So does it live up to expectations? Almost. For a start, I had lower expectations: my experience of the character was from her appearance as Luke Cage's missus in Bendis's New Avengers, rather than from Alias the distinctly mature series that preceded it. So I had a grasp of the character as a troubled, failed superhero who worked as a PI and had a thing with Cage.
And the essence of that character is here: Jess is a PI, with a rather jaded cynical outlook, who drinks hard and obsesses about Cage from afar. This is linked to actions she undertook whilst under the influence of Killgrave (the Purple Man), and this complex dynamic between her, Cage and Killgrave is the core of the series' story arc.
The acting is great: not everyone has taken to Krysten Ritter, but I really liked her portrayal (I liked her in Breaking Bad, before her ignoble end). She captured the anger, vulnerability and gallows humour well. Cage, played by Mike Colter, was a good contrast to Jones, and very well cast in the role. But it was David Tennant, as expected, who stole the show- grinning, joking, screaming and leering through the whole series in some demonic amalgamation of Dr Who and Barty Crouch Jr. He steals the scenes with such awesome menace that I weep for the Dr Who fans that can't dissociate David Tennant and his mockney accent from the Time Lord.
The plot is suitably adult: the sex scenes are a little heavier at the start, then back off a bit, but are distinctly 15+ and the violence escalates through the series from initial gun shot wounds, moderate gore, to rather more graphic by the end (head shot brain splat, as seems the vogue in TV at present; limbs being sawn off and fed into blender... Yes, really). It pushes the 15 certificate a little, moreso than Daredevil and Gotham, and indeed the sub-text is more adult: Killgrave is a psychopath with mind control and warped humour, so the theme of rape and abuse is key to the plot. In some ways I was disappointed that the attempts to take it down a legal route were doomed to failure, but I'm uncertain the Marvel Universe as depicted here would suit that.
Which brings me onto the Marvel Universe. Now the idea is that all the Marvel Franchise occur in the same world. At times you wouldn't know: the events seem to happen oblivious to the costume shenanigans of the high profile heroes in the Avengers. There are references to Avengers 1, references to big green Dude and Thor, yet nothing more. I presumed it happened prior to Avengers 2, but there was no TV background of superheroes (which would've been really easy to do). I'd forgive all of that if they tied it to Daredevil more- after all, it's in the same neighbourhood. There's a nice enough link in the last episode, but given the (i) finale of Daredevil and (ii) the Killgrave body count and crime, surely DD should be linked to this series more. I hope by either DD2, or Luke Cage, they'll get a grip on it as it would have made this series better if they did that well.
Overall, well worth a watch, and a bonus feature of Patsy Walker (Hellcat, miaow!!). Look forward to the next Netflix offering...
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