R29 Binge Club: Jessica Jones Season 1 Recaps

We love a female superhero, but Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) isn't your average do-gooder. She's renounced the life of a good guy/girl, working as a PI, and has PTSD along with her superpowers. Shit's going to get dark. So, pour yourself some whiskey and join us as we binge on the first season of Marvel's badass Jessica Jones. Episode 1: "AKA Ladies Night" “People do bad shit.” That’s essentially where we begin Jessica Jones. It’s the dark worldview of the character and the show. Jessica, with the hardened voiceover of a 1940s noir character, is snapping photos of a couple having sex in a darkened alley. When she presents the photos to her client he just can’t take it, threatens her, and she pushes him through the glass panel on her door. So long swanky “Alias Investigations” logo. Jessica gets work from Hogarth (a steely Carrie-Anne Moss). Though it takes some convincing, Hogarth gives her a job: she needs a summons served to Spheeris the owner of some gentlemen’s club. Hogarth’s ethics are murky. She’s not only representing a dancer who was injured when a pole got loose, but also the people who have interest in buying Spheeris’ property. But that’s not the only case Jessica’s working. At night she fills her thermos with whiskey and heads to the fire escape — getting up on one is easy when you have superpowers — to snoop on Luke Cage, a handsome bar owner, and his date. On the fire escape, however, she has a vision that comes with a flash of purple. “You want to do it, you know you do,” the man tells her. She starts listing street addresses. When she wakes up in the morning she's greeted by an intruder, the building’s junkie, Malcolm. There are also some clients, Barbara and Bob, looking for their missing daughter. Hope was a track star at NYU, but has been AWOL for a month. Someone at the police station recommended Barbara and Bob go to Jessica. Jessica takes the case and goes to visit Hope’s roommate, who is pissed that Hope up and left because she's now living with a pretentious filmmaker. (Seriously, he’s filming every second of his life on a GoPro. Jessica is not having it.) The roommate tells Jessica that Hope went off with a guy. Back to her other case: Jessica easily serves Spheeris the summons. All she has to do is hold up the back of his car with her super strength and threaten him with her laser eyes. (She does actually not have laser eyes.) Hogarth calls her to talk about her methods. While on the phone with Jessica, Hogarth is approached from behind by her beautiful assistant who kisses her neck. Jessica later goes out looking for some sort of action herself. She stares in the window of Luke’s bar drinking whiskey out of a bottle in a bag. He offers her a nonexistent ladies’ night special. She comes in. They flirt, despite the fact that she declares she doesn't flirt. They go up to his place to have sex. When they’re finished Jessica goes into his bathroom, and snoops around. She finds a picture of a woman, freaks out, and leaves. She discovers that Hope made some recent charges on her credit card, buying lingerie and menswear. Jessica follows the clues to a restaurant. As she approaches, she says, “no, no way.” She asks the maître d' whether it used to be a different restaurant and shows him a picture of Hope. He looks uncomfortable. The man with Hope came in, demanded a table, and for some reason the maître d' kicked others out to obey his wishes. Everyone was doing his bidding. The sommelier gave him a free $500 bottle of wine and the chef gave him his favorite pasta even though it's an Asian restaurant. Jessica has a flashback: she’s sitting in the back of this restaurant with this mysterious man. She leaves, and starts running until she gets to Hope’s parents. She finds out it wasn’t a police officer that gave them her name, just a person with an English accent. She instructs them to leave, and she tries to flee too. But she doesn’t have the money to get out. So, she seeks out her old friend Trish, a radio host. “He’s back,” Jessica tells her. Trish tries to snap Jessica out of this. “You saw him die,” Trish tells her old friend, but Jessica convinces her. She tells her how this man is carrying out the same one-month anniversary tradition with Hope as he did with Jessica. Trish encourages her to help Hope instead of running away, but Jessica refuses. Trish gives her the money she wants. As Jessica’s riding in the backseat of a cab she has a change of heart. She stops at the hotel, where the doorman seems to know her. She finds Hope lying on a bed, alive, but refusing to move. The man told her she couldn’t. Jessica grabs her and carries her out screaming and clawing. She counsels Hope that it’s not her fault, and all seems well as Hope is reunited with her parents. Hope thanks Jessica. “You saved my life," she says. Jessica, following behind the family, watches as the elevator doors close and something switches in Hope. Suddenly, Hope pulls out a gun and shots ring out. When Jessica meets them at the ground floor, Hope is still pulling the trigger, mechanically, as her parents are bleeding and dead on the ground. Hope comes to and starts screaming. Jessica at first walks out the door in horror, and then turns around, deciding to give a damn.

Episode 2: "AKA Crush Syndrome" Recovered from the horror of the first episode’s final moments? Okay. We begin episode 2 with Jessica being interrogated over Hope’s crimes. The police have searched her apartment. They think Luke might be involved in some way because they found her photographs. When Jessica leaves the police station, she goes to Luke’s bar and finds him being questioned. Jessica tries to apologize, but he’s (obviously) mad she’s been spying on him. And why has she been spying? Well, that woman he was hooking up with? Yeah, she has a husband. Jessica goes to visit Hope to get info on Kilgrave. Hope details how he tortured her and blames Jessica for getting her into this situation. “You should kill yourself,” Hope tells her. Except Hope needs Jessica, who knows that she is truly innocent. Jessica goes to Hogarth to plead with her to take Hope’s case. Hogarth is reluctant, but agrees that she'll take the case if Jessica can prove there is a scary mind-control man out there. Trish, meanwhile, is worried about Jessica, and tries to convince her to move in with her. But Jessica wants to stay away, as she considers herself a danger. At night, Jessica pores over clippings about a fatal bus crash, which killed a woman, Reva Connors. Where do we recognize that woman from? She was in the photo in Luke’s medicine cabinet. The noisy neighbors have taken it one step too far, and Jessica goes upstairs to deal with it. The woman in the apartment is hostile; the man is clueless. But they are silly: The argument is over chicken. Jessica goes back downstairs to stare at the articles again. So, what actually happened during this bus crash? Jessica flashes back: She’s walking, zombie-like, with blood on her hands as Kilgrave calls after her. The bus swerves, flips over, and hits him. Jessica needs more information on what has become of Kilgrave, since obviously the blow did not kill him. She sneaks into the hospital, steals some scrubs (as you do), and asks a nurse to help her get into the records. Only she finds nothing there. Theres's no trace of a John Doe from that night in the system. When Jessica comes home her door is open. She finds a man inside and assaults him, but unfortunately it’s only someone coming to fix her door on orders from Trish. Jessica watches as the man is taken away in an ambulance. She's joined by Ruben, one half of the loud couple. Only they aren't a couple; they are twins. Jessica's paranoia is strong. On the subway she has another vision of Kilgrave, and punches the glass window. Her investigation leads her to the home of Jack Denton, an ambulance driver who went AWOL. She finds Jack’s super-religious mother in the yard, who brings Jessica inside to see Jack. Jack is hooked up to a dialysis machine. He donated both of his kidneys and had a stroke. His creepy mother, however, was happy about this, saying that she prayed that her son would come home and now he has. When his mother leaves the room, Jessica takes a picture of the make of the machine. Jack starts writing out “KIL,” which Jessica assumes is an identification of Kilgrave. It’s not. Jack wants her to kill him. She doesn’t and leaves. At home, someone knocks on her door. It’s the woman Luke with whom was having an affair. Despite what Jessica told Luke, the woman’s husband did not hire Jessica to investigate the tryst. Now, the husband is on his way to Luke’s bar to beat him up. Jessica rushes over and joins him in the fight. Both of them are extremely strong, and easily take down the guys. A broken bottle? Yeah, that can't cut through Luke's skin. In the morning, Jessica gets a call identifying the person responsible for leasing the kidney machine. She hunts down Dr. Kurata, who is now teaching college students. He sees her and begins to run. When Jessica catches up with him he asks, “Is he here?” Apparently, Kilgrave had pictures of Jessica. Though only one of Kilgrave’s kidneys was damaged, he wanted to be fully repaired. So, he took Jack's kidneys. He did not receive anesthesia for the operation. Jessica hits upon it: That’s his weakness. He can’t control people if he’s put under. Jessica makes Dr. Kurata get on the phone with Hogarth to tell his story so Hogarth will take Hope’s case. When Jessica returns home, she finds a glass panel for the door. She calls Trish to thank her. Trish is in the middle of a workout, when she goes back to her trainer we realize she’s not just doing yoga. The trainer points a gun at her, and she takes him down asking him to do it again and again. In another part of town, a man opens the door. He has a confused look on his face, but quickly changes his tone. Why? The person at the door is Kilgrave. Kilgrave announces he'll be staying with the family for a while, and they all do whatever he wishes. He doesn’t care for the children, though. He sends them into the closet, and they go willingly. Jessica also has a visitor: Luke. He knows what she is, and he’s one, too. He takes out a saw and places it against his abs. “I’m unbreakable,” he says.

