Netflix & Marvel’s Jessica Jones Season 2 Recaps By Penny; Episode 9 – “AKA Shark In The Bathtub, Monster In The Bed”

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Well well well, look who’s still not just HOLDING the Idiot Ball, but is apparently bloody GLUED to it. The shooter was Cheng. The idiot ACTUALLY thought taking potshots from across the way at superpowered people who can easily turn him to paste was in ANY way a good idea. Seriously there are “Too Dumb To Live” characters and then there’s “I’m an idiot, PLEASE kill me in the most graphically painful way possible”. And I’m sorry but Cheng is just….

Okay, I’m pausing the recap here for a moment, because I need to bitch about this. Cheng is just all around a bad character, full stop. So far this season of JJ has been uneven as it is. It’s been a slow build like last season yes, but it’s also been kinda zigzagging all over the place with so many different frayed plot threads, that a character this badly written is just utterly inexcusable for what was, in it’s first season, one of the best of the Netflix MCU offerings. I mean, JJ season 1 is #2 on my personal ranking of all the Netflix MCU shows so far. Under Luke Cage and above DD season 1. But with horrifically poorly written just entirely BAD characters like Cheng carrying the Idiot Ball like their newborn child, JJ Season 2 might end up ranking just above Iron Fist for me unless something improves. And you all remember how much I hated I, Ron Fist.

Anyway, so Cheng is the shooter. He was trying to get Alisa and when he realizes he shot Jess by mistake and now the crazy superwoman who pulped his old marine buddy a few episodes ago is pissed, knows he’s there, and is clearly coming after him, the Oh Shit ball drops square on his head and he tries to GTFO. Alisa ain’t having it though and starts to pound on him. Jess however, still bleeding, shows up and tranqs Cheng, reeling Alisa in before she kills or permanently cripples him. They take him back to the office, Red Green the shit out of him, and leave him in the bathtub so Alisa can clean and dress Jess’ wound. Alisa notes Jess heals fast, and she willingly allows Jess to put her in restraints so she can sleep.

Jess is watching her mom sleep and also keeping an eye on Cheng when Trish shows up. They argue about the IGH investigation and Jess just wants to give up on it all and try to be normal. Then Jess realizes Trish is totally tweaking and asks her if she’s relapsed. Trish denies anything is wrong, but Jess in less than convinced. Then Trish hears mumbling noises from the bedroom and assumes Jess has “adult company” so she leaves. Jess goes to check on Alisa, who has broken free of the restraints and isn’t lucid. She’s demanding to see Jess and not realizing Jess IS Jess, knocking her into a wall. Jess though manages to calm her down and get her lucid again.

Garcia sees broken glass on the sidewalk under Jess’ apartment, (odd, I would have assumed the bullet impact would have pushed all the glass INSIDE the building), and is about to go check on Jess, but his ex is with him and she decides she will NOT allow Vido to be around that freak anymore and she just takes Vido and leaves. Trish meanwhile is coming down from the last puff off the Cap Inhaler and sees that Griffin is overseas doing a livestream report from a warzone. She takes another puff, and decides it’d be a super awesome idea to put Inez on live radio to expose IGH, knowing that both of them are still a target for Alisa and she might as well just light up a Bat Signal that reads “HERE WE ARE! COME KILL US!” and I SWEAR they’re buying Idiot Balls in bulk today. Trish goes to Jeri’s to fetch Inez but Jeri protects her, refusing to let Trish take her. Meanwhile Jess and Alisa are having a heart to heart and Jess finally admits out loud that she thinks the car accident was HER fault because she was fighting with her brother Philip and dad looked back at her to tell her to stop and that’s when they hit the truck. Alisa vehemently disagrees, blaming it on Dad not keeping his eyes on the road. She says Jess needs to give herself closure and she goes to the toilet and flushes Philip’s ashes. Alisa then suggests they just kill Cheng and go on the run so they can just be together.

