Marvel fans i've talked alot about the companies animated shows at least depending on where your seeing this review I have. So I thought that i'd make more of an effort to take a look at some of the live action shows that the company has put out and by luck alot of their live action shows are set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe even tho the Marvel Cinematic Universe films don't acknowledge the shows and the shows don't acknowledge the movies that much and so here is my review of the first episode of Jessica Jones season one called "AKA Ladies Night" enjoy the review.
The plot of the episode is Jessica Jones is a private detective and is tasked with finding someone's daughter a quest which will see an old enemy return into her life. I'll admit the p;lot of the episode is alot better then what I remember it being I saw this episode when it was first released and I remember thinking that the story wasn't that great but now after just finishing re-watching the episode I think it's alot better since it is an engaging story and it does a good job of setting up all of the main characters as well as the story for this first season which is something alot of pilot episodes just don't do anymore for some strange reason.
Starring in the episode is Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones , Mike Colter as Luke Cage and Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker. Also starring in the episode is Erin Moriarty as Hope Shlottman , Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse , Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth , David Tennant as Kilgrave , Susie Abromeit as Pam , Robin Weigert as Wendy Ross-Hogarth , Kobi Libii as Zack , Joseph Ragno as Roy Healy , Ian Blackman as Bob Shlottman and Deborah Hedwall as Barbara Shlottman.
The acting from the series regular cast is again alot better then what I remember it being since I remember it being at best OK with the exception of Krysten Ritter who when the episode was first released I thought was fantastic. The same is still true here Krysten Ritter really is the only person who play Jessica Jones in live action in my opinion as for the guest cast they were at best passable which I guess makes sense since there never going to be the focus of the show nor remembered that much and so they can afford to not give that good of a performance but at the same time I would have liked it if they did put in a bit more effort tho.
This to me is a different kind of breed of a live action Marvel show because alot of them have a hero who is ready and willing to be a hero where as this show gives us someone who has already been a hero and is now trying to get away from that and live somewhat of a normal live. This to me makes the show interesting because as we find out the main reason why Jessica is basically in hiding is because of something she had no control over which in turn adds a layer to the Jessica Jones character since now she has trust issues and her way of helping to deal with that and with her PTSD is to give up being a super hero.
As you can tell by the poster this was a Netflix show which means it's alot more mature and alot more darker then alot of Marvel shows animated or live action. So basically if you have Disney+ because yes this show I believe is on there and you have little kids begging you to let them watch this show just say no because there's gore , partial nudity and other things just in this episode and as this first season goes on it gets darker and more mature.
I would normally mention the villain much later in the review but since we don't really get a good idea of who Kilgrave is in this episode to me it only made sense to bump this part up. To me the character of Kilgrave as his powers are really dark not just for a Netflix show but for any show he has the power to violate you in ways that you never thought possible and even tho he doesn't appear at least fully in this episode we do get a feel for what kind of a threat he is as well as some sort of an idea of how dangerous of a threat he is to Jessica and her life as well as her friends and loved ones.
There are some down sides tho the first of which being we don't get to see this season's main bad guy which if this was a forty five minuet episode I would fully understand since you have alot of things to set up and so holding of on letting see the villain makes sense. However this episode is nearly fifty five minuets long and so they really have no excuse plus he does play a huge part in the story and so letting us see the villain actually makes alot of sense.
Not really helping things for this episode is the fact that the episode doesn't really take the time to even start to develop characters like Trish or Luke Cage. Which is a shame because when it comes to Trish she becomes sort of a co-lead character with Jessica and Luke goes on to have his own Netflix series and so you have to make the auidence fall in love with these characters because you want us to want to see more of them and when you don't even begin to develop the characters or even show us any thing when it comes to there personality it makes us hard to love these characters.
That being said I do see why they didn't chose to start to develop Luke Cage as a character because like I said he does get his own Netflix show, As such it makes sense that his show would be the one to fully develop his character but it makes his appearance in this show pointless tho because from what I recall he doesn't get much development as a character and so why would we want to see him in his show where he's going to get the development that should have started with this show.
I have to admit I love the end twist in this episode just because it makes you wonder if the either the person Jessica is looking or if Jessica herself is truly safe. Which to gives this season as well as this episode an air of dread just because you don't know who else he's controlling and weather they are aware of it or not which is something that you just don't see in shows these days since there more interested in setting up things for future episodes.
Overall this is honestly a really good episode and is a really good representation of what the show would go on to become in my opinion. Yes there are faults in this episode but you could say that about the premier episode and aren't just exclusive to this show and trust me when I tell you there's a huge chance I could watching an even worse premier episode tomorrow as such this episode gets a 7 out of 10 from me.
All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page. Since I just said that I only when to one place for the images used in this review I have no choice but to recommend that you use the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page if you want images from this show , this episode or any movie or show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.