TV Feature: Jessica Jones makes its triumphant return to Netflix

Jessica Jones may not be the superhero we want – but she’s certainly the one we need. When Marvel’s laconic private eye made her debut on Netflix three years ago, her gruelling tale of survivor trauma and the toxic sexual privilege that almost destroyed her felt like a dark curio sealed off from everyday experience.

That, for obvious reasons, is no longer the case and the series returns to the streaming service as that unique thing: popcorn entertainment uncannily plugged into the mood of the age.

Season one was straightforward but unnerving (mild spoilers to follow). Jones is a survivor, once under the dominion of mind-controlling creep Kilgrave (a never more slithery David Tennant), whose powers reduced his victim to a condition of servitude and left her with PTSD. One year before the story opened he had vanished and was presumed dead. But now he had returned, with the expectation that Jones would literally fall into his embrace, overwhelmed and defenceless. “I love you Jessica,” he proclaimed – the scariest line in all 13 episodes.

This was upsetting territory, touching on sexual dominance, the degree to which individuals in unbalanced relationships are deprived of agency and the things they have to do to get on with their lives, understanding justice will not be served to their abusers. The theme is returned to in series two, as Jones’s best pal Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) confronts the man who preyed on her when she was a teenager.

Yet while it might seem as if Jessica Jones has tapped the spirit of Me Too, those behind the drama say this is a product of happenstance. Times change – and what once felt completely of itself is suddenly at one with the zeitgeist.

“All our stories were written and shot before any of that happened,” show runner Melissa Rosenberg told Vulture magazine. “Before the big movement, before any of it came out. It’s born out of the character – we’d always known this about Trish’s character, this thing with her background, and we’re also dealing with some of our own personal experiences.” Trish’s storyline was, she explained, rooted in real life. “This season, for me, is very personal. Borrowing from my own life or from the writers’ lives… it was really just coming from that. It wasn’t in any way trying to make any kind of statement. It continued to look at Trish’s character, starting in season one where we saw the situation of her mother’s abuse and her mother kicking her out. That’s where it was coming from. As it turns out, I think it may be resonant with some people.” Ritter, for her part, was struck by how Me Too paralleled the themes that Jessica Jones was in the process of unpicking. “When the Me Too movement started, I think that was in October, we had just finished the show and we were all texting each other, ‘Whoa, this is so crazy that we just did this in our show,’” Ritter told USA Today. “Melissa Rosenberg has said that these are not new issues. This is not something that just started happening, this is something that’s been happening for a very long time, and far too long. “I was screaming from my living room when everyone was wearing their black dresses to the Golden Globes. During all the exciting speeches about Time’s Up, I was standing on my couch screaming ‘Time’s up!’ as well. It’s a really exciting time and I think we’re all feeling really energised and there’s a real sisterhood. There’s just a palpable infectious energy happening and we’re all just feeling like the sky’s the limit and that there’s nowhere to go but up.”

“I think women have really responded to her character and the plight she went through with PTSD, and I think we can all relate in some way to her and the manipulation,” said Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix), who plays Jones’s high-powered lawyer nemesis in an interview with Vulture. “Although it’s extreme, there’s a subtlety to it that we’ve all experienced on some level.”

Jones is one of four Marvel characters to receive their own Netflix series – alongside Luke Cage (who again cameos in Jones’ show this season), Daredevil and Iron Fist (not great – but not as awful as everyone says). Last year they themed up in the Avengers-lite romp, The Defenders – a mini-series that signalled its brilliance/ awfulness with a boardroom scene in which half a dozen besuited businessmen ripped off their jackets, drew nun-chucks and attacked our heroes Shaolin-style.

“It’s different from anything else in the Marvel genre,” Ritter acknowledged when I met her around the release of the original Jessica Jones. “There’s nothing like her in the movies. The show is not big and bright. This is a dark, small, seedy universe. Jessica is not trying to save the world. She is not trying to be involved in anything. It is a psychological thriller first and a superhero show second.

“I love that about it… You are rooting for her because she is a human being struggling with really big stuff. I’ve never seen a woman play this kind of role. She may not be sympathetic at the beginning. But that all changes.” Jessica Jones Season Two is on Netflix now.