We are off to the races now. Bodies are piling up and answers to this season’s central mystery are finally unfolding. Speaking of bodies, Jessica and Trish dispose of Simpson’s body at sea the side vacation spot from Jessica’s youth.
So sentimental that one.
But Trish wants to hold on to somethings. She co-ops Simpson’s substantive collection of arms. Between her improved sleuthing skills, her martial arts training, and her new large cache of weapons, Trish is so close to being her own hero. When will she don the yellow and clawed mantle of Hellcat? That’s really all I want. Make it happen show. I believe in you.
Jessica tries to jog her memory of IGH with the help of hypnotherapist Dr. Tiboldt, who in the comics is the circus-themed supervillain, The Ringmaster. Traditionally The Ringmaster went up against the likes of Spider-Man and Daredevil, armed with his hypnosis-inducing hat and colorful carnie henchmen. Somehow I doubt we’ll be getting something that rad later this season. But one can hope?
In the background of the episode, the Super of Jessica’s building, Oscar, is trying to get her evicted for running a business out of her apartment. He thinks she’s a liability to him retaining custody of his, due to the trouble she brings to the building. So, that’s a thing. There’s some other business about him being a forger/ ex-con. I don’t know where they’re going with this story. And frankly, I don’t really care. There’s some chemistry between Oscar and Jessica. And pitting them against each other helps pad out the episode, but to what end?
The truth behind IGH becomes clearer when Jessica and Trish track down a former ER doctor named Leslie Hansen. Part of the human experimentation racket, she supplied patients to Dr. Kozlov for his experiments. But when they go to track down the good doctor they a human skull in the basement incinerator in her basement.
Whether the skull belongs to Doctor Hansen or not is further muddled when Jessica goes to meet a woman claiming to be Hansen. The meet goes south when the mystery woman displays super-strength and an extreme distaste for Jessica’s ungratefulness at being brought back from the dead after her car accident. As maybe-Hansen reveals, IGH was in the business of human revival. The superpowers its subjects gained were an unintended side-effect. All things considered, a new lease on life and superpowers seem like a pretty good alternative to being, you know, dead. Of course, Jessica disagrees. She’d have preferred to have died with her family.
Talk about survivor’s guilt.
Jeri, on the other hand, is struggling to survive. Fighting tooth and nail to stave off her partners trying to push her out of the firm. Foggy, who’s been working for Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz since the end of Daredevil Season 2, tries to come to Jeri’s aid. But Foggy isn’t the right ally for her. Jeri goes to Jessica instead and finally reveals that she has ALS. Feeling life is out of her control, Jeri will be damned if the one thing that has any meaning in her life, her firm, gets taken away from her. Que in her plea to Jessica to dig up some dirt against her partners for Jeri to use in her legal war.
Overall this episode moves the larger narrative along. The pace is picking up and the mystery woman could be formidable in the episodes to come. I hope that they’re positioning her to be a substantive antagonist. Because whether it’s Pryce Cheng or Oscar the Super, Jessica needs a nemesis that will challange her as much as Kilgrave did.
The Verdict: Three and a half human skulls out of four.