The phone rings, and it’s Garcia. He tells her his ex has kidnapped Vido and vanished and begs for her help. She tranqs Cheng again to make sure he won’t wake up and make noise, and she and Alisa leave to meet Garcia. He checks the credit history on an emergency card he and his ex share and learns she bought bus tickets to Montreal, and they all speed to the bus station to try to stop her. They get there and see the bus about to pull out of the terminal, (oh hai Stan), and Jess and Alisa team up to stop it. The drriver gives and stops trying to drive away before a tire blows out or something, and Garcia gets on the bus and finds Vido, taking him back. His ex starts yelling at Jess and Jess just listens instead of yelling back or punching her, and tells her very calmly that, for all the shit she’s saying her son doesn’t need in his life, what he DOES need in his life is a mom who is NOT in jail for kidnapping. This shuts Garcia’s ex up, and Jess just calmly walks away leaving Vido safely back with his dad.

Jeri arrives at the prison to pick up the healer kid, who we finally learn is named Shane. Seriously WHY do the Netflix MCU shows always draw out a simple name reveal like it’s some earth shattering plot development? She convinces him he owes her for getting him out of prison, being her usual charming manipulative self, and pressures him into agreeing to try to cure her ALS. Trish meanwhile is doing her radio show talking to some doctor about gluten free diets and she’s coming down off the last puff and just suddenly loses her shit, screaming and ranting about what she SHOULD be covering, what should be a real issue versus what is just unimportant shallow fluff bullshit and she’s tired of not doing serious news and quits. Back to Jeri, Shane is making the attempt to heal her, and Jeri is crying, but that’s all they show us. Back again to Trish and she gets a phone call. It’s the MCU equivalent to CNN. A producer there heard her rant and likes her fire. He tells her that fire might just have earned her a job and she needs to keep it lit. After she hangs up she’s over the moon with excitement at the new real news job prospect, but that excitement quickly fades when she realizes the puffer is empty.

Cheng finally wakes up in Jess’ tub to find her staring at him. She takes him to the other room and tells him it would be in his best interests to keep quiet about all this. He points out they kidnapped him. Jess points out he fired bullets into her apartment. Cheng agrees she has a point, and agrees to keep quiet about everything if she does likewise for the bullet wound on her shoulder that I’m pretty sure could easily be traced back to him. He DOES however insist that Alisa is too dangerous to be left free given what she did to his friend. Jess agrees and calls Costa to come arrest the killer at her place. Alisa has been eavesdropping outside though and loses her shit, breaking the door down and going for Cheng’s throat. Jess gets between them and tells him to run, barely holding Alisa off as Alisa punches Jess’ face into ground beef. Jess doesn’t punch back though, just begging Alisa to stop. Alisa finally sees what she’s doing to Jess and the sight of Jess’ bloodied face snaps her out of it. She walks downstairs to the waiting police outside and looks about ready to murder every last one of them, but Jess limps out after her and begs her to just stop fighting, stop killing, just STOP. Alisa surrenders to the police without a fight.

End of episode. The story is FINALLY starting to coalesce into something understandable. Most of the big revelations are out of the way. That really just leaves the impending Kilgrave cameo, as we KNOW David Tennant appears this season and has yet to do so. So there’s still enough mystery to push the plot forward and all the pieces are in place at last. Slow builds are okay as long as you can at least see what they’re building to. They kinda got lost the first 8 episodes this season though and it was infuriating, but they seem to have finally pulled all the loose threads together. Now we wait to see if those threads form a knot or a noose on this season. See you tomorrow for episode 10!

Penny is a now divorced intersexed disabled lesbian in BC Canada. She's been watching wrestling and reading comics since she was a kid, and knows her stuff. She lives with her pets and passes her free time writing, drawing, doing paid photoshop work (including logos done for Pulse's Own Mike Gojira), and is a part-time Queer model.