Episode 3: "AKA It's Called Whiskey" Ah, superhero sex. Now that they both know about each other’s powers, Jessica and Luke go at it full force. One of the noisy neighbors, Ruben, is watching the doorway before she shoos him away. Jessica and Luke go get a post-coital snack and talk about having superpowers. Luke asks Jessica if she can fly. “It’s more like jumping, and then falling,” she says. She tells him that she gave the superhero thing a go once. They go have more sex. But when Jessica goes to the bathroom she stares at the photo again. Luke tells Jessica, “She died. Bus crash.” Jessica says she’s sorry, and then bolts. In a bodega, Jessica hears talk-radio hosts go after Hope, doubting her claims. She continues listening at home where she Googles Sufentanil, an anesthetic she’ll need to nab Kilgrave. But the trash talk about Hope got to her. She goes to Hogarth and tries to convince her to defend Hope publicly; Hogarth won’t. She needs more testimony. The next stop is Trish. Jessica wants Trish to use her place in the media to convince people that Kilgrave really does exist. Trish is also resistant. Though Trish thinks they are getting lunch, Jessica is off to get the Sufentanil. Trish convinces her to come inside. When Trish takes off her sweater, Jessica is horrified to see all of her bruises. Trish has been protecting herself, equipping her apartment with top-notch security, and turning Jessica’s old room into a training center. Jessica first tries to get the drugs from Hogarth’s wife. She lords Wendy's marital troubles over her. That just gets her a prescription for an antipsychotic. She takes it, “just in case.” She goes to the hospital and debates how many people it’s worth hurting in order to get the drug. On the way out, she sees Malcolm get hit by a guy on a bike. She defends Malcolm and berates the man. Jessica’s asleep when two men arrive to fix her door. They are eerie, in a way, and there’s the foggy image of someone behind them. But there’s good news — sort of. Trish is going to interview Hope. Jessica’s wary, though. She wanted Trish to support Hope, not hang her out to dry. Jessica's next plan for getting the drugs? Try Luke. He knows drug dealers — he owns a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, after all — but can’t help her with what she needs. So, guess what? They have sex again. As they are lying in bed, Luke tells Jessica to “just say it.” She plays dumb. He asks, “Is it a racial thing? I’m kidding.” He then pauses, “Is it?” But she gets serious, saying, “What if there was someone else out there, but his ability was to make people do whatever he wanted.” Luke knows she’s talking about Hope’s case, but doesn’t quite believe that mind control is possible. Speculation turns into flirting and more sex. The next day, Trish is doing her interview with Hope, remotely. Hogarth holds up the phone for Hope. Hope explains how she would get “glimpses of” herself when she was under Kilgrave’s control, and that she fought when he told her to kill her parents. Hogarth jumps in and throws Hope under the bus, saying she has delusions. Trish, however, stands up for Hope, and starts going on a tirade against Kilgrave. Jessica stops her, saying that she is going to make him angry. And, sure enough, who should call into the show, but Kilgrave himself. He warns, “It seems that insulting him would be wildly dangerous.” As Jessica and Trish are walking out of the station, Trish is on edge. Someone comes up behind her and she punches. It’s just a fan of Patsy Walker, Trish’s old TV personality from when she was a child star. (A nod to the days when the character was more of the Archie comic variety.) The repair men have locked Jessica’s door unless she pays them. She breaks it down easily, while on the phone looking for Dr. Kurata. He, however, has decamped to India. Ruben, still as unnerving as ever, is carrying Malcolm down the hallway. Malcolm wandered into the twins’ apartment and Robyn, Ruben's sister, freaked out. Ruben makes creepy small talk explaining that everyone is a little racist. (No, there’s no Avenue Q song break.) That’s when Jessica gets a truly despicable idea. She brings the nearly incapacitated Malcolm to the hospital and throws him at a nurse, claiming that he lunged for her. In the commotion, she steals what she needs and finds Malcolm’s sad face looking out at her as she leaves. A police officer comes to Trish’s door asking about the person she attacked. Trish is wary of letting the man in, but he insists. She opens the door armed. Smart move. He points a gun at her immediately. He has been sent by Kilgrave to kill her. He’s about to strangle her when Jessica arrives. Jessica gives Trish a dose of the drugs and claims she’s dead, so the man assumes he has done Kilgrave’s bidding and leaves. Before he’s out of the building, Jessica runs after him and drops Trish’s phone in his pocket, calling her own number so she can follow him. She finds him in a luxury apartment watching sports. She’s about to go after Kilgrave when he instructs the police officer to commit suicide. As she saves the officer, she and Kilgrave come face to face and a flashback hits. Kilgrave instructed Jessica to kill Luke’s wife. Kilgrave is gone by the time that Jessica subdues the officer. She starts to go through the house to try to find him, and each resident pops out, instructed to kill her. After defeating each of them, she hears the noise of a printer. She follows the sound and finds an entire room of the house plastered with photos of her. She catches the police officer who jumped off the building. He wasn't Kilgrave's lackey taking the photos. So, who has been following her? Bloodied, she goes to Luke’s apartment and tells him she can’t see him anymore. “Can’t handle the dead wife, huh?” he says. More than he knows. After she leaves, she looks at the photo in her hands. It’s her, sitting on the fire escape where she watched Luke.

