I have some time off, technically, so I guess it's not a surprise that at the end of each episode, I saw no reason to not go on to the next. Full disclosure, I did go to sleep after episode nine, proving that I don't have the attention span to marathon an entire season of television. I don't know how people can watch like twenty-four episodes of anything in "a weekend" without losing their minds. Anyway. My initial, exhausted, dizzy impression is that I like this show very much. I liked it better than Daredevil, and I actually enjoyed Daredevil quite a bit.
Jessica started the series as a recovering trauma victim. Her closest friend mentions her PTSD diagnosis, and it's clear that the writers did some research about the condition (for example: Jessica is shown mumbling the street names of her childhood home when she feels close to panicking). I give the writers most credit for making a show about a traumatized Action Girl that felt realistic (as far as a comic book story can be realistic).
This show is unusual, especially for the comic book genre, for having a cast full of varied woman. There's Jessica, her best friend Trish, the amoral defense attorney Hogarth (and her wife and mistress), the damsel Hope, a cameo by Claire from Daredevil, Luke Cage's dead wife Reva, Jessica's odd neighbor, Trish's stage mom, Kilgrave's mother, etc. etc. Such a diverse cast of women strengthens this show in several ways.
For starters, Jessica's "tomboy" look is contrasted by her sister's more feminine sense of style. Neither woman is berated for not being feminine, or for being "too" feminine, which is quite refreshing. Cliches that feel tired in most stories, like the undeveloped dead wife (of Luke Cage), don't feel like glaring faults when there are several other women in the cast with fully fleshed personalities and story arcs. Characters who are normally forbidden from having any real effect on the plot through their own actions, like Hope, get to make decisions that change the course of the story.
Kilgrave was gross and terrifying. I'm glad the show made no attempt to make him "complex" by giving him a sympathetic back story. The show acknowledges that his crappy childhood was . . . crappy, but no one's eager to cry for him and excuse his psychopathic behavior just because he had it bad as a kid.
The one thing that I don't think was handled particularly well was Jessica's alcoholism. She's shown guzzling hard liquor often, characters actually call her an alcoholic, she admits that she's drinking too much, and she even gets kicked out of a bar once. But she doesn't really do many of the things drunk people tend to do (loud and belligerent altercations, passing out in odd places and pissing herself for example), and she doesn't show any of the less "attractive" side effects of alcohol intoxication (decreased reflexes, loss of balance, slurred speech, withdrawal, etc. etc.).
I suppose all of that would've been a little too realistic for a comic book show, but then why make Jessica an "alcoholic" in the first place? She didn't have enough problems as it was? They couldn't have just alluded that she tried to drink but it only made her more paranoid to be drunk and out of control? It's not like the story wouldn't have worked without Jessica's drinking.
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