Jessica Jones: The TV Slut Chat

After binge watching Netflix's Jessica Jones all weekend, fellow TV Slut, Ben, and I sat down and had a good old fashioned chat about it. It's mostly Ben using big words and having deep thoughts and me acting like a fool (typical day at the office), but I think we occasionally come up with some insightful things to say. Enjoy!

Maggie Cats(M): So what did you think of Jessica Jones?

Benjamin (B): I liked it a lot. I think I liked it more than Daredevil, which is saying something. The first thing I think about, though, when I read all the think-pieces on Jessica Jones, is that I feel calling it a "noir" is kind of on the wrong track, thematically.It's really blurring the lines between a detective story and a horror story which involves detective work, like The Ring.

M: I agree with all that and getting back to Daredevil briefly, it's clear that the shows both exist in the same world, but their "heroes" are wildly different. Jessica Jones is even darker and bleaker...and she's a type of hero we haven't seen before (at least in the Marvel cinematic universe). I love how broken, traumatized, and scared she is. She's one of the most powerful women in the world and she's basically jumping at shadows and drinking herself into oblivion.

B: Frankly, except for some cop shows which (mostly deservedly) had only one season before being consigned to Netflix (e.g. Hack), we don't have crime-fighters who are basically messes.

M: Exactly. The entire season is really about her finding her own agency again and learning to trust people. I deal with PTSD a lot in my job, and in my lay opinion, they did a nice job with a realistic portrayal of someone with this type of trauma. Well, not mind-control trauma, but you know what I mean. We don't get a lot of THAT in my line of work.

B: I thought that was all pretty good, too. I was a little worried up until about episode 8 that Jessica Jones, for plot reasons, seemed to have it too well together, but then she did some really dumb self-destructive stuff that you do when you can't keep it together.

M: EXACTLY. And the one thing the writers had to do to make the viewer buy into  this season was establish why you couldn’t just shoot Kilgrave and call it a day. And I think that's why Hope was such an important character. Kilgrave had to stick around to get Hope off the murder rap--which clearly represented Jessica's one chance at redemption as well. After all, without her the show would be over in one episode. "Jessica tracks down the guy who violated her and puts a bullet in his head." Done. So how do you keep the story going? Come up with a compelling reason to make her want to keep Kilgrave alive.

B: It's also true that, until Jessica Jones gets Kilgrave to run amok in NYC, if she just killed him, no one would really believe her about his powers and therefore other than Trish they wouldn't believe that she didn't want to do all the stuff Kilgrave told her to do. Many of the people in Jones' orbit - I'm thinking Hogarth and Cage primarily - only give lip service to, "oh, yeah, Kilgrave can control minds" until they encounter him directly.

M: Everyone told Jessica that they understood Kilgrave was bad and the things he did were horrible. But nobody REALLY understood the full extent of it until they were victims of his powers themselves. It's another thing that felt very real and powerful; until you have experienced something like that, you can't really appreciate the true horror. I think the guy who was forced to give up his coat on the subway clearly had it the worst. I mean, can you IMAGINE? Oh, the humanity.

B: Note how he kept going to the meetings, though. Not being able to be an asshole when he wanted to really took a lot out of him.

M: The show is certainly dark and I wouldn't call it funny, but there are little moments like that are funny in a kind of Fargo-"aren't people ridiculous" type of manner.

B: I actually thought this show was more "accurately New York" than Daredevil. The real estate looked realer, the weirdos seemed more like the folks I encountered on the street, etc. I and most of the people I knew lived in buildings like the one Jessica Jones lives in.

M: That takes us back to your first (or was it second) point, I actually found Daredevil much more noir than this in terms of style and lighting. Sidenote: I think Jessica Jones and Veronica Mars would have gotten along well. 


**POTENTIAL LATER EPISODE SPOILER AHEAD**Shifting gears a bit, were you surprised when Rosario Dawson’s Night Nurse showed up?

B: Slightly. I am familiar with the MCU movie schedule, so not exceptionally surprised since Since Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones are all in the Defenders movie together. **END LATER EPISODE SPOILER**

M: I was shocked, I had no idea there would be overlap. I knew they would eventually come together, but was surprised at a cross-over character at this point. Speaking of Luke Cage…any thoughts? I thought he was hot as hell.

