The Apple Doesnt Fall Far From The Tree...or Does It? (Jessica Jones Season 2)

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree...or Does It? (Jessica Jones season 2)

Anyone who has watched season 2 of Jessica Jones knows the importance of mothers and daughters holds. Throughout the season Jessica struggles with comparing herself to her mother whereas Trish believes she is nothing like her mother. Ironically the opposite is true for each of them.

The comparison between Trish and her mother never really dawned on me until the scene where Trish wakes up in the morgue and is mad at Jessica for stopping the experiment on her and she ends up saying that Jessica is a disappointment, she has all this power and does nothing with it. This sentence mirrors something Dorothy says once before in the show. Looking back the two seasons have been building to this revelation. The first season does it incredibly subtly, but looking back after the revelations of this season it is obvious. 

At the beginning of this season Trish is on a ratings high talking about the street level heroes within the city.  She talks about Jessica on her show against Jessica’s wishes, though she didn’t say her name she said she grew up with a superhero which makes it obvious who she is talking about. She coerces Jessica in every way she can to take on the case for IGH and discover what happened to her. She does this under the guise that it will give Jessica closure, but in reality she wants jessica to find the truth so she can go public with it and rise in the ratings. This is similar to the methods her mother uses in season 1. Her mother does Trish a favor and immediately tries to “casually” bring up something Trish can do for her. 

Trish throughout both seasons tries to live vicariously through Jessica because Jessica has powers and the ability to fight the “bad guys”. Trish isn’t complacent with what she is doing to help people and wishes she could engage in a more radical, hands on form of justice. Dorothy was living through Trish throughout Trish’s entire childhood. Putting her in the limelight and getting her public recognition through any means necessary even at the expense of Trish’s mental and physical health. Trish may not realize it, but she is doing the same thing to Jessica. Trish pushes Jessica towards danger in both seasons and Jessica suffers incredible trauma in both. 

Also Trish only says she is proud of Jessica when Jessica is doing what Trish believes is right this is briefly shown is season 1 when Trish tells Jessica she is exactly the hero she wanted her to be when Jessica decides to go through with a self-sacrificial way to stop Kilgrave. Throughout season 1 Trish rarely tries to talk Jessica out of anything when Jessica is trying to stop Kilgrave the only time she really tries to nudge jessica into making a different decision is when Jessica tries to run from Kilgrave instead of face him. She also has no qualms with killing the antagonist of each respective season, which goes along with her the ends justify the means mindset. Dorothy has the same mindset in her thinking towards her relationship with Trish. As long as Trish gains and maintains fame and popularity Dorothy believes she is a good person and mother because no matter the means she obtained her desired end goal.

Jessica on the other had has been proven to be a polar opposite to her mother in just about every way. Jessica’s mother is a sociopathic serial killer who blames everyone else for her actions and views the past, before the car accident, in an extremely negative light. Jessica on the other hand blames herself for all the bad things that happen to the people around her even if she couldn’t stop it.  She blames herself that her mother is after Trish, she blames herself for Reuben’s death, she blames herself for the car accident, etc. Jessica also feels extreme guilt for every life she takes and in every situation the choices were limited. Reva-Kilgrave made her kill Reva. Kilgrave-no jail would have been able to hold him and he would not stop until he had Jessica. Dale- granted she was in his apartment, but he was beating her and wouldn’t stop so she lashed out without thinking of her strength. Dale’s death was the only one that was avoidable, but it was entirely out of self defence and accidental. Jessica is literally blinded by nostalgia and views her childhood and herself before the accident through rose tinted glasses. Jessica believes she is a bad person. She views herself in a negative light, but she always ends up doing what is right. She gets lost along the way and is conflicted about her choices, but she comes out the other side making the right choice even in lose lose situations. 

Jessica believes that no matter the ends if the means were horrible or inhumane it doesn’t make you a good person. Her mother believes the exact opposite, if the ends were as desired the means don’t matter. This is shown through their conflicting viewpoints on Karl. Karl was experimenting illegally on humans with inhumane methods on people who couldn’t say no due to their varying circumstances, but his experiment were in gene splicing which could lead to curing genetic diseases and disorders in people after birth and heal people who look to be lost causes. Jessica believes he isn’t a good person and should go away for what he has done. Her mother believes that Karl is a good person even before they enter a relationship and wants him to be free.

