are not necessarily the best at handling it.

This is excellent telly, as ever. But the most shocking eement is he appearance of a young-looking Krysten Ritter from Jessica Jones. Is she going to be a regular?

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.

Jessica Jones: AKA Take a Bloody Number

"Please! The chemistry was jumping off the two of you."

Nearly there. The penultimate episode and, while the plot is all about tracking down and killing Kilgrave, this seems to be an episode all about Jessica reconnecting with Luke, at last able to understand and forgive her after himself being controlled by Kilgrave to destroy his likelihood. Perhaps, as Trish urges, Jessica can finally find some happiness with him? No. Of course not. Because this is television drama, and a late twist tells us that this isn't what the episode is about at all.

Kilgrave, meanwhile, is getting his terrified dad to find ways of increasing his powers, in the process giving Jessica (and Luke) the chance to do all that PI stuff and track him down. Trish, with help from her mother and her agenda, may have found clues as to how Jessica got her powers in the first place, but it seems for the moment that it can wait; one big bad at the time. Simpson may or may not be dead.

After a rather distressing scene involving secateurs Malcolm, in a role reversal from early in the season, despairs of Jessica's addictive behaviours and instead rather patiently sets out to help an increasingly disturbed Robyn who, alone, seems unable to function in society. But, after a terrifying scene involving Albert and a blender, Kilgrave's trap snaps shut; Luke has been under his control all along, very unwilling though he is, and Jessica has to shoot him (with his quickly uttered permission) to save herself. It's a devastating ending to a powerful hour of television, and the finale is sure to be more dramatic still...

Jessica Jones: AKA I’ve Got the Blues

”What about nuns?”

“They still make those?”

It’s the morning after the night before, a symbolic hangover following the dramatic events of the last episode. It’s also a time to breathe before the final two episodes so it’s a more relaxed pace and a secondary villain in the shape of a drugged up Simpson. Jessica even gets hit by a truck due to tiredness, but it’s clear how single minded she is about killing Kilgrave, whatever the cost.

We get some nice flashbacks of Jessica and Trish in their youth, and we are shown Just how a musics “Patsy’s” mother was, forcing her into a showbiz career to the extent of compulsory bulimia. It’s Jessica saving her from this abuse, and Trish’s early accidental knowledge of Jessica’s powers, that forges their deep friendship. It also adds extra meaning to Trish’s druggy heroics later on as she gets to be the hero for once. A Hellcat indeed.

The confrontation between a physically weakened but mentally sharp Jessica is compelling as she reveals she’s worked out that it was him who killed Clemens. The ensuing fight and its consequences define thecepisode, with Trish being lucky to survive.

But we end with a splendid cliffhanger as texts that can only be from Kilgrave lead Jessica to Luke Cage’s bar just before it explodes. Lucky his power is to be invulnerable. What will happen now? How will Luke react to her? Here we go...

Jessica Jones: AKA 1,000 Cuts

"I'm a man of my word. If I feel like it."

Now that changes everything.

The whole series up to now has been based around the central plotline of Jessica having to provide evidence against Kilgrave so that Hope, an innocent young woman, doesn't spend her life locked away for something she didn't do. There are, of course, as a drugged up Simpson points out, a few problems with this, not the least of which is how can Kilgrave ever plausibly be imprisoned? If he can get Hope freed on a whim then the answer is surely "never". But the dramatic final scene removes this imperative. Jessica, both freed of her obligations to Hope and freed of Kilgrave's control, can now set out to kill him.

So much happens, though. A crazed Simpson suddenly murders Detective Clemons. Robin tries to kill Hogarth and is accidentally herself killed by Pam, who ends up disgusted with her (former?) fiancee. We learn that Killgrave has no power over Jessica any more, and that his power is a virus that can potentially be cured. Most horrifyingly, like any abuser, Kilgrave still has no conception of having done wrong, and continues to believe that it is Jessica who has wronged him.

Mostly, though, it's an episode about character, in spite of the sidelining of Simpson's no longer nuanced character, with some first class acting from both Ritter and Tennant as the series disposes of a fair bit of ballast so it can move towards its end. Bloody good telly, yet again.