B: He is an amazingly attractive man. It seems, though, in Jessica Jones, if you're a man without super powers, you're mostly incompetent. And not worth talking to for the most part. It's refreshing, really.

M: I read somewhere online that this series actually fails the Bechdel test for men. Which delights me. It's so great how Marvel is getting to explore all these new types of characters and storytelling on Netflix. It almost (well actually, not almost) makes the movies look kind of hackneyed in comparison.

B: I wonder how much of this we would have seen had it not been on Netflix or a similar streaming service. This is a "prestige TV"-level of faith in the auteurs.

M: Netflix (and to a similar extent subscription cable) are really redefining what makes a successful tv series. Network programming looks sloppy and poorly planned in comparison.

B: The problem, I think, with network TV is that, like any legacy media, they would like to keep the same level of market share. So NCIS and other pleasers of everyone over 50 keep coming because the newer market is so fragmented. Or riffs thereon, like Mysteries of Laura.

M: It will be interesting to see at what point streaming television stops being considered "new" by more established (i.e. older) viewers. And oh my gosh, I can’t believe we haven’t talked about David Tennant yet!

B: I want to note that the first time we see his face he's licking Krysten Ritter's cheek in classic "creepy pervert" style. Also, we do not see the "soulfully sad" eyes he uses in pretty much everything else he's in.

M: I think David Tennant is a great actor, but I don't think he has a lot of settings. So this character felt very derivative of the Tenth Doctor to me--if the Tenth Doctor was a total sociopath. So what I am trying to say is that I found him really fucking scary. And I think the show made an excellent choice by keeping him basically off-screen for several episodes. We only hear of what he does from his victims; so you aren't REALLY sure what he's going to be like. And then within a few seconds of meeting him, he casually tells a guy to throw hot coffee in his face. As the audience, in that moment, you are like, "oh, I get it."

B: I had a different take on the buildup. Because we see early on how pervasive Kilgrave can be in recruiting small armies of agents, and how insidious their programming can be, when he's not on the screen he's sometimes a lot more dangerous-seeming than when he is. I felt Jessica Jones' paranoia for those first episodes; I totally understand why she wanted to book it to Hong Kong.

M: That’s an excellent point—there’s a lot of “Kilgrave can be anybody.”

B: AND HE IS. They just don’t say it.

M: He’s definitely playing a long game and Jessica is more flying (controlled falling) by the seat of her pants. I mean, she’s basically controlled falling the entire season. OMG SYMBOLISM.

B: It's also good to note that what Jeri Hogarth says about Kilgrave is also true - his ambitions are kind of small potatoes. Darkseid spends like years and years of DC comic time trying to get the Anti-Life Equation, which is basically what Kilgrave has.

M: I wonder what traps Kilgrave has left for Jessica in season 2? There was a lot of time he had to whisper in people's ears, you know. I am sure he made some contingency plans.

B: But that would require he consider the potential that he would actually fail. I don't know that he ever really does. You can see how sort of anti-charming he is when he can't use his powers. I think one of the reasons Kilgrave is so after Jessica is that she could escape him and that just makes him crazy. He's not really interested in controlling the world, he's interested in what he wants now and if he doesn't get it, he throws a fatal tantrum.

M: His emotional development definitely got stunted. Right about the time his parents started stabbing needles into his brain stem.

B: He's like some philosophers' descriptions of demons: unable to manifest the virtues of patience, prudence, etc. except for sheer force of will.

M: WOAH. What? It’s a Sunday afternoon man, you can’t get that deep with me. STOP IT. Let’s talk about how hot Luke Cage is again.

B: He has an amazing chest. So, on that front, what did you think of the first sex scene where Jessica Jones says "you won't break me," and Luke Cage insists that he probably will? And then you see in Krysten Ritter's face like, "man, this is NOT DOING IT FOR ME."

M: I like how I knew they both had super powers, but neither of them knew the other one did. Basically, the first sex scene felt like foreplay for the later sex scene. When they are like, "ah yeah now I can go for it."

B: And then destroy things.

M: So instead of the first sex scene feeling like a culmination of something, it was just really just whetting the appetite.

B: Did you notice that Trish is also super-assertive during sex?

