#nmcu rewatch

[skullsandwhiteroses]

I haven’t even started my rewatch yet (getting a late start) and I already had a dream I was kidnapped by Kingpin’s people and had to kill one of my captors in a pretty unsettling manner to try to protect myself.

This will be my first rewatch since I started a medication that can cause vivid dreaming. This should be…interesting.

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

As sad as I am that these shows ended the way they did, I do feel immense pride that the final image of the Netflix MCU is Jessica Jones turning away from her self-doubt and self-hate, accepting that she's been through hell and doubled down and resolute in pursuit of a future that she wants, where she can do good and be the person that she wants to be, whoever that may be. It's not in how many cases she's closed or the trials she's weathered or even the headlines that call her a "Bona Fide Hero" that make her one. It's her resolve to keep living and keep doing good in the face of immense horror. She is a proud, hardboiled, mess of a woman and she was the final face of this TV universe. That's....that's pretty fucking dope, actually

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

Bless this show for giving me one last Luke cameo

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

There's something very telling in the parallels of Jessica's "when do I get to be normal? when do I get to live a goddamn life?" and Jeri's conversation with Trish later that episode, when Trish is ranting about "why she's the only one willing to step up and give a damn." Jeri gives her a condescending pat on the shoulder and says, "Because the rest of us want to live our lives. It's not our fault yours isn't up to par."

That is so telling of how Trish views heroism as an escape mechanism. She's dissatisfied with her life for a variety of reasons and her active pursuit of this escapist fantasy of being a hero actually contributes to damaging her life further. Alternatively, Jessica was unwillingly thrust into the path of "heroism," or, more like, she was given powers when she did not have the ability to consent to those experiments and is constantly wondering if her powers saddle her with the responsibility of heroism. An unasked for responsibility. Not that Jess doesn't want to help people--she does. But the weight of that expectation and responsibility seems to weigh on her constantly, the classic hero question: "I have these abilities. Now, what do I do with them?"

Jess and Trish run so deeply afoul of each other because Jessica is slowly starting to realize that, after all the trauma she has suffered, she wants to carve out a real life for herself. That she may want to have a stable relationship with Oscar, which means taking care of Vido as well. Responsibility, but a responsibility she chose. Connection and care with other people in a way that isn't toxic and damaging. It's slow and it's hard, but a lot of Season 2 is Jessica waking up to realize what she's been putting herself through and that she's been depriving herself of her social needs and that it's not been to any benefit. She has only been damaging herself in the aftermath of her trauma, and she begins trying to fix that. Trish, on the other hand, is desperate to matter and clings to the idea that having powers will make her matter--not just in the eyes of her friends and family, but on a larger, worldwide stage. She tunnel visions on a very black and white version of heroism and rejects the accouterment of normality. She doesn't want to be normal. Normal won't make her feel important. Neither will other people, and so other people become tools for her, tools to manipulate and control (not unlike how her mother treated her. In fact, Trish's early attempts to vicariously live out heroics through Jessica can and probably should be viewed through the lens of Trish's mom-related trauma).

So Jess and Trish become two sisters pursuing inherently different goals--Jess is reaching toward healing and Trish is, rather unfortunately, letting the effects of her past traumas guide her toward destruction. They make very fascinating and powerful foils for each other in this way.

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

Jessica saying out loud "When do I get to be normal? When do I get to have a goddamn life?" absolutely makes my heart break for her, but also in conjunction with the end of this season, it makes her having dinner with the Arocho's even more important and have so much more depth as the kind of normality and connection Jessica is only just realizing she wants

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

oh my kingdom for if season 2 of the Punisher had been about Dinah Madani instead of Frank

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

I want Dex panic bleating like a goat as my text ringtone so bad

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

"I ask questions for a living. I just ask better ones than you do" Karen, you sexy, sexy legend