Episode 4: "AKA 99 Friends" Jessica’s main goal now: find out who has been spying on her for Kilgrave. There’s something else on her plate, though. A client, seemingly not related to Kilgrave, shows up at her door. Her name is Audrey Eastman, and she was sent to Jessica by a divorce lawyer in Hogarth’s firm. Audrey thinks her husband is having an affair and wants pictures of him in the act. Jessica doesn’t trust that she wasn’t in some way sent by Kilgrave, but when she asks Audrey if she had any conversations with a dark haired, well-dressed British man, she seems confused. Their chat gets interrupted when Jessica gets a call from Trish. The cop, Will Simpson, is back at her home. Trish goes to her safe room while she waits for Jessica to arrive. But Will isn’t trying to break down Trish’s door, because he’s not doing Kilgrave’s bidding anymore. He’s thinks there’s a body inside the apartment. When Jessica answers the door, he’s confused. He asks whether Trish is alright. She shows him her bruised neck and says she’s not. Jessica takes him for a walk. He wants to help. To protect Trish from being a target of Kilgrave's, Jessica has her friend give a broadcast where she defers to the villain. “During my last broadcast, I made some flippant and disrespectful comments about a certain individual,” Trish announces. “I was out of line by belittling this man.” Trish rightfully feels dirty about doing this. “Men and power, it’s seriously a disease,” she says. Amen, Trish. Amen. As they are walking, Jessica sees someone taking a photo and freaks. She tries to shake it off when Trish inquires, but Trish knows better. Jessica reveals that Kilgrave has been tracking her. Back at home, she goes through photos that she had taken of Luke. She had been trailing him for a while, watching him like Kilgrave has been watching her. Jessica’s still worried about Audrey, too, and goes to Hogarth to confirm that the lawyer who referred Audrey is indeed reputable. Jessica still doesn’t totally trust her and has been following the client, not the client’s husband. That’s when she gets an idea. She knows how Will can help: get her NYPD security footage so she can figure out who has been following her. She eventually tracks Audrey to an abandoned bar. Audrey turns up the music and starts shooting at targets. It’s a two-way street with Hogarth and Jessica. Jessica's now in Hogarth's office to do the lawyer's bidding. Hogarth wants dirt on the wife she's divorcing, and Jessica's help with the influx of guests in her office claiming that they've been mind-controlled. Jessica starts interviewing these people. Some of them are real nutjobs, using Kilgrave as an excuse. Others have had legitimate experiences, which range from being forced to smile for him to giving him a jacket. Hogarth thinks these are low-level deeds. “What a waste,” she says, wondering how Kilgrave could be put to use if he were “on [their] side.” This enrages Jessica. Will shows up outside Jessica's apartment to give her the surveillance tape. Malcolm is hanging out in his usual drugged-out state, and Will is suspect, asking him what he's "looking at." Jessica writes Malcolm off: He's high. Jessica watches the tape all night. She only leaves to get a new bottle of whiskey. When she's on the street, a girl calls out her name. The girl tells her, "Patsy Walker is safe." The girl says "the man" told her to say that. The girl then gets caustic, calling Jessica a “bitch,” telling her that she left him to die after the bus crash. More ominously she says, “It’s Friday, don't you have a job to do?” Jessica doesn’t know what she means and asks if it has something to do with Audrey. She grabs the little girl’s arm, who starts to scream, back to being a scared little girl. Will shows up at Trish’s again, wanting to clear the air as much as he can. Trish, still unnerved, won’t let him in, but allows him to leave his gift at the door. It’s a pistol. Meanwhile, Jessica is tracking Audrey’s husband, who looks like he is definitely on his way to an affair. But when she follows him, she finds that there’s a familiar person in bed with him: It’s Audrey. Even stranger? Audrey calls Jessica, asking where she is. When Jessica reveals herself, Audrey takes out a gun. Audrey shoots at her and grazes her arm. This has nothing to do with Kilgrave. Audrey has targeted Jessica because of her superpowers, which she heard about from Spheeris. Audrey lost her mother in the Avengers’ Battle of New York. Jessica's pissed, and she starts destroying the room. Yes, Audrey has pain. So does Jessica. So does everyone. “You take your goddamn pain, and you live with it.” Jessica lost her parents, too, but she doesn't try to "kill every shitty driver." She tells Audrey and her husband that she has "99 gifted friends" who are going to come after them. She tells the couple to disappear. Trish continues having a heart to heart with Will, on opposite sides of the door. She eventually lets him in, but she keeps her hand on the pistol. Jessica goes to the survivors’ group. One man tells the story about how Kilgrave got in his car and made him be his chauffeur, forcing him to abandon his son. But Jessica doesn’t really care about that. She wants to know where Kilgrave went and whether there was someone who gave him photos. It was a man with a blue-and-white striped scarf. Jessica rushes back to go through the footage. She finally locates someone: It’s Malcolm. She breaks into his apartment and finds a photo of herself in the printer, and an image of Malcolm in happier days.

Episode 5: "AKA The Sandwich Saved Me" Jessica is a much different person 18 months before all of this goes down. She is slightly aimless, but confident and happy. She works a desk job and blackmails her boss to give her severance. She and Trish go out for happy hour. A creepy dude hits on Trish, making a lewd comment in reference to her child-actor days. Jessica challenges him to an arcade game strength competition. Naturally, she wins. Trish wants her to be a hero. That seems to be more Trish's dream than Jessica's. Back in the present day, Jessica is tracking Malcolm. He, too, was a different person pre-Kilgrave. His descent into drugs happened only over the past six months. Jessica watches as he goes to Union Square Park, receives orders about where to meet Kilgrave, and gives Kilgrave pictures in exchange for drugs. Jessica figures out how to nab Kilgrave, but she needs Trish’s input. Trish, however, is a little busy getting eaten out by cop Will. Jessica shows up at Trish’s apartment with a plan to shoot Kilgrave up with Sufentanil with a long-range dart gun. There, she gets some unsolicited advice from war vet Will, who, mind you, is still in underwear. Jessica wants Trish to drive the getaway van, even though Will objects, but Trish shuts him down. Even so, they all reluctantly agree to work together. Will is of some use because he has access to a safe house. In another flashback, we see how Jessica decides to become a superhero. She’s dressed as a sandwich and passing out flyers when a little girl walks in the street. Jessica stops a taxi just before it would've hit the girl. But Jessica has also needed to be saved. Will reveals that he has done his research. Trish the child star took in Jessica, who lost her parents in a car accident. Jessica finds Malcolm passed out in the elevator and brings him home, where she gets a call from Hope. She visits Hope in prison, but Hope isn’t there to chit chat. She wants cash, which Jessica reluctantly gives up. And another flashback! This time, Trish is making Jess a superhero uniform and trying to get her to call herself Jewel. (Hm!) Now Jessica and Trish are working together to collect Kilgrave, alongside Will. Malcolm meets Kilgrave at an outdoor café. As Will approaches, Jessica tells him to turn back. Kilgrave has noticed him. When Will won’t, Jessica distracts Kilgrave, and Will takes the shot. Getting Kilgrave out of the crowded sidewalk isn’t that easy, especially when there are two guys trying to protect him. Jessica shoves them aside and grabs Kilgrave. In the van, she punches him. A little retribution, for now. Just as they are about to unload the unconscious body, Jessica realizes their error. Kilgrave had a tracker. An army of men comes at them with tasers and gets Kilgrave back. Will and Jessica capture one, though. (Trish, much to her frustration, was knocked out.) But the man wasn’t being mind-controlled, Kilgrave hired a firm, knowing that Jessica had the drugs from Malcolm. When Jessica gets home, she finds Malcolm fighting with a drug dealer, who he doesn’t have the money to pay. Jessica takes control, but Malcolm says that she can’t save him, “again.” Again? We see in a flashback that Malcolm is there for the moment Jessica meets Kilgrave. She’s fending off some guys beating up Malcolm when Kilgrave spots her, and bids her to come with him. Now she’s trying to detox Malcolm, handcuffing him in her bathroom. Malcolm tells her that sometimes, he didn’t even take pictures of her because Kilgrave made him, he just did it for the drugs. Jessica asks him to “save [her] for once” by getting clean. She throws the drugs at his feet and asks him to choose. Malcolm seems to take them. And as for Hope? Well, she’s getting beat up in prison in the middle of the night. Kilgrave wakes up, and pulls a tooth out from his lips, laughing with a mouth full of blood. He calls Jessica. She doesn’t speak as he talks. He’ll spare Malcolm if she sends her pictures herself. “Let me hear your voice,” he pleads. She hangs up. She walks to the bathroom to see that Malcolm has put the drugs in the toilet. She sends Kilgrave a selfie.