M: UM, YEAH. There is one part right after when she, Simpson, and Jessica are discussing the plan to get Kilgrave when she is like, "Hey, last night was fun, but that doesn't mean I want to hear your opinion.” I was like, GO GIRL.

B: Well, Trish is super-supportive of her BFF/sorta-sister. And Simpson is never right about anything ever.

M: And here's the real crazy thing: it's not like the women in this show are just "acting like men" or whatever you want to call it. They're all just ACTING LIKE PEOPLE. Who are flawed. And kinda broken. And it's wonderful.

B: Yes. They’re not just made up to be “masculine.”

M: So of course Trish is going to back Jessica, and you can shut your mouth, Simpson. This is a great example of how to do blind casting (changing character's genders and races from the source material) correctly.I believe these people were the right fit for the part and make Jessica's NYC feel more authentic. Sure, it's not perfect, but definitely a step toward more diverse storytelling.

B: I know that I really liked watching Trinity from The Matrix and Calamity Jane from Deadwood yell at each other.

M: YES.

And we’ll leave you with that mental image since that’s where the discussion pretty much stopped. We didn’t get a chance to do much summing up (since Ben’s daughter was getting squirmy in his lap), but needless to say we both loved Jessica Jones. And saying that we liked it even more than Daredevil is high praise indeed!

You can watch all 13 episodes of the first season of Jessica Jones on Netflix streaming.

Murder Ball

I took one for the team and watched Fox's American incarnation of the British murder mystery series, Gracepoint.

Look eeento my eeeeyyesss.

As I said before, I have not seen the British original, Broadchurch, so I am basing my overall thoughts on solely my viewing of Gracepoint. I read that the show has not been renewed for a second season (why would there be a need for a second season?), but I just wanted to state my thoughts and final impressions.

UPDATED TO ADD. I FOUND OUT THAT BROADCHURCH IS STREAMING ON NETFLIX. I MAINLINED IT. YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS. HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS. 

So I come to you now fully informed.

The series finale aired December 11, and while it was fun guessing who the culprit may have been, the final reveal was rather...underwhelming. The overall ending of Gracepoint is like Broadchurch, but they did add a twist to the end that differed from the Broadchurch ending.

If you haven't seen either Broadchurch or Gracepoint, I suggest you stop reading this now. 

It didn't really take a genius to figure out that Det. Ellie Miller's family was involved in the death of Danny Solano in some way. The writers kept dropping CONSTANT hints that Ellie's son knew something, and they dropped CONSTANT hints that since she was working all the time, she had no idea what was actually going on at home. (A win for feminism!) 

However, they heightened the creeper factor in a way that I didn't think needed to be heightened. Finding out that her husband Joe (Josh Hamilton, of American Horror Story) was a pedophile and wanted to get into Danny's 12-year-old knickers definitely upped the ewww quotient, but in this day and age of Law & Order SVU, a pedophile dad is pretty tame for prime time TV. Even cliche. They'd been dropping a lot of hints during the run of the show that Someone in Gracepoint was a sexual predator, so the fact that it was revealed to be Ellie's husband just made me kind of shrug. They advertised this as the "ultimate twist" but it wasn't really the biggest twist I could have imagined, honestly. So, I think they lost a bit of points in the creativity department.

  I'm not a creepy perv. I only play one on TV. 

I mean, everyone in this town HAD A SECRET or SOMETHING TO HIDE and the fact that we learned, yet again, that someone in Gracepoint was HIDING SOMETHING, just made me kinda go, "Ok, yeah. We get it. Everyone in this town is messed up and weird. Who cares who killed Danny Solano because honestly? These people are screwed."

Original filmed ending of Broadchurch.

I think it would actually have been a lot more tragic if Danny and Tom Miller had been out messing around and being boys, and Tom had accidentally killed Danny, and went to his father about it, and his father helped cover it up. Or if Tom had accidentally killed Danny, then spent the rest of the night freaking out and dragging his body down to the beach, then hastily trying to make it look like he fell. But yeah, point being. It was completely obvious, from the first episode showing Tom deleting text messages, to him trying to break apart his hard drive, that Tom was involved in Danny's death somehow. Also, his completely nonplussed reaction to Ellie telling Tom that Danny had died was a big clue. Having to wait nine more episodes to have my suspicion confirmed that he killed him on accident didn't really bother me so much as I think that they should have tried to make it a little less obvious from the get-go.

