Netflix & Marvel’s Jessica Jones Season 2 Recaps By Penny; Episode 5 – “AKA The Octopus”

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Jess is in a dark prison cell pacing restlessly. Her internal monologue describes the frame job as shitty, given that the real killer neither properly staged the body in her actual apartment nor made sure Jess had no alibi. Meanwhile the killer who appears to be Fake Hanson is burning all the files Cheng’s guy stole and her own bloody clothes. Jeri meets Jess and advises she should tell the cops everything she’s holding back as it could be Obstruction in violation of her parole which would get her 18 months. She warns Jess to stop alienating people.

Trish is apparently at her Toxic Mom’s place and throwing up. Her mom patronizes her and assumes she’s relapsed. Trish’s vision has gone weird, and did so last episode too. Her mom ignores her worries and dismisses her concerns about Jess and plays Mom Agent again telling Trish she got her an audition at a real cable news network. Trish is confused and runs off to shower. Jess calls Malcolm and he tells her Mick got EVERYTHING she had on IGN. Jess asks him for help, asking him to find out everything Inez knows about IGH and her co-worker who went missing.

Fake Hanson is making tea and adjusting her wig as she mucks about with some sort of learn-to-play-piano app on her tablet. She tries to play along and keep up with a piano lesson of an old song. Suddenly someone knocks on her window, then on her back door. It’s her neighbour she met at a yard sale whose crying baby was soothed by her piano. She asks if she can come in and listen and lets FH hold her baby.After a minute FH hands the baby back and sits back down to play as she practices. She gets frustrated when she misses a note and the baby starts crying again. The crying makes her play angrily and aggressively and the neighbour runs off unnerved. FH gets so pissed off she destroys her piano.

Jeri and Jess meet with Sunday and Costa and Jess comes clean about her IGH investigation. She shows them a photo of FH and fingers her as the killer and warns them she’s stronger than Jess is. Meanwhile Malcolm is pleading with Inez to open up and come clean herself, and tell him about IGH. Reluctantly she sits down to talk. Back to Jeri and Jess, they’re waiting for the cops to come back after giving her statement. Jeri is itchy from her meds and Jess looks worried. The detectives return and while Sunday shows anti superhuman prejudice and thinks Jess is working WITH FH, Costa believes the evidence and sets Jess free. He pulls her aside and explains he believes her because he remembers Kilgrave making him hold his own gun to his head. He had nightmares every night until Jess took him out, and he’s grateful.He asks her to keep him in the loop.

Outside Jess and Jeri are arguing about Jess being standoffish when Cheng continues to prove what a douchey idiot by accosting them demanding to know why Jess is free when she murdered his friend, which he knows because he heard every scream. Funny how FH made NO sounds whatsoever when she killed Mick so Cheng has no proof Jess was even there. Jeri tells him he’s embarassing himself. Like a child he pulls a NO YOU and accuses her of taking bribes to help Jess. Jess blows him off and emasculates his childish egotripping ass and tells him for all she cares he can either talk to the cops about the evidence or go beat off in a corner because he’s a shitty investigator and she’s going to go find the real killer. They get in Jeri’s car and leave Cheng just standing there slackjawed like the useless douche he is.

Jess gets home and Malcolm offers to replace her computer and points out he’s tidied and reorganized her place. After she finds her booze she asks what they’ve learned. Malcolm tells her about a janitor at IGH who was murdered and the convicted murderer claims innocence. She asks Inez if she’s sure about FH, and Inez gets angry because there’s no way she could forget the face of the woman who mutilated her.Malcolm calms her down and tells her to go back to his apartment. Colecki, the convicted killer, fits FH’s pattern of sloppily pinning her crimes on others. She sends Malcolm to go do some more digging, and Malcolm teases her about her finally trusting him. He stops by his apartment to get his coat and finds that Inez has stolen his TV and bolted.

He chases her down and tries to convince her to let them help. She just wants to leave town. He threatens to use her as bait. She caves. Jess meanwhile apologizes to Garcia for all the cops outside the night before. He says he told them it wasn’t her. He still owes her for saving Vido. She calls in that favour asking for fake credentials to get into a psychiatric hospital. He agrees. Griffon calls her and tells her Trish is in trouble and she needs to get to her fast.

Toxic mom is fussing over Trish’s make-up and dress and generally being a manipulative twat, but as it turns out there’s an actually good reason, as Trish recognizes family and Jess arrives just in time for Griffin to propose to Trish. This is the thing he was planning behind Trish’s back that they Red Herring’d us on earlier. Toxic Mom tries to smarm Jess but gets shut down. Jess scolds Griffin for not filling her in but he points out he owed her one for the TMZ stunt. He wants to make Trish happy and Jess accepts this. Trish asks Griffin if she can leave to compose herself. He nods but worries.

Malcolm brings Inez to Jeri to be kept safe. Inez trashes him as not actually caring because of his threat. He looks gutpunched by this. Meanwhile Jess comes to get her fake credentials from Garcia. Vido and his gramma are there and want Jess to stay for dinner. She tries to leave but Garcia cajoles her to stay with some sangria. It fails as Jess isn’t comfortable with family stuff. Vido says bye superlady. FH is burning the remnants of the broken piano in her backyard, and Jeri is playing hostess to Inez. Inez thinks the friendly hostess treatment is a show and demands to know why she’s hiding her for Jess. Jeri says she wants to know everything about IGH’s experiments and I can see exactly where this is going.

Jess uses the fake credentials to get inside the psyche hospital. The guard compliments her on her coat and takes her to meet with Colecki. She plays the shrink part perfectly, convincing the guards to leave her alone with him “to establish trust”. She gently asks him about his old job, about Luanne, the woman he supposedly killed, about why he’s here. She wants him to help Luanne’s real killer be brought to justice. He freaks out and swears he did it even though his story about how he killed her sounds super rehearsed. She backs down and says she believes him, then asks about his octopus drawings. He rattles off biological facts and goes on about how it was Doctor Karl who taught him about Octopi. She asks him to draw a picture for her.

Toxic mom finds Trish and chastizes her for rejecting Griffin and insists she’s on drugs and tries to pressure her into taking him back. She then victim-blames Trish and calls her spoiled and ungrateful and even accuses her of giving Max head to get the story lead. Trish slaps her and the twat leaves. Trish inhales from Will’s puffer and her eyes go weird.

Jess calls Costa to tell hi Colecki didn’t murder Luanne, and watches the octopi in the aquarium Doctor Karl took Colecki to. She monologues about how Octopi will just abandon a limb to escape whenendangered. She hides out at the aquarium as if waiting for someone. Eventually Doctor Karl shows up and watches the Octopi. She has flashbacks to him standing over her in the lab, then starts to take photos. A woman comes to get him asking if he got lost as she was worried. Jess continues to take photos from a distance but Karl spots her and smiles, calling out her name. He seems to be suffering from dementia, and Jess freezes momentarily at him recognizing her, but suddenly SOMETHING causes the aquarium to shake and rumbe and the tank in front of Jess cracks and ruptures, and Jess is frozen as it’s about to shatter and let the tank come gushing out.

End of episode. See you tomorrow for Episode 6.

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.