Episode 6: "AKA You're A Winner!" Kilgrave may have no poker face, but he can always win at poker. Why? Well, you know why. So we open the episode with him collecting over a million dollars. Malcolm, now clean-ish, and Jessica talk about how to catch Kilgrave when Luke shows up. He wants to hire Jessica to find someone, Antoine, who hasn't been paying a loan shark. Luke is finding Antoine as a favor to his sister. Hogarth calls. She has been notified that Hope was attacked by a prisoner named Sissy Garcia. Though Jessica is worried that Sissy is under the influence of Kilgrave. That’s not the case. Sissy tells Jessica that Hope paid her. Why? Jessica discovers the devastating truth: Hope is pregnant with Kilgrave’s baby. “Every second it’s there, I get raped again and again,” she tells Jessica. Jessica heads to Antoine’s apartment and finds Luke already there. She discovers that Antoine is a sucker for contests and leaves a message telling him he won a free Xbox. Outside, they run into the loan shark and his men. Luke offers Jessica the chance to work with him finding deadbeats. Luke gives Jessica a ride home. When she’s gone, he encounters Malcolm, who asks whether he’s encountered a “British guy.” Luke starts asking questions about Kilgrave. He shows up at Jessica’s later and tells her he knows all about it. He thinks the reason she left him was because he wouldn’t believe her. She says it's not her fault. She's the "piece of shit." He tells her that she’s “not a piece of shit” and they kiss. They wake up in bed together. Luke is about to confess something when someone calls from Antoine’s phone, looking to collect a prize. Afterwards, Luke divulges the true reason he’s looking for Antoine. If he finds Antoine, Antoine’s sister Serena, who's an MTA administrator, will give him information about his wife’s death. He tells Jessica that he went through his wife's effects and found an envelope with instructions to go to a warehouse where there is something she buried. Luke went and found nothing. But Jessica knows what was there. Seems Reva was alongside Jessica and Kilgrave, who had Jessica dig up what Reva had concealed: a flash drive. Then, Kilgrave ordered that Jessica kill Reva. Jessica retreats to the bathroom to take a selfie for Kilgrave and then heads to the prison to give Hope a pill to induce an abortion. She tells Hogarth to watch Hope. Elsewhere, Kilgrave is up to something. He goes to a lovely suburban house and offers to buy it — in cash — for far more than the asking price. He does not use his abilities, but does demand that the family moves out by the end of the next day. Jessica tries to get ahead of Luke by following the guy claiming to be Antoine before he does, but Luke’s already there. They track him to a warehouse where there’s a marijuana-growing operation. There, they find Antoine working. But before they can remove Antoine, they are assaulted by the loan shark’s men. Jessica heads to Serena's with Antoine while Luke is still fighting, so that she can get the information about Reva before he does, protecting him and herself. Luke foils her. He reads what Serena provides. It reveals that the bus driver was drunk. Luke sets out to avenge his wife and kill the driver, who is still working for the MTA. He nearly does before Jessica arrives. She confesses. Luke is hurt, angry, and repulsed. Jessica slept with him, knowing what she did. “You touched me with the same hands that killed my wife,” he says. And then he delivers his parting blow: “You are a piece of shit.” As the episode wraps up, we find Malcolm attending a survivors’ meeting, Hogarth trying to collect Hope’s dead fetus, and Kilgrave enjoying his new digs. You know who else lived in that house? Young Jessica.