We've gathered some evidence and it seems to point to you being a terrible mother.

Another change they made was in the character of Paul Coates. In Broadchurch, Coates is harmless and adorable and RORY and is into the local hotelier lady. In Gracepoint, he is just downright creepy. So creepy, in fact, he was many of the fans' prime suspect for a while. Gracepoint Paul Coats is in love with Beth Solano, and is creepy and pervy and generally the cause of many an irk. I'm not sure why they made this change for the American version. As if that town didn't already have enough creepers.  I preferred the Rory version, because he wasn't weird, and he also developed a relationship bonding with the slutty hotel lady. I guess they had to try to do something with the Coates character because he was supposed to be a priest but, um, guys? There are Episcopalian ministers in the States, too. Just sayin'. He didn't have to be Catholic. I'm just throwing that out there.

DT: You a priest this time?

AD: Yeah. You?

DT: I'm a foul-tempered, lonely, bitter, jaded inspector trying to save these people from themselves.

AD: Way to play against type.

Overall, Gracepoint was not a point-for-point copy of Broadchurch beyond the first episode. Watching Broadchurch over this last weekend showed that while Gracepoint hit all of the main plot points and for certain scenes, the dialogue was verbatim, but other episodes and scenes things went off in an entirely different direction. The last scene of Gracepoint showed a Detective Carver (Tennant) calling Ellie, who was in a hotel with Tom, and had figured out through her super sleuthing skills that he had killed Danny, and Ellie ignored his call. So, they left the door open for a second season, but Fox chose to renew the series. That was definitely altered from the original. 

So...This blows.

That leads us to the manner of death. While on Broadchurch, Joe Miller strangled Danny Latimer in an act of desperation, and Broadchurch Joe was sad and pathetic and clearly mentally disturbed, Gracepoint Joe was totally predatory and a bit freaky. On Broadchurch, Tom Miller is a bit of a red herring, but on Gracepoint, Ellie figures out that Joe is covering for Tom. Gracepoint Tom follows Gracepoint Joe and as Danny is running away, Tom confronts his father and seems to be trying to protect Danny, and accidentally hits him in the back of the head with an oar. Then Joe tells Tom to go home, and proceeds to try to cover up the murder. 

One other change they made was in the character of the lady journalist, Renee Clemons (Jessica Lucas).  I dislike her character in Gracepoint, and I don't care for her on Broadchurch, either. She is the epitome of a bad journalist, making accusations about Jack without getting the (easily available) public records and back stories about his conviction. Just a crappy, crappy journalist, but a pretty good indictment of the laziness and sensationalism that our media can become prey to. They kind of redeemed her character on Broadchurch, but on Gracepoint her arc ended at Horrible Human Being. 

I'm going to work for cable news. You yokels aren't getting in my way.

My overall take is that Gracepoint, while being a very close copy of Broadchurch, is not an exact carbon copy of the British murder mystery. It was good, but not great, but it did create a bit of an addictive factor. However, there was something special about Broadchurch that I don't think the American version was quite able to capture.  One minor detail that I observed about the British version is that they definitely showed the change in seasons. I think setting this in NoCal (*coughcoughBritishColumbiacoughcough*) was a poor choice. It's scenically quite similar to the cliffs of Wessex, but it looked like it was cold and rainy ALL THE DAMN TIME. So, I didn't get the same sense of a passage of time between Danny being found dead and Joe's confessions. On Broadchurch, Danny died in summer, and Joe was caught in late fall. Again, a minor detail, but it made a lot of difference in terms of gauging how long this case was dragging on.

What time of the year is it? Dreary O'clock.

Gracepoint is still pretty engrossing, and it is stylish, sophisticated, and moody. It is definitely worth a watch if you like murder mysteries and horrible people. 

However, I do feel the American make-up team did a better job of making David Tennant look like shit. 

There was also this.

Buuuurrrrp.

Fall Shows Yayayaya...

Hello, my children. How are you wayward delinquents today?  

Here are three shows that have been somewhat occupying my attention in recent days and weeks. 

