Inexplicable TV Review: Jessica Jones (and her interesting co-stars)

Note: Season one spoilers for Jessica Jones follow. It’s been on Netflix for a couple months though, so I imagine I’m one of the last people to see it anyway…

One of the issues with Netflix being a provider of shows now is that they don’t air commercials. Now, commercials are usually just kind of annoying, but I must admit that after binging on Jessica Jones and the second season of Daredevil this past weekend, it’s nice to have a few minutes to catch my breath and to decompress.

I think the problem is more pronounced with Jessica Jones, which is a bit slower paced and drawn out as compared to conventional network shows and even Daredevil. The noir, detective elements of the show are cool, but I don’t feel like they’re utilized as well as they could be. This is a show that really could have used some lighter, “mystery of the week” episodes, a la The X-Files, as a bit of a break-up from the dark, season-long arc of Jessica’s pursuit of Kilgrave.

However, I’m being a bit needlessly negative at the start here! Overall, I thought Jessica Jones was a continuation of the fine foundation set by the first season of Daredevil. You don’t have to watch one to appreciate the other, but they both have the same sort of tone to them. They feel like well-planned, developed projects, as opposed to the ultra-aggressive (and seemingly stupid) D.C. movies.

While Ritter does solid work as the title character, I thought she was more of a B, B+ in the role. It’s tough, because I’ve seen Don’t Trust The B****, probably one of the five people in the world who has. That show remains one of my favorites, and features Ritter at her snarkiest, so Jessica Jones just seems like a more badass, less humorous version of The Bitch in Apartment 23.

Fortunately for the show, every other actor is on-point, especially David Tennant as Kilgrave, the mind-controlling master villain. I was at a bar last week and my buddy Matt essentially called him the creepiest motherfucker ever, and that’s a pretty apt description. He is manipulative, disgusting and evil, but because it’s Tennant, there is also a carelessness and frivolity to his actions that somehow make them worse. (Side note: Don’t look up comic book panels with Purple Man, the character he’s based on, unless you’re looking for nightmare fuel.)

The two besties of Jessica Jones are Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor), who work well when paired with Jessica because they’re seemingly functional human beings. Yes, they have some demons, but both are able to work normally, and as a result, deal better with Jessica’s shit. Luke Cage already has a spin-off, set to debut in September, and the trailer is friggin’ awesome. And slight future spoiler – Trish is a superhero in the comics, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they go that way with future seasons, since Taylor and Ritter have great chemistry with one another.

Once you get past the four leads, you get to dicey side characters. Will Simpson, Hope Shlottman, Jeri Hogarth, Malcolm and Pam all have moments, but they all have farcical scenes as well. (Okay, Pam, not so much, but wow, those dresses she stole off the curtain rods left little to the imagination.) The melodrama between Jeri, Pam and Jeri’s ex seemed especially drawn out and forced, and there were probably better ways to establish Jeri’s ruthless nature.

Again though – minor complaints. Tennant’s performance alone is reason to binge the ole Jessica Jones. It’s on Netflix, probably until the end of time, so there’s no rush at this point. (And in the next few weeks, I’ll also have some reviews of Daredevil’s second season, and Gotham.)

Steve Taps Out: 2 Broke Girls

It takes a lot to minimize the appeal of these two.

So, this is my attempt at a new semi-regular blog item – TV series that I have stopped watching. It is with a heavy heart that the initial selection is 2 Broke Girls, a once-promising sitcom airing on CBS. It recently finished up its third season, and it has already been renewed for a fourth season of cringe-worthy humor.

To be fair, the show has always featured plenty of gross-out humor and outright racism, and honestly, I have no friggin’ clue how it’s lasted this long in primetime. I mean, Entertainment Weekly found plenty of fodder just in the season three premiere, which was about the ‘soft opening’ of the cupcake shop.  Ha, you get it? It’s a joke. About vaginas. (Actual line of dialogue from that episode, provided in that EW post: “Come over here and eat something from the girls’ soft opening!”)

As I said, that joke isn’t really out of place given the history of the show, but in the past the friendship between the leads – Kat Dennings (Max Black) and Beth Behrs (Caroline Channing) – was able to elevate the filthy material. They still shine from time to time, usually as the snotty waitresses in the diner, but it’s tough for that charm to carry the show through its 72 episodes.