Episode 7: "AKA Top Shelf Perverts" First of all, oh my goodness, David Tennant probably deserves an Emmy nomination for this brutally creepy performance. Kilgrave is in Jessica’s apartment, going through her things, and peeing in her toilet. Ruben shows up at the door offering her banana bread. Kilgrave asks why he’s doing so. Ruben says, “Because I love her.” Jessica isn’t home, because she’s getting thrown out of a bar. She gets up and spots Wendy. She follows her onto the subway platform, where she tries to shove divorce papers into her hand. Her intimidation, which is all wrapped up in her own self-loathing from the Luke Cage situation, gets out of hand when she accidentally drops Wendy onto the tracks. She saves her, however, and jumps out herself. Now it’s Malcolm who is finding Jessica passed out in the elevator. He brings her inside and she flops down on the bed. The bed is wet with blood. Ruben is there, throat slit, holding a knife. Kilgrave made him do it. Jessica gives up. She decides she can’t fight Kilgrave. Instead, she’ll get herself locked up in supermax prison. It’s nearly impossible to get in, so Kilgrave will have to be caught when he comes looking for her. She decides to use the detective who interrogated her after Hope’s parents’ murder her parents, since he was already suspicious. Jessica calls Trish, but she's having sex with Will and ignores the call. She’s not going to call Jessica unless she has something to tell her. She’s been doing some digging on Kilgrave herself and has found the bodyguards he hired. Will wants to kill Kilgrave, but Trish wants him to rot somewhere. Jessica stops Hogarth, who is on her way into court. She asks what it will take to get into supermax. Hogarth says it’s for “top-shelf perverts.” Jessica tells her to meet her at the precinct at 8 p.m. Malcolm is back in Jessica’s apartment, looking at Ruben’s body. On the way out, he finds Robyn, who is suspicious of him and of Jessica’s relationship to Ruben. Malcolm tells her that Jessica and Ruben are “involved,” but insists that Jessica isn’t a bad person. She may not be a bad person, but she’s definitely done some not so great things. She goes to Luke’s bar, only he isn’t there. There’s an older man tending bar. She tells him to tell Luke that “the right people are going to pay for what’s been done.” Back at Hogarth’s office, Wendy fakes Hogarth out by delivering blackmail emails, which show that Hogarth bribed a juror, instead of singing the divorce papers. Pam, the assistant, stands up for Hogarth, but seems a bit at her wits’ end. Jessica’s next stop is the Stars & Tykes Talent Agency. At first, it’s unclear what she’s doing among little kids auditioning for their big break, but then the reason reveals itself: the agency is run by Dorothy Walker, Trish’s mother. Trish, we learn, was an addict. “She hasn’t touched drugs since I dragged her away from you,” Jessica tells Dorothy. Jessica warns her to stay away from Trish. There’s someone else who probably isn’t so great for Trish: Will. He tells her he hasn’t spotted Kilgrave yet, but he has eyes directly on him. Trish goes to Jessica’s. Malcolm has called her in to help Jessica come to her senses. They clean up the blood and the body, much to the dismay of Jessica as she arrives back home. Jessica strengthens her resolve. Though Malcolm dumps the body, Jessica dives in and gets it. She walks into the precinct, sopping wet, and dumps Ruben’s severed head on Clemons’ desk. Hogarth arrives as her counsel, but tries to defend her as insane. Jessica fires Hogarth. Jessica tries to convince Clemons that she really is a “top-shelf pervert” who belongs in supermax. To prove her strength, she rips off the handcuffs and folds a metal chair in half. But then, a cop comes in and tells her she’s free to go. How? When she walks out of the holding cell, she finds an eerie sight. Everyone there has guns pointed at one another. And there’s Kilgrave. Of course. Jessica insists that he control her, not them, but that’s not what he wants. He loves her and he loves that she has defied him. When she left him for dead, she became the first person that he couldn’t control. He wants her to decide to come with him. He tells her, “we’re inevitable.” He left her something in her apartment. “When you are ready I will see you at home,” he says. So he’s not out for revenge. He’s all about romantic obsession. She goes home and finds a box resembling the one where the flash drive was buried. She opens it and finds her childhood diary. Robyn is at her door, looking for Ruben. She finds his flip-flop and mourns over it. Jessica tells her that Ruben isn’t coming back. Jessica takes a cab to her old house. There’s a flashback: Jessica has lost the diary, but Dorothy says they’ll buy her a new one and chides her for being disrespectful. Jessica gets in the back of a car and notices that Trish, who is in the front seat, has bruises on her neck. Dorothy may be a shitty person, but now the devil is waiting at that door. Kilgrave ushers her in. Will is watching.

Episode 8: "AKA WWJD?" Can Kilgrave be a sympathetic figure? Almost, apparently. Jessica envisions the morning she and her family head out on their fatal road trip. “Welcome home, Jessica Jones,” Kilgrave announces. He has armed guards waiting at the ready. Don’t think Jessica didn’t come with a purpose, though. She had her phone set to record to get a confession, but Kilgrave finds it when the guard searches her. Kilgrave is up to some form of sympathetic torture in the guise of love. He recreated her house perfectly, thanks to photos from the realtor that sold it. He even used a magnifying glass to figure out what CDs Jessica had in her bedroom, which is plastered with Nirvana and Green Day posters. Trish calls and Jessica answers, but on speakerphone. Trish is worried that everyone, including Will, has disappeared. But Kilgrave doesn’t know anything about Will. Kilgrave left Jessica a new present in her bedroom, too, a sparkly purple dress, which she rips apart. Given that the dress is in pieces, she doesn’t wear it to dinner, where she downs a bottle of red wine. Kilgrave seems shocked that she blames him for her drinking. He doesn’t think the time they spent together was all bad, despite its ending. He claims that he didn’t make her kill Reva. Jessica smashes the bottle and the waitstaff emerges with knives to their throats. Clearly, Kilgrave has not decided to forgo all mind control and terrible deeds — even when wooing Jessica. Jessica retreats upstairs and finds a door slightly ajar. Will grabs her, thinking he’s saving her. She explains she’s not being controlled, but he’s already gone too far. He has put a bomb in the basement. Jessica takes Will’s cell phone and has him hide while she warns Kilgrave. When they find the bomb, Kilgrave is touched. “What matters is, you saved my life,” he says. “You do care for me.” We finally break from Jessica and Kilgrave to see Wendy fighting tooth and nail for what she deems a fair divorce settlement from Hogarth. Pam interrupts their meeting, telling Hogarth that she received a text saying Jessica is with Kilgrave. Trish eventually finds Will, who seems to be wiping his hands clean of Jessica. Though Trish argues he’s abandoning her, Will says he’s simply letting her do her thing. Sleeping in her childhood bedroom, Jessica dreams about her family, blood oozing from their heads, blaming her for their deaths. After she wakes, she goes to breakfast outside with Kilgrave. Jessica, actually eating this time, asks Kilgrave whether his actions ever haunt him. She inquires about his own parents, as well as Hope’s. A neighbor, Mrs. De Luca, recognizes Jessica, and Kilgrave encourages her to come and chat. Mrs. De Luca isn’t all niceties. She talks about Jessica’s parents fighting and her brother being a “delinquent.” She says that she had a bad feeling about their trip and that the fact that she didn’t warn them has been a “burden.” Jessica looks aghast. That’s when Kilgrave turns on his powers, forcing her to tell the truth, that she didn’t actually sense the tragedy. “You’re welcome,” Kilgrave tells Jessica, and she slaps his hand away. She had demanded no touching. He reminds her that they used to have sex. Yeah, she says, and that was rape. Kilgrave is genuinely perplexed. They had a nice life, he insists. “Not only did you physically rape me, but you violated every cell in my body and every thought in my goddamn head,” she says. Kilgrave tries to turn it around. He never knows whether people are doing what he is instructing them to, or acting of their own accords. Kilgrave tries to excuse his actions. He never had parents like Jessica did. She’s not buying it. But then, he pulls out that flash drive and shows her. His parents were scientists, constantly running experiments on him. It’s horrific. Perhaps Jessica feels badly for him when watching it? Perhaps we do? Watching a news story about a man holding his family hostage, Jessica gets an idea. She has Kilgrave use his powers for some good. He frees the man’s wife and children. Kilgrave’s instincts are to then have the man turn the gun on himself, but Jessica counsels him otherwise. They go back to the house and Kilgrave is exuberant. He wants cake! He wants to be a superhero team with Jessica! Jessica needs to take a walk, though. When she leaves, we see the fateful accident unfold. Jessica’s family died because of a dumb fight between Jessica and her brother in the backseat of their car. Her father turned around to yell at them and drove into the back of a truck. Jessica goes to Trish and asks her advice. “What would you do if you could harness Kilgrave’s power for good?” she asks. Trish feigns cluelessness, but Jessica knows her friend. Do-gooder Trish knows exactly what to do, but doesn’t want Jessica doing it. Kilgrave is awaiting Jessica’s return when he gets a text from Hogarth sent to Jessica’s phone demanding information on Wendy. Kilgrave gleefully responds. Jessica comes back with Chinese food. It looks as if she’s decided to stay and team up with Kilgrave. She invites the staff to eat with them. Kilgrave is wary of his food, but Jessica takes a bite, saying it’s fine. It’s not, though. Jessica gets up after feigning spilling something on her shirt, and the other diners pass out, leaving Jessica open to stab Kilgrave with Sufentanil. She steals the laptop and flash drive before carrying him out. The armed guard nearly stops her, but Will is lurking in the shadows to take him. Will wants to kill Kilgrave, but Jessica won’t let him. She flies away. After she’s gone, Mrs. De Luca approaches. She has something for Will from Kilgrave. It’s the bomb. It detonates.

