Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

It took me a year or so and a 2020 pandemic, but I forced myself to watch the final season—thirteen episodes—of Jessica Jones. Season three had a lot of work to do considering how uneven season two was. It was also the final season to air out of all the Netflix Marvel series, so it was also the ending to a small universe.

Season three picked up with Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) trying to be more of a hero / private investigator in honor of her late mother, who had died in the season two finale. This caused a severe rift between Jessica and her adoptive sister Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor), who was the one who killed her mother. As a result, the two of them became estranged, no longer on speaking terms.

One of the main themes in the season centered around their friendship and their different philosophies on what it means to be a hero. Jessica was the reluctant hero while Trish wanted to get moving and prove herself despite not having the experience. She also hated not having public recognition like Jessica—who hated the recognition—because she needed to wear a mask to hide her identity.

In fact, the season premiere didn’t get rolling until Dorothy Walker (Rebecca De Mornay), Jessica’s adoptive mother, hired Jessica to find her daughter Trish, who had gone missing between seasons two and three.

While the story was much tighter than season two, the pacing issues that plagued all Netflix Marvel shows still existed. However, the first two episodes were so amazing that I had forgot—for two hours—about my bias opinion regarding season three. Then episode 3 came rolling, and I lost the joy of watching Jessica Jones. Bias opinion returned.

The villain of the season, Sallinger (Jeremy Bobb) was also weak. He was a non-powered serial killer with a law degree who saw Jessica Jones and other powered individuals as “cheaters” and beneath him. He was mostly used to test the fragile relationship between Jessica and Trish, who had different opinions on how to handle him. However, he couldn’t live up to Kilgave, the main villain of season one.

The subplots involving Malcolm (Eka Darville) and Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Ann Moss) were also weak, and they connected to the main plot of Sallinger very poorly. Malcolm started working for Jeri after he was done working for Jessica and skewed into dark territory. Eventually, he couldn’t handle defending criminals and reverted back to helping Jessica and Trish with their problems. His character development was messy.

Malcolm and his new girlfriend Zaya were also written poorly. I felt no real investment in their romance. Whenever they had screen time, they were either having sex or arguing about the right and wrong of Jeri’s law firm. There was nothing else going on between them throughout the final season.

Jeri had potential to become something more than a villain, but she kept making bad decisions—that hurt so many people—throughout the season in order to keep her law firm alive and the love of her life “safe”. She was also dying of ALS, which could’ve made her sympathetic, but that was barely mentioned beyond the season premiere.

Overall, the final season failed to live up to the first season. It was structured better than the second season at least, and the series finale had an interesting ending when major characters from first season like Luke Cage and Kilgrave cameoed. While I didn’t enjoy the season as much as I would’ve liked, I’m grateful to have finished all the Netflix Marvel Originals. I’m going to miss them very much.

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