This shows the duality within characters related or not that have inadvertent similarities and staggering differences.

Davy Jones’ Theme Analysis

Hans Zimmer is one of the finest cinematic score composers of our time. His character themes are some of my favorite scores to listen to. When Hans Zimmer composes a character theme it doesn’t just accentuate what is happening in the certain scene or scenes that it is in it also tells us a story of the journey the character has taken. This is shown at its best with Davy Jones’ theme in Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest.

The theme starts out as a slow and bittersweet tune playing on a music box. This reflects the beginning of his story. He was a great pirate who fell in love with Calypso and agreed to set foot on land once every 10 years to be with her. A music box is usually associated with love and the soft tune reflects yearning. Then once the initially music box tune ends it takes on a more sinister tone with an organ playing the same tune. When Davy Jones stepped foot on the land he was forsaken by Calypso and the love he once cherished had become pain. He became fierce and cruel. Plotting to overtake the seas from Calypso and binding her to a human body. He abandoned his sacred duty to Ferry souls who died at sea to the next life. The pain his love cost him became unbearable and he cut out his own heart. The drastic change from soft and bittersweet to sinister and tragic. This change mirrors the shift in Davy Jones’ character. The tune stays the same because Davy Jones’ motivations stay the same. Love drove him to ferry souls and step foot on land only once in ten years and it  drove him to become a story and legend of dread to all pirates of the seven seas. 

Once Calypso is freed and learns of Davy Jones’ betrayal she creates a storm where a battle rages in the middle that leads to Davy Jones’ death. During this battle Davy Jones dies. His heart is stabbed and he is finally free. In death he was embraced by the sea which he had been in love with and was at peace. The final part of his theme goes back to the soft melancholic music box, but instead of becoming louder and more instruments joining in it plays out the theme by itself showing the release that Davy Jones felt in those final moment and the way love had warped him was lost and he was claimed by the love that had once forsaken him.

Princes Lotor and Zuko

The parallels between Lotor and Zuko are numerous. They were both inherently more peaceful then their fathers and seen as failures and outcast by those same fathers for their empathy and standing up for what they thought was right. Zuko when he was against purposefully sacrificing young soldiers and sending them to a fruitless fight and Lotor for not subjugating and destroying a race of people and instead learning about them and working with them. Due to their banishment they developed a facade that hid their empathy from those around them that slipped at moments. They both work tirelessly toward a goal they think is noble that is warped because of their parents views. Zuko his honor and Lotor the quintessence. I think like preince Zuko Lotor truly believes that the quintessence is the solution to his and his people’s problems. Lotor may end up betraying the Palladins, but it won’t be because he is evil or wanted to betray them. It will be because of a source of conflict and his obsession towards his goal. If he does betray the palladins he will eventually get his redemption arc where he realizes what he strove for wasn’t the solution to his answers. The source of conflict was set up this season in Honerva. I believe it will play out similar to Azula with Zuko in the crossroads of destiny. It is made clear throughout the season that both of Lotor’s parents were neglectful and one was abusive, so if he accepts that Haggar is his mother and discovers she has been helping him with the palladins and indirectly saved him from Zarkon through Kuron he may be manipulated. He admits to Allura in the finale that he envies her because she had Alfor as a father and he travelled the world with her and it was implied that he also envied that she got to have that childhood with happy family memories. If his mother is revealed to have loved him and “love” him his emotions can be manipulated in her favor. There is also the parallel between Honerva and Zarkon and Lotor and Allura. Both sets have a fixation on quintessence and believe that it can bring prosperity to the people, but while Zarkon and Honerva slowly become corrupted in their initially honorable quest Lotor and Allura have the ability to change their projected outcome. I think that while Honerva slowly edges Lotor to corruption Allura, because she is pure at heart, can prevent his downward spiral. The reason the relationship between Lotor and Allura was expanded upon so much this season could be for this reason, to prevent Lotor from becoming his Father and Mother and truly use quintessence to help the people and bring about a new age of prosperity instead of destruction and death. Lotor’s redemption arc has just begun. 