Episode 9: “AKA Sin Bin” Jessica finally has Kilgrave, but what’s she going to do about it? He wakes up imprisoned in the hermetically sealed room. Footage of the experiments from his childhood are projected on the wall; he stands in water. She taunts him. She shocks him. That water is a conductor to an open wire. He says, “I’m impressed, I never realized you were such a bitch.” She retorts, “Well, this bitch is in control of you now.” Trish is racing Will, who survived the bomb, to the hospital. Will wants to see a Dr. Kozlov. Jessica is pulling out all the stops on Kilgrave, even showing him footage of other children. Hogarth arrives, but dumps some non-electric water on Jessica’s plans. She can’t use a confession because it’s under duress. Hogarth also has a lot on her plate: the district attorney offered Hope a plea deal and Wendy is gunning for more of Hogarth’s assets. When Jessica leaves, Kilgrave watches Hogarth as she talks with Wendy. He can’t hear her, but he’s perceptive. He knocks on the glass and appeals to her sweet spot. “These powers of persuasion could right any wrong,” he says. Certainly they could help her with Wendy — and it’s not like Hogarth hasn’t already expressed interest in Kilgrave’s abilities. He also gives her a confession, but the camera is not running. At the hospital, Will encourages Trish to kill Kilgrave. Shockingly, there is a Dr. Kozlov, who gets right down to the business treating Will. Jessica is going to try to get evidence herself. She goes into Kilgrave’s cell with the video on and tries to provoke him into using his powers. She starts by flirting — and then starts beating him. Trish comes in and watches alongside Hogarth. Just when it seems like Jessica may kill him, they hit the switch. But Jessica has another idea: They can search for his parents. She gets a clue from the video. Kilgrave’s father used to say to him, “You don’t see Eric crying when he goes into the sin bin.” Sin bin is a rugby term and Eric Branford was a University of Manchester player. She calls the head of the university’s neuroscience department to inquire about Kilgrave's time there. He gets nervous when she asks about experiments on kids, but finally gets some answers. The professors left shortly after and the program was shut down. He gives some names: Albert and Louise Thompson. Hogarth tries to get Hope to take the deal, but she wants to talk to Jessica. When they do talk, Hope seemingly has decided to do so. Jessica convinces him otherwise. She’s close to getting proof. Jessica heads to a diner where Malcolm has gathered survivors. There’s a long-haired latecomer with a scarred face who never speaks. Jessica provokes her into talking and she has a British accent. The woman rushes out and Jessica follows. There they are: Kilgrave’s parents. They tell her that they were trying to save him. He had a degenerative disease. They agree to go see him. Jessica’s gathering the troops. Clemons gets a text from an unknown number with the footage of her beating up Kilgrave. Before everyone arrives, Hogarth and Kilgrave have a moment alone. Seems these two are forming some sort of alliance. “I’m listening,” she tells him. Trish, during this moment, is outside calling Will, who has miraculously recovered. Following the call, we see that Will has been taking mysterious pills given by Kozlov. When Kilgrave’s parents arrive, there is a nearly touching moment where his mother places her hand on the glass and he matches them with his own from the other side. Albert and Louise go into the cell, with everyone — Trish, Hogarth, and Clemons (handcuffed to a pipe) — watching. It seems there might be reconcilation when Kilgrave and his mother hug, but then she stabs him with a pair of scissors. She says that they have to stop him. Then, he starts doing the controlling. He tells her to stab herself for every year she left him alone. Jessica tries to end it by electrocuting them, but it doesn’t work. Louise stabs herself and dies. Then, he turns to his father. Jessica runs in to save Albert. Trish shoots through the glass. Kilgrave tells Trish to put a bullet in her skull, but luckily, she is out. He tells Clemons to follow him, forcing him to skin his hand while removing the handcuff. Jessica grabs hold of him and he commands, “Let go of me, Jessica.” She doesn’t. Though Clemons, following Kilgrave’s orders, thwarted her capture, she realizes something great: she’s immune.

Episode 10: “AKA 1,000 Cuts” Well, this is one bloody episode. After escaping the safe house, Kilgrave jumps in the car with Hogarth. He’s controlling her, but Hogarth wants something, too: She wants Kilgrave to use his abilities and make Wendy sign the divorce papers. She’s the one who cut the wire. He leaves behind a mess. Trish is trying to put a bullet in her head. Clemons’ hand is bloodied. Albert, Kilgrave’s father, is still trying to stab himself. Jessica has gotten away scot-free now that she’s realized Kilgrave can’t control her. This gives Albert an idea: Kilgrave’s mind control powers are a virus. Perhaps with Jessica’s blood, he can find a cure. Trish goes with him to his motel room to work. Wendy and Kilgrave bond over being jilted by their lovers. He asks if she has ever thought of revenge — mind you, Hogarth is standing right there — she says, “How do you avenge death by a 1,000 cuts.” Kilgrave plies Hogarth for information and she reveals that she tried to figure out whether or not Hope’s fetus had any of Kilgrave’s powers. Jessica calls Hogarth and lies about the whereabouts of Albert. Somebody rings the doorbell and Kilgrave panics. He tells Wendy, “You want death by 1,000 cuts? Do it.” Wendy starts slashing Hogarth. Will visits the safe house to find Clemons there, dealing with the evidence. Will is still hellbent on killing Kilgrave. He points a gun at Clemons, demanding information. He then apologizes, saying he’s hopped up because of Kilgrave. That’s just a ruse, though. As soon as Clemons tells him where Trish is, he shoots Clemons and torches the place. Pam busts in while Wendy is slashing Hogarth and hits Wendy over the head with a hard object, sending her reeling. On her fall, she smashes her head against the corner of a coffee table. Hogarth tells Pam that she’s going to “handle everything.” She won’t. (Later, when Hogarth visits Pam in a holding cell, Pam finally gets it. She realizes why Hogarth brought Kilgrave to Wendy. She's done.) Jessica arrives just in time to see the damage, but not in time to save Wendy. On the way home, Jessica gives Trish and Albert 24 hours to work on the vaccine. Outside her apartment, she finds Malcolm and Robyn putting up signs looking for Ruben. She chastises Malcolm, who knows full well what has happened. Ah, home. Jessica changes shirts and takes a swig of whiskey. Maybe things will calm down for a bit. Well, nope. Kilgrave is there. He tries to make a deal with her. He will free Hope — if she gives him his father. Kilgrave still thinks he sees a potential for love in Jessica. He cites an experience when they were together where he let the control wear off, leaving her alone for 18 seconds. He remembers a kiss. She remembers an escape attempt she just couldn’t muster and the fact that he punished her by nearly forcing her to cut off her own ear. She shows him the scar and punches him out. Malcolm can’t rid himself of what happened to Ruben and divulges his pain to the victims’ group. Unfortunately, Robyn followed him and rallies the other victims to hold Jessica accountable. This is terrible timing. Jessica has Kilgrave tied up, his mouth taped over with duct tape, and is making plans with Hope to pick her up from prison. Then, Kilgrave’s other victims burst into her apartment. Robyn knocks Jessica out with a wooden plank and sees that she has a “captive." Big mistake, Robyn. Trish also has to fend off an assault that night: Will. Trish knows something is up. Will’s pupils are dilated. He says it’s because he’s on meds. He then goes after both Albert and Trish. He feels apologetic after hurting Trish and she pushes him out, but gets his pills before she goes. Jessica comes to the next morning, late to pick up Hope. When she gets to the prison, Hope is already gone and an officer has a message for Jessica from Kilgrave: “He’s at your favorite restaurant. He said to bring dad or lose all Hope.” So it’s time to test the vaccine and make the trade. Jessica and Albert head to the Asian fusion restaurant where it all began. Albert sprays himself with the makeshift vaccine. Inside, they find the victims, plus Robyn, standing on the bar with nooses around their necks. Hope is sitting at a table with Kilgrave, insisting that Jessica kill him. Jessica’s reluctant and Kilgrave has her number: she still wants to be a hero. The vaccine doesn’t work and Kilgrave’s father goes to him. Hope stabs herself in the neck with a wineglass to free Jessica from saving her. Kilgrave orders those wearing nooses to step forward. He escapes with his father as Jessica rescues everyone by bringing down the pipe that the nooses hung from. Jessica, holding Hope in her arms, promises that she will kill Kilgrave.