Likewise, the supporting cast is a mish-mash of reinforcing the crude humor and actually good performances. Matthew Moy, as the Asian owner of the diner, is good despite being the butt of jokes all the time. Garrett Morris plays the same character – cool old black dude – that he plays in everything now, which is fine. But Jonathan Kite as the ambiguously Russian-ish cook and Jennifer Coolidge as his sex-crazed sometimes beau are just unfunny.

However, part of the reason I’m tapping out is the introduction of Eric Andre as Deke, the secret millionaire love interest of Max. While I’ve enjoyed some of the clips I’ve seen of his on YouTube and his appearances on late night shows, this is now the second sitcom he’s helped to torpedo. He was by far my least favorite aspect of Don’t Trust The B, as in my review of that show I was only able to describe him as “the wet blanket Mark.”

The final straw for me was episode #69, which seems appropriate enough, given my other criticisms. The episode features a guest appearance by Lindsay Lohan, who plays a bridezilla. I’m not sure if they could have done a more cliché casting unless they somehow were able to show her snorting cocaine or slapping a publicist. When you hire Lindsay Lohan to do a guest spot, and all you can manage to have her do is act like a bitch, well, that signifies to me that you’re just out of ideas. Lohan somehow managed to show more chops in a 3:49 segment on Billy On The Street where all she does is destroy a car. 

The photo of Dennings and Behrs is from Wikipedia contributor J.J. Duncan.

Inexplicable TV Review: Nobody Trusted The B in Apartment 23

 I’ll write about my other favorite but cancelled sitcom, Happy Endings, at a future date, since its fate was seemingly at least pondered a bit before the axe fell. However, for now, let’s focus on the titular B of this entry, even though both shows probably suffered from the same problem.

That issue – Don’t Trust The B In Apartment 23 is a stupid name. Yes, it’s appropriate given the show and its content, but it’s a name that doesn’t make it easy to endorse to your friends. “Gimmick” names seldom work for primetime shows – Most of the successful ones are short and not too cute, whether it’s Seinfeld or Friends or Cheers or Modern Family or *shudder* 2 and a Half Men.

So, it’s not surprising to me that the show didn’t catch on, and I’ll lay the primary problem at the feet of its name. Just call it Apartment 23 instead and I bet it gets to a third season. Looking past the name problem, I’m left with two content “problems” that I didn’t really find to be problems, thanks to the demographic I’m in.

Firstly, a lot of the humor is narrow and aimed at people who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. For example, you weren’t going to get a Journey reference on Don’t Trust The B – you were much more likely to get Natalie Imbruglia. The whole character of James Van Der Beek, while hilarious on its own, does rely a bit on you buying into his past as a famous actor on Dawson’s Creek. While I’m not opposed to that, I also realize that sitcoms pitched at people primarily younger than 40 tend to fail quickly.

Secondly, the most consistent “tone” of the show is biting snark. There weren’t many sweet moments on the show, to the point that two recurring characters had obsessions with stalking and peeping on Chloe (Krysten Ritter) and June (Dreama Walker). To be fair about this, it could have been that they needed to switch from Liza Lapira to Michael Blaiklock for acting reasons, but still, I probably would have been OK without a stalker character in the first place.

I didn’t view any of this as a serious impediment to my watching, but I do understand why other people weren’t big fans of the show. I found the chemistry of Ritter, Walker and Van Der Beek to be quite charming though, and the people in other roles – like Eric Andre as the wet blanket Mark and Ray Ford as James’ assistant Luther – were serviceable enough, if nothing special.

The show unfortunately ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, as James finds out his real father isn’t actually Richard Dean Anderson. Unlike with Happy Endings, there has been absolutely no talk of the show continuing on in some form, so I guess we’ll never find out.

Bizarre tangent – For unknown reason, political blogger Steve Sailer has a weird deep dive on the show, where he notes that Luther and Mark are actually covert commentaries on the sacred cows of the liberal media, Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. He then notes that he’s the only person who’s been able to notice this, and also likens the show to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. This strikes me as wonderfully insane theories, kind of like the stuff featured in Room 237, but good for him.

For more wonderful Chloe / Ritter GIFs, go here.