Hard Knocks

The world of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, the second season of which released recently on Netflix, is more real than the campier milieu of Daredevil, Iron Fist or Luke Cage. Jessica lives in a crummy New York apartment. Her penury is all too real. Her love interest this time is a professional forger who lives in constant fear he’ll be deported and lose custody of his son.

This hardscrabble world allows the show to take on more serious themes than the other Netflix superhero series. Season one addressed rape and domestic abuse through the brilliantly malevolent Killgrave (David Tennant), whose mind control was the perfect foil to Jessica’s super strength. Season two explores the devastating effects of addiction and obsession— confirming Jessica Jones as by far the most successful of Marvel’s streaming television offerings. Jessica is addicted to her brooding alcoholism and self-imposed loneliness. Sidekick Malcolm’s heroin addiction transitions into an addiction to sex. And Trish, Jessica’s sister, emerges from her shadow to become the central character of the season. With her past history of drugs and her obsessive desire to be extraordinary, Trish throws herself and Jessica into a messy probe into Jessica’s origins. They go to IGH—the genetic research facility that experimented on Jessica when she was a teenager.

Season two has as much intrigue as season one, but its emotional upheavals are more powerful. There are no sides to choose. And no Killgrave to hate. The question of morality haunts Jessica, who cannot reconcile herself with her murder of Killgrave.