Episode 11: “AKA And I’ve Got The Blues” Kilgrave disappeared at the end of last episode and stays gone for this one. But that gives us a chance to get some of the backstory on Jessica and Trish’s relationship. Over a series of flashbacks, we see how Dorothy took Jessica in to do some image rehab for Patsy. Dorothy was an abusive mother, beating Trish, and all the while, Jessica was discovering her powers. She and Trish initially make a pact: Trish won’t tell her mom about Jessica’s powers if Jessica doesn’t tell the world about the secret life of Patsy. But when Jessica finds Dorothy making Trish vomit after eating pizza, Jessica becomes Trish’s protector and Dorothy learns of Jessica’s abilities. Trish picks up Jessica after the incident at the restaurant. Jessica’s first instinct: head to the morgue to look at a John Doe, who she thinks must be Albert. The John Doe is not, however, Kilgrave’s father, and Trish encourages Jessica to rest. Jessica says she’ll walk home and ends up taking a cab around the entire city searching morgues. (How can Jessica afford so many cabs?) At her last stop, she nearly falls asleep on the street. In her haze, she thinks she spots Kilgrave, and follows him. She’s so single-minded that she walks right into the street and gets hit by a truck. The guy wasn’t even Kilgrave. Will shows up at Trish Talk to make amends (sort of). He’s still on edge, but he says he quit Kozlov’s program. Trish has more important things to attend to than Will. Jessica texts her about her injuries, so she goes home and Saran wraps her adoptive sister's ribs. Jessica is finally sitting still, that is until she gets a text that there’s another John Doe. She leaves and breaks into the morgue. It’s Clemons, his body burned. Jessica thinks Kilgrave is the culprit, but Clemons’ true killer is waiting outside of Trish’s door: Will. He’s ostensibly there to win back Trish’s love, but then starts questioning her about Jessica. Two of Kozlov’s men show up, wanting to bring him back. Will takes two of the red pills and shoots the men dead. When Jessica calls Trish, Will picks up and says he has a lead on Kilgrave's whereabouts. He tells her that Trish is on her way to meet Jessica. That’s a lie. Will has Trish locked in her workout room. Jessica heads back to her place, and finds Malcolm waiting. The other people who Kilgrave noosed have been waiting for her, but she blows them off. Will comes to her door, gun drawn. He only puts it away when he realizes he’s not alone in the hallway. Jessica’s onto him about Clemons, pointing out a burn on his arm. “I didn’t even feel that,” he says, and then starts shooting. They fight, but Jessica injuries are slowing her down. That’s when Trish swoops in and bashes Will’s head with a fire extinguisher. Trish and Jessica lock themselves in the bathroom, but that won't hold, so Trish goes rogue. She takes one of Kozlov’s pills. It exhilarates her. She stabs Will and Jessica finishes him off by pulling the fridge over his head. Trish is hyped after her victory, but soon, can’t speak or breathe. Jessica calls an ambulance and stays with her sister as the EMT administers a sedative. Trish comes to as Jessica sleeps by her hospital bed. Malcolm is totally disillusioned. None of the other victims want to meet him. He wants to be there for people, but Robyn tells him, “No one can help anyone.” He threatens suicide if the world is truly that cold. As for Will? Kozlov comes to pick him up. Texts pop up on Jessica’s phone while she’s at the hospital. They read: “Heard you were looking for me. I ran into your 'boyfriend.' If you hurry you can say goodbye.” She goes to Luke’s bar. He sees her and closes the window. Then, a blast. Luckily, Luke is unbreakable.