Gracepoint

You know that I love me some MUHDUH mysteries. Normally, I watch British mysteries, including the delightfully wacky Miss Marple series. That said, I am probably the only person on the planet who hasn't seen Broadchurch, and I am thus intrigued by the American incarnation of the David Tennant series, Gracepoint. So, if you're reading this post and hoping it will contain a comparison of Gracepoint to Broadchurch, culminating in the hipster assertion that the American version WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS THE BRITISH VERSION, I advise you to quit this post posthaste and make some artisan cheese to assuage your frustration. Maggie Cats has written her take on Gracepoint, so I shall add my two cents.

I watched the season premiere of Gracepoint and I was pretty engrossed, and that's saying a lot since I have the attention span of your average house cat. I am stoked for all things British, but thus far I cannot say that Gracepoint is better or worse than the British version.

The plot is pretty simple and will be familiar to those who have seen Broadchurch.  David Tennant stars in a role based on his role on Broadchurch. He portrays Emmett Carver, your stereotypically grizzled and disillusioned detective. Carver has a Past that is haunting and threatening to catch up with him.  Butting heads with him is Detective Ellie Miller (Anna Gunn), who learned she had been replaced by Carver when she returned from family vacation. So there's already tension there. From Wikipedia:

Detective Ellie Miller is upset when Emmett Carver is assigned as lead detective while she was on vacation. Carver's first case is a cut barbed-wire fence. Twelve-year-old Danny Solano goes missing, and his body is found at the base of cliffs overlooking the local beach. Beth Solano sees her son's body on the beach and breaks down. Having known the Solanos for years, Ellie deals with her own personal struggles as well as the Solanos'. A crime scene officer says the crime scene was altered to look like an accident, and the pathologist says Danny was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. Carver and Ellie disclose the cause of Danny's death to the Solanos, and Mark identifies the body. Ellie's nephew and ambitious reporter Owen Burke extracts information from Ellie for a Twitter report, causing tension with the police and upsetting the Solanos. Ellie takes the blame for Owen's action. Carver is asked if he wishes to withdraw from the case, but he does not. Renee Clemons, reporter for the San Francisco Globe, arrives in town without her supervisor's permission to try to get an exclusive on the death. Beth visits the crime scene with Ellie, and Ellie expresses her grief to her husband Joe. Ellie tells their son, Tom, about Danny's death, and he then secretly wipes his mobile phone and computer to remove evidence. Owen unwittingly provides Renee with a link to Chloe Solano, and CCTV footage shows Danny skateboarding down a street on the night of his murder. Ellie notes that Danny's phone and skateboard were not recovered at the crime scene and are missing. At a press conference, Carver urges anyone to come forward if anyone they know is behaving differently and remarks: "We will catch whoever did this."

This is one of those shows that you either commit to and follow through to the end, or you give up after the first couple of episodes. It's only 10 episodes, so the usual multi-season formula so common in American series is being put to the test here. It will be interesting to see if the British series formula works in the United States. The first episode was actually pretty engrossing, and I will continue to watch it unless it completely goes off the rails. It's my understanding that Gracepoint is a point-for-point copy of Broadchurch, so is that a good thing or a bad thing? Will they change things up and do a musical episode? I hope so. I guess Fox is trying to cash in on this critically acclaimed drama award-winning stuff. We'll see if that pans out for them.

"Just get back in your Tardis...or mope around your castle...or sweep a chimney...or something."

I enjoyed the pilot because it was full of intrigue and I like intrigue. Also, being from a small town in the Midwest has given me a healthy appreciation for small-town hypocrisy, Dirty Little Secrets kept by "elite" members of the social hierarchy, and community tragedies revealing cracks in the idyllic veneer. It's sort of my milieu. Yes, I used milieu in a sentence.

British Columbia stars as Northern California.

Gracepoint airs 9 p.m. EST Thursdays on Fox.


Inspector Lewis

Okay, so ITV and PBS totally LIED about last season being the last season ever of Inspector Lewis. It was probably just a conspiracy to get us all to go console ourselves with Endeavour, which is great, don't get me wrong, but ZOMG Lewis & Hathaway. 

Our conclusion: The pints were MUHDUHED. We MUHDUHED these mofos.

