With Jessica Jones’ final season, the age of Marvel’s Netflix heroes has come to an end, and all things considered, the series’ finale did a solid job of giving its characters the space to leave some excellent, lasting impressions.
But there are two moments in Jessica Jones’ very last episode suggesting that the antihero’s adventures might just not be over yet.
In ‘A.K.A. Everything’ Jessica’s caught between a rock and a hard place as she realises that despite everything they’ve been through together, Trish Walker, her best friend and adoptive sister, has become exactly the kind of person she’s been fighting to take down in her life as an unwitting superhero.
Following the horrific murder of her own mother, Trish’s recent pivot to vigilantism takes a dark turn that brings out her rage and fury in ways which blind her to the fact that she’s becoming something of a monster.
It’s not that Trish delights in killing people, exactly, but once she’s determined that someone’s truly evil and a threat to society, it doesn’t take much to drive her into action, and her fighting style is nothing if not lethal.
While the entire city is on alert about the “masked vigilante” who’s been killing folks, Jessica and those close to her know exactly who the person under the mask is, and Jessica has to find the strength to set aside her personal relationship with Trish in order to do the right thing.
But at this point in the season, the bulk of Jessica’s emotional support network is off busy dealing with their own issues, and as ‘A.K.A. Everything’ opens, it seems as if she might have to tough things out solo—until an old friend in some very fancy new clothes makes a guest appearance at her office.
While Netflix’s Marvel shows have tended to treat each of the characters’ different NYC borough locations as completely different cities, Luke Cage casually mentions to Jessica that he’s been following the local news about what’s going on, and he knows Trish is responsible for the string of murders that’s got everyone panicked.
But his visit isn’t just to let Jessica know that he knows, it’s to offer a bit of advice, one hero to another, about why they make the difficult decisions they sometimes do, like fighting their family in order to keep the public safe.
Luke, who’s now sporting a yellow and grey suit similar to Sanford Greene’s take on his costume, making a trip down into lower Manhattan to visit Jessica isn’t all that surprising in and of itself, but it’s interesting to see the person he’s become following the events of Luke Cage’s second season that left him filling the power vacuum created by Mariah Dillard’s sudden death.
Now that Luke’s taken over Harlem’s Paradise, he’s essentially been put in a position that could lead to him becoming yet another crime boss. While he doesn’t explain all of that to Jessica, he makes a point of telling her he sincerely hopes that, should the day ever arrive when he becomes a villain, the people who know and love him would do something to stop him.
It’s clear that Luke is telling Jessica that her instincts about needing to fight Trish are on point, but his speech works just as well as a bit of foreshadowing for what might be in store for his future, were the character to ever pop up elsewhere in the MCU later on.
It’s interesting that even though most of ‘A.K.A. Everything’ is crafted like the end of a story, the final moments are about ghosts from Jessica’s past coming back to haunt her, somewhat. As she stands waiting for her train ticket, the scene’s energy shifts, a purple light takes over the shot, and Kilgrave’s voice begins echoing in Jessica’s head, taunting her for seemingly giving up on the city and her calling.
There was a bit of uncertainty as to whether David Tennant would reprise his role for Jessica Jones’ final act, and the scene leaves it rather open to interpretation as to just what it is that Jessica’s experiencing.
She could be simply hearing Kilgrave’s voice in her head due the stress she’s been dealing with, or there might be some part of his thrall still buried inside her mind because of the amount of time he kept her under his control.
Either way, Jessica’s ultimate decision to turn around and stomp back into New York City is one filled with possibilities, because even though this incarnation of Jessica Jones is through, Marvel Studios is always thinking about the big, big picture.