Jessica Jones, Jessica Jones.

On the one hand, this is just a superhero television show, so expectations shouldn’t be too high. On the other hand, it is a FEMALE superhero television show, and that is extremely rare, and so it carries a lot of hopes and expectations.

On the one hand, it is a gritty and fresh take on the genre with a kickass anti-hero and an unflinching look at the aftermath of abuse and the burden of power, and addresses issues of rape and stalking that are too often ignored. On the other, it is a derivative noir with an anticlimactic ending and problematic depictions of stalking which is made even worse by the fact that, it BEING so rare to have female superheroes, having her opening storyline focused on stalking and rape and romance is itself a bit sexist (as Christy noted, “Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio… If only Vinny’s sole reason to engage was because he’d been in love with the hero. But it wasn’t, was it?”).

Yet I can’t imagine telling Jessica’s particular story without showing this chapter of it up front. So in the end, I felt that, other than fixing a few plot issues and making the stalking less sympathetic in parts (based on comments I’ve seen sympathizing with him), the real need isn’t to change Jessica’s story, but to have enough shows with female hero leads whose stories aren’t centered on romance (whether good or gone horribly wrong) that you can have a show like Jessica Jones and allow it to simply be an action drama without it having to carry such heavy hopes and responsibilities and expectations.