Episode 12: “AKA Take A Bloody Number”

Welcome back, Luke! Sorry Kilgrave had you blow up your bar and everything, but good to have you around again. After the explosion, Luke tells Jessica how he got involved with Kilgrave. We see a flashback, where Luke follows Jessica to the restaurant where Hope dies. He doesn't see Jessica, but does see Kilgrave and approaches him, announcing his intentions to kill him. Kilgrave orders him into his car. When Kilgrave discovers that Luke and Jessica have been lovers, he is obviously jealous. Jessica brings Luke back to her apartment, where he says he was a “fool” for not believing her when she initially told him about Kilgrave. Luke seems compos mentis, but Jessica’s wary. She wants to be sure he’s not still under Kilgrave’s control. Meanwhile, Kilgrave is working on expanding that control. He didn’t kill his dad, he is using his pop's scientific prowess to make himself stronger. On the subject of villains playing games with people’s bodies and minds, Trish has done some digging into Kozlov. He’s employed by a private research company called IGH, a nonsensical acronym. Jessica can’t handle another “big bad.” How Buffy of her. Trish has an unwelcome guest at the hospital: her mother, who seems to want to establish some sort of connection to her daughter again. Dorothy returns later with another little bit of outreach: more info on IGH. The company paid for Jessica’s medical bills after the accident. Trish still isn’t about to go all Gilmore Girls with Dorothy, though. Luke and Jessica are off on their investigation adventures. Their first stop: Albert’s motel. A worker there is trying to make some cash by selling what he left. Most of it is pretty basic, except for one chemical: “a viral compound used for genetic brain disorders.” (The worker looked it up.) A-ha! A lead. The two go to a biochem lab. Yup, Kilgrave has been there to stockpile. Jessica and Luke stay on a nearby roof to watch anyone who may come to pick up what Kilgrave wants. There, Luke makes amends. He tells Jessica that he shouldn’t have blamed her for Reva’s murder. He says, “I forgive you for everything and I’ll say it every day for as long as you need to hear it.” They fall asleep on the roof. Luke wakes up to see a man go into the lab. When the man comes back out, Jessica follows him through Central Park until he puts pruning shears through his mouth and falls forward. After his gruesome death, any chemicals he may have had are gone. Luke and Jessica head back to her apartment, where they share a tender moment in the elevator. Trish, who is there to share IGH information with Jessica, happens to see. She wants Jessica to allow herself happiness. Jessica doesn’t take that as an excuse to go fall into bed with Luke, but she does maintain her newfound policy of honesty. She shows him the flash drive. That’s what Reva wanted Luke to find. In another part of Jessica’s apartment building, Malcolm and Robyn are also building a connection. Malcolm has resolved to leave town to go home to his parents, tired of the loneliness of the city. He’s about to go when he hears Robyn freaking out at a delivery woman. Robyn thinks the woman is under the influence of Kilgrave. Malcolm calms her down. The package was for Ruben, a charger he ordered. “I’m no good without him,” Robyn cries. Malcolm takes her to the place where he put Ruben’s body. Robyn forgives Malcolm. Luke has an idea of how Jessica can possibly find Kilgrave. Perhaps Kilgrave is running some tests to see how well his expanded powers work. He is. He showed up to a concert and told everyone to shut up — and they did. Luke and Jessica head to the venue. It’s not open, but the lights are still on, lending it an eerie vibe. All the video footage of Kilgrave at the show was erased. And lo, there’s Kilgrave on stage. Jessica tells the lone employee working and Luke to leave. Kilgrave still has no effect on Jessica, but he does have the upper hand. He throws Luke’s line about forgiveness back at her. “I wrote it,” he says. “Surprise.” Luke had been under his thumb the whole time. Kilgrave orders Luke to kill Jessica. They fight in the club and them move out onto the street, where the cops have arrived. Jessica reaches into the cop car and grabs a rifle, which she holds up against his throat, pleading with him to stop. He tells her, “Do what you gotta do.” She shoots and he’s out. She crawls on top of him, crying.

Episode 13: “AKA Smile” Here we are. The final showdown. Jessica’s first priority is helping Luke. She takes him to the hospital, where the nurses and doctors are baffled about his, well, condition. Well, not all the nurses and doctors. Claire Temple — you know, Daredevil’s friend — is there to help. Jessica enlists Claire with taking Luke back to Alias Investigations HQ, while Kilgrave launches an in-hospital attack. Everyone — doctors, patients — goes after Jessica, because Kilgrave projects her selfie onto all of the screens and orders them to kill her. She escapes with just a cut to the leg and meets Claire at the apartment. When Jessica gets there, Luke is seizing and Claire is straddling him. (Jessica’s not super into that.) Claire pulls cerebral spinal fluid from Luke’s eye. She then tends Jessica’s wound and offers to call her super-friend. Jessica rejects. She doesn’t want to risk Kilgrave getting his hands on anyone else. Ah, yes, Kilgrave. He instructs his father to give him everything he’s been cooking up. There’s a 60% chance it will kill him, but he takes the risk. He ponders what he'll do to Jessica. Tennant makes this soliloquy downright Shakespearean. “Let the experiment begin,” he says. Jessica crawls into bed with Luke. She sweetly tell him, even though he is unconscious, about how she pictured them together, doing “normal shit,” like regular couples. “You’re the first person I ever pictured a future with,” she says. “You’re also the first person I ever shot in the head.” She uses his phone to trace Kilgrave to a swanky penthouse owned by Justin Boden, a hedge fund broker. She asks Claire to stay with Luke and calls Trish to pick her up. Before she goes to confront whatever is in that apartment, she asks Trish to tell her what she had been wanting to tell her. Trish reveals how the IGH may be connected to Jessica’s powers. The friends/sisters devise a signal that Trish will look for if Jessica calls for backup. That way she knows that Jess isn't being controlled. The signal? “I love you.” Upstairs, the scene is gruesome. Albert’s arms have been chopped off, but he still has some signs of life. He tells Jessica not to listen or look at Kilgrave. Jessica also discovers that Kilgrave used the fetus from Hope’s abortion. She calls Hogarth to tell her she knows what happened, but encourages her to hold tight to her position at the law firm. “You are who you are, a sack of dark oozing shit in an expensive suit, which makes you the best shark in town,” Jessica says, demanding that she represent Boden. Kilgrave did leave a clue for Jessica as to where he was going: A yacht docked at the Hudson Ferry Terminal. Off they go. Jessica — or at least it seems like Jessica — struts into the terminal, hood up, music blasting, head down. Kilgrave awaits and calls out a sea of cops. Only it’s not Jessica, it’s Trish. Jessica flies over the firing officers and follows Kilgrave out onto the docks. Trish is close behind. There, an army of people from seemingly varied walks of life await. Kilgrave barks his order. He tells people to start killing one another and they go at it viciously. Trish loses her headphones and gets caught up in the melee. Jessica pushes her way through the crowd and Kilgrave yells, “Stop.” Jessica stops. Kilgrave figures she must have a plan or she would have jumped straight for him. She says that she wanted to make him stop the chaos. Kilgrave is conflicted. He thinks it’s an act, but he also hopes that she truly is obeying him now. He tells her that he’s been "asking the impossible" of her. He craved her love, but she only loves one person: Trish. So he calls Trish over and starts dangling her in front of Jessica. He caresses Trish, talks about how she’ll become his “slave,” and starts to walk away with her. He tells Jessica that if she ever contacts them or they even see her, Trish will slit her own throat. He makes Trish kiss him, passionately. When Jessica still doesn’t move, Kilgrave thinks he’s got her. He approaches her, convinced that one day, she'll love him. He tells her to smile. She does, broadly. He instructs her to say she loves him. She utters the words, “I love you,” but looks straight at Trish. She then grabs his face with one hand. “Smile,” she says, and breaks his neck. It’s a perfect demise for Kilgrave. Women sure as hell don’t need to smile for men, especially not evil assholes. Cut to: Luke opening his eyes. Great timing. Claire tells him that Jessica has been arrested, but that she has killed Kilgrave. Yes, Jessica has been arrested, but she has a confident Hogarth defending her. Her strategy? Argue that Kilgrave made Jessica murder him because of guilt. As for Trish? She gets a delivery from her mom: more files that might lend insight into IGH. Jessica comes home to find Malcolm cleaning her kitchen. She, as per usual, pours herself some booze and plugs her phone in. When it comes back to life, she has tons of messages. They are all from people asking for her help. “Maybe it’s enough that the world thinks I’m a hero,” she says. “Maybe if I work long and hard, maybe I could fool myself.” Jessica doesn't put on a suit. She’s the same cynical woman we met in the pilot — maybe with just a little more hope.