Jessica Jones Season 1 Review

Jessica Jones is an edgy  neo-noir story of a troubled hero and a villain we love to hate, locked in a game of cat and mouse. 

November 20th 2015, Netflix and Marvel release their second project together, Jessica Jones. This is Marvel's first female lead live action project and so the pressure was there for Marvel to have this go well. It did, by January 17th 2016 it was renewed for another 13 episode season.
​Jessica Jones tells the story of a private detective (the titular character played by Krysten Ritter) who is hired to work a missing persons case. The missing person has links to a man named Kilgrave (David Tennant), a man who once had Jessica Jones against her will with his mind control powers. And from that point, the game of cat and mouse begins for the pair.
The momentum throughout the 13 episode season builds well as each episode draws us closer to Kilgrave as the elements of the story unwind. Each episode ends with the need to know more and an urge to capture what is undoubtedly Marvel's Cinematic Universe's greatest villain. It's a very classic noir style as Jessica hunts Kilgrave across the city finding clue to his location and his next move. This is a plot that focuses on more than just the game of cat and mouse but revolves around suffering of post traumatic stress disorder and rape. Both of those are what the lead character is going through and has gone through but the story touches on these issues so well without ever really mentioning them. Yet they lay there in a layer just under the story's main plot.
The characters in this are all broken in some way, all looking to fix themselves. It adds a sense of realism to contain these flawed characters but having them broken aids the story. With the flawed characters, the story has more struggle for an end game as the characters have to fight against their inner demons to become who they need to be. Another layer is now in the mix of the story. These inner demons stop the game of cat and mouse scuttling off like a runaway train by helping to slow it down and give the viewer something else to focus on and work out just how relevant it could be. For example, the title character has super strength but she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and so has to deal with it the best she can to progress further on the quest she has to fulfill. An important character is introduced in this show and that is Luke Cage, a character who also possesses super strength but also impervious skin. Luke Cage is relevant as Netflix and Marvel's team up announced that he is one of their four  projects along with Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist (to be released on March 17th this year) before these heroes team up for The Defenders later this year. 
​The overall quality of production in this show is phenomenal. It looks gritty and urban yet somehow fresh and new. It captures the city in a crisp and vast way, really depicting how small these characters are in the world. The use of purple light for Jessica's PTSD flashes are eerie as it looks so vibrant for something so serious and torturing. The score by Sean Callery has a lovely sense of old school film noir and soon adds a more modern drum beat and guitar into the sound just giving a sense of power in there reminding us that Jessica Jones is more than human. The choreography is close up, gritty, street fighting and a brawling style which is something to really enhance the shows tones and feel real. The choice of narration brings forward the old school noir touch as we here Jessica's internal monologue. Although the narration is only present in the earlier episodes it just shows how her PTSD keeps her in her own head which seems to be a key point to this show.
Netflix and Marvel seem to be a formidable pair after the success of Daredevil and now adapting Jessica Jones into live action just as well. Jessica Jones is a tour de force from Marvel, it's thrilling, captivating and a villain with real threat to the hero.

​Mr. Cynic rates this a 9.5/10