MovieChat Forums > Jessica Jones (2015) Discussion > And this is what happens when you have w...

And this is what happens when you have women writers and directors....


Did they forget that JJ is a crime-solving superhero and not a candidate for a Lifetime series? Jessica finding herself and understanding her past is relevant to getting on the right track in her life, but it took 13 long and boring episodes to get there. With good (or even decent) writing, she could've found her past while being involved with a few good gumshoe stories.

Watching Jeri's plight was far more interesting than the never-ending, drawn-out soap opera of Jessica and her mother. And when you add Trish being the most annoying character since Jar-Jar Binks, I wonder how I even sat through all of it.

Thumbs down, Netflix. Thumbs down.

reply

I thought it started out good.Then toward the last half of the season it turned into a mother daughter tear jerking bonding fest.And Trish's constant whining and brooding about wanting powers too really made me dislike her character.I didn't know that every episode was directed and written by women but it makes sense.Every male character on the show is depicted as either a complete douche bag or ineffectual supporting characters who are there to be kicked around by the 2 leads.The one exception being the bald cop.

reply

>Then toward the last half of the season it turned into a mother daughter tear jerking bonding fest

True, but it was nice to see were Jessica get's all her 'Jessica-ness' from, even her mum pointed out she's a moody brat. But Jessica can't be moody all the time, she can't just be wa wa my life is terrible and bad shit keeps happening, unless you want her to be the poster girl blatant mental illness.

>And Trish's constant whining and brooding about wanting powers too really made me dislike her character.

Uh, yes, i on one hand, kinda hate the sudden addition of super power envy. But then She was on a downward trend all season, but i hope she get's her ass kicked by things like laws and public opinion and see's that no, she can't just go out and be a vigilante.

reply

I really liked it. Not as much as season one, but I liked it a lot more than Defenders, Iron Fist, Punisher, and the second half of Luke Cage. Maybe that's because I'm a female though.

reply

All art is subjective, they say. I'm not getting the same feel as you for this season of JJ, even though I'm going to "push through" and attempt to finish the season this weekend.
What does surprise me though, is that you think it was better than Defenders and Punisher. I can understand if you didn't like Iron Fist but why do you think it's better than Defenders?
Punisher is more of a guy show anyway, as female viewers typically don't like an overabundance of testosterone. Punisher definitely has that in boatloads. LOL!

reply

I thought Defenders was kinda boring. I was hoping for something better, especially with the cast. I know that a lot of people found this boring, but for me the difference was this had character development, where Defenders just had a bunch of characters.

reply

Okay but here's where I have the disconnect (the same disconnect I have with critics of Avengers: Infinity War that make similar arguments), because there were 5 previous shows all about Daredevil (2 seasons), Jessica Jones (1 season), Luke Cage (1 season) and Iron Fist (1 season). The Hand was introduced and explored in nearly every individual storyline (save Luke Cage) and every character was more than fleshed out in their own shows, so I don't really understand the "lack of character development" argument. That's like critics saying Infinity War didn't have enough character development. There were 18 previous movies over 10 years. How much more character development is needed??

You can have your opinion, it just doesn't make sense to me. That's all I'm saying but to each their own.

reply

I understand where you are coming from. Maybe it was more that I just didn't enjoy The Hand story line. I didn't enjoy Daredevil S2 as much as S1. I don't think that Defenders would have been better with character development, especially not in 8 episodes. I was just saying that that could have been why I liked JJ S2 better. I haven't seen Infinity War yet nor have I read the critiques.

Maybe I'll try another way, Defenders really just seemed uneven. I like Sigourney Weaver, but her character didn't do anything for me. Not in the way that Kilgrave, Cottonmouth, or Kingpin did. I also am not a fan of The Hand. Their motivation in Defenders just didn't quite make sense to me. There were also some great fight scenes, and the Defenders had some great chemistry, but there wasn't much more to it. I totally get where JJ S2 was disappointing, after a fantastic villain like Kilgrave it was bound to not be as good. Perhaps, it's because I like personal stories that I wasn't as bored that I wasn't getting the bad ass Jessica. I also could relate to Jessica's mom way more than I could to The Hand.

reply

Okay, that critique makes more sense to me.

I actually liked the story about The Hand. The more I learned about their organization, the more intrigued I became with them. You've got to at least admit that the first big fight scene at the building was pretty awesome, when they all come together and have the reveal of Elektra, back from the dead. I also thought that limiting Defenders to 8 episodes was a plus, as opposed to the usual, drawn-out 13.

Again, these shows can be subjective on a personal level. You didn't get the same impressions I did. It's cool.

reply

The directing wasn't the problem at all. The directing was great. The writing was an issue, and it wasn't just women doing the writers. A couple of episodes were written by men.

It's just stupid to act like it sucked solely because they were women. Iron Fist and The Defenders sucked way more, and that didn't have all women directors. So why aren't you whining about that sucking because of most their directors and writers were men?

reply

Yeah, there's no need to single out women for that poor effort. My only complaint would be that b/c it's driven almost entirely by strong female characters it ends up being graded (rated) on some sort of curve. The same thing happened with wonder women, which was a perfectly watchable superhero movie, but got treated like it was much more. This wasn't as bad as Iron Fist but that's a really low bar.

The 2nd season of JJ was not good. Several of the season long plots were dubious at best and the rival PI thingy was completely nonsensical. Kilgrave showed up to move the plot along and then just as quickly departed when his presence would have been inconvenient to the plot. I don't understand Trish's characters descent into madness in the least. She was a badass last season, and then out of nowhere she becomes a weak whiny women who wants powers at all cost.






reply

>She was a badass last season, and then out of nowhere she becomes a weak whiny women who wants powers at all cost.


It's like she having some weird mid-life crisis, but from the flashbacks we see she kinda alot of fragile (like Jessica) then we realise, she just worked real hard on being the proper adult.

reply

Nothing to do with gender. Just some mediocre writing. At least half of the episodes this season were directed well. Some very poorly (enough with the Dutch angles)

DD1: A+
DD2: A- (bad end)
JJ1: A- (slow)
Punisher: A-
Luke Cage: B (sloppy writing and often weak directing)
JJ2: B- (sub plots good, main plot bad)
Defenders: D+ (they ruined the Hand)
IF: F+ (two decent fights and a couple good villain moments was all there was)

reply