It is really good to see Hathaway and Lewis back together solving MUHDUHS again. At the end of last season, Lewis (Kevin Whatley) was set to retire and go shack up with and/or marry the Lady Coroner, Laura Hobson. A disillusioned Hathaway was quitting the force to pursue that most common of affluent white people past times, to Find Himself.  Anyway, Hathaway decides that himself done got founded and returns to the Oxfordshire PD, as Detective Inspector Hathaway. Superintendent Jean Innocent asks Lewis to return as a consultant, even though he is retired. For plot reasons. It is called Inspector Lewis, after all. Continuity, people. Continuity.

Hathaway has a new underling, Detective Sergeant Lizzie Maddox, A Lady. I ship them.

Other than the changes, it's the same academic MUHDUHS and high-jinks in the homicide-laden Oxford.

Inspector Lewis generally airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on PBS. 

The Paradise

As you may recall from my post last year, I was all aflutter about The Paradise, BBC's answer to ITV's Mr. Selfridge and Downton Abbey.

"Okay, so. For this scene, girls, think Clueless."

I am including it in my post about MUHDUH because THE BBC MUHDUHED THIS SHOW. They MUHDUHED IT.  

I'm not sure when and where this crime occurred. I think it happened when the BBC realized they could tart up trashy soap operas with crinolines and a few bustles and call it art. THANKS DOWNTON ABBEY. The Paradise has lost its soul. I think mayhaps the writers are searching high and low for material. The show is still pretty good, but it's not AS good as the first season. Perhaps its just the sophomore curse, but BBC of course canceled the show so there will be no season 3 of The Paradise. More Big Brother UK coming to a tele near you, Britons. 

After Moray and Katherine Glendenning's marriage plans fell through at some point after the end of last season, she (Bitchtits) banished him to Paris and away from his True Love, Denise.

Denise and Mr. Moray have consecrated their luvz for one another (not in that way; get your minds out of the gutter) so as they are no longer gazing longingly at each other over a window dressing 

I want you to dress me like one of your French girls.

the tension between them has lessened somewhat, shall we say. Since Bitchtits is now married to a philandering gajillionaire widower, and is no longer overtly trying to rape Moray, the show has had to create drama elsewhere. I was underwhelmed by the season premiere, and I was left perplexed by the second episode of the season. 

A couple of new characters have joined the cast. Katherine aforementioned hubby, Tom Weston, is a psychologically scarred war veteran whose first wife died, leaving him with his young daughter, Flora. Katherine has decided that Flora makes a nice pet, so she has showered her with attention and fripperies and furbelows from the store. Since Moray ended up losing the store ownership to the Glendennings, to whom he owed money, Katherine and Tom now own the store, since Katherine's father died. Weston constantly cheats on Katherine and brazenly makes passes at everything in a skirt, including shop girl Clara, and Katherine is probably scheming to destroy Moray while pretending to have forgiven Moray for his betrayal and to also destroy Denise for a-stealin' her man. Yeah, yeah. Katherine says she's reformed but considering how batshit crazy she was on Season 1 I'm guessing she's got something up her finely laced sleeve.

INTRIGUE!

Another new character is the scullery wench/cook/token Cockney, Myrtle. Myrtle works in the kitchen at The Paradise and shouts at everyone loudly in an accent indicative of the lower social orders. She generally looks unkempt, sweaty, and as she is working class, she is more than a little bit slutty, indicated by her low-cut frock, messy hair, and boobs jacked to Jesus.

Don't 'it me!

Anyway, I will continue to watch and see it through to the end/death of the series. I'm sorry to see the series go off the air. It had a solid first season and this season is entertaining if a bit silly.

Catch The Paradise on PBS. It generally airs on Masterpiece on Sundays, but as always with PBS, check your local listings.

Broadchurch will break you

So, I kind of don't know where to begin with this. Broadchurch, y'all. Easily the best eight hours of television I've seen in a while.

For those of you not on top of your BBC America summer re-airing game, Broadchurch is a self-contained series about the murder of a young boy in the small seaside town of Broadchurch, England. I was initially a little hesitant because, although it stars David Tennant's native Scottish accent* as a world-weary police investigator, it also features the death of an 11-year-old kid. As the stepmom of an 11-year-old kid, I was ... wary.

But dear Lord am I glad I tuned in. (WARNING: ALL OF THE SPOILERS AHEAD!)