Why Killmonger is my Favorite Marvel Villain

Erik “Killmonger” was told stories of the utopia that was Wakanda by his father and saw the worst the world had to offer. When he was just a boy his father was taken from him by the very people he was told stories about. The people who had the means to stop the violence and save others like them had taken his fathers life because he wanted to “share” their technology with their less fortunate people. I believe that the death of his father caused him to adopt his father’s ideals and work towards the realization of them with unparalleled focus and resolve. To him Wakanda was the villain for killing his father and denying the rest of “their people” their technology. His ideal was noble, but it was taken to an extreme because the world had taken all he cared about and never gave him anything in return. The rage and hatred he held was there boiling just below the surface and the only reason he didn’t self-destruct was because he had a cause to channel it towards. Erik’s life was a tragic story of a man working towards a “noble” cause that got warped because of loss and neglect.

T’Challa ended up learning from Erik. He realized he couldn’t keep Wakanda’s resources separate from the world. That doing so was wrong and was the reason for his current conflict. He saw the ideal that Killmonger had beneath the radicalization and ended up acting on what he learned. The best villains are the ones the heroes can learn from

Trish’s conflicting viewpoints on Simpson and Jessica

Jessica and Simpson near the end of the series are working toward a common goal, killing Kilgrave. It’s Trish’s reaction to them and their goal that shows us what type of people they are and their differing viewpoint on the job they “have” to do. For Jessica this job is essential and the whole reason Kilgrave is doing any of it is to get to Jessica. For Simpson It’s because he wants to be the knight in shining armor, the hero.

When Simpson tells Trish that Kilgrave isn’t someone you can capture and that he must be removed Trish responds by saying that he can’t be the one who decides that, that he is being judge, jury, and executioner. There are other people that need him alive like Hope. To her his crusade isn’t in alignment with her moral code because he isn’t seeing the entire picture, like the casualties of Kilgrave’s antics, he has laser focus on killing kilgrave no matter the sacrifices. This was perfectly displayed when he told Trish about his marines saving the barbies. They all burned, but the barbies were saved. He doesn’t really register the losses that come about due to his quest. When his war buddies get killed he is initially upset, but immediately brushes it off and agrees to be a test subject for the super soldier pills so he can go back to his quest as soon as possible. He even tries to remove Jessica so she can’t hinder his mission any more. He also places blame of everything, but himself when things go wrong or he does something deemed wrong by Trish. To him the ends justify the means. By the end he can’t even tell that he’s doing something immoral to achieve his goal.

When Jessica comes to the conclusion she has to kill Kilgrave it it under worse circumstances. Hope has just died in her arms and any illusion she had that she could stop him without becoming what Kilgrave made her, a murderer. Trish supports Jessica’s conclusion and does everything she can to support her. This is because Jessica understands the casualties that Kilgrave has cause and realized that there is no other way. When Jessica Kills Kilgrave he has become so powerful he cannot be contained. Throughout the season Jessica constantly puts the blame on herself for everything kilgrave does. She constantly tries to put just herself in harms way to reduce the casualties. The ends don’t justify the means. Jessica knows this and Trish knows this. Jessica believes the deaths that Kilgrave caused should have been avoided and due to her he has only grown more powerful and that is what eventually drives her to permanently stop him, not the illusions of heroism that drive Simpson. 

Reyna and Nico-the Perfect Unlikely Friendship

Both Reyna and Nico suffer from isolation and loneliness brought upon by their respective reaction to their negative past experiences. Reyna strove for power to have the ability to prevent tragedy to herself and others and ended up causing herself more pain through the isolation the power brought. Her pursuit is ironic in that her pursuit to prevent pain caused her pain. She is truly isolated from her peers not truly of her own free will, but because the position requires her to be strong for everyone around her. Nico on the other hand isolates himself. This is due to the negative atmosphere created by the community he initially lived in. The community was strongly anti-gay and he was forced to fear a part of himself. His isolation is ironic because in his want and need to be accepted he didn’t give anyone a chance to really get to know him and accept him. 

Both Nico and Reyna have trouble trusting others and hide behind tough exteriors. They hide the broken remnants of their respective lives. Reyna through her position. Nico through self isolation. Because of their similarities in dealing with their hardship and shared isolation and loneliness they are able to find someone to open up to. Nico and Reyna share a mutual understanding of loneliness and loss. This coupled with their quest together created a bond that is my favorite friendship in the Heroes of Olympus. I look forward to seeing Reyna in the Tyrant’s Tomb and hope this friendship get more focus in the coming books.