Trish makes a disturbing find at Sallinger's, but the ball is still in his court, and Hogarth and Malcolm land in dangerous water after leaking Lyonne's secret.
Trish arrives at Alias where Jess explains she doesn't know whose blood is on the money and Sallinger is careful, with no record or social media.
What she does know is he's intelligent, considering his diplomas, and she trusts Erik's power, she it's time for a stakeout. Trish suggests dangling him over a ledge to get a confession, earning a disgusted reaction from Jessica, who points out it'd be coercion and he has a law degree. Jess cuts the tension by admitting she wants to get him the right way and isn't sure how; she gives a slight smile when Trish says he's now facing two superheroes. Jess points out another advantage: he's studied her, but doesn't know about Trish. Sallinger is currently at his victim's and whimpers to his reflection that he never tried. He suddenly stops, then tidies up the apartment, and after texting the man's work that he quits and is out of town, he leaves with his equipment and the man's body in a suitcase, with passersby unaware. At the stakeout, Jess says Sallinger is a wrestling coach and has been living off the settlement from his brother's death. She is repeatedly snippy with Trish, explaining every detail, saying Trish always has to be right. She leaves Trish to watch the front while she heads out back. Kith is a mess after discovering Peter's theft, and though Hogarth says they can take him down, she is upset she'll have to tell Laurent. A knock Kith believes to be Laurent turns out to be Peter, who won't go at Hogarth's warnings and has realized she's trying to break up his marriage. Refusing to listen as he tries to explain, Kith shouts that she can't even look at him. Hogarth tells him to go for a reduced sentence after getting a lawyer. He says she can't have Kith, but she retorts that neither can he.
Sallinger returns home and Trish watches him put a photo in an album from a hidden compartment in a bureau.
Ignoring Jessica's complaints, Trish tells Jess to follow him while she gets the photo. Jess chases her at first, but leaves when Trish knocks out the building's power. While she follows Sallinger, Trish retrieves the album and discovers shots of his victims' faces, which she snaps pictures of with her phone. Malcolm finds his laptop open and on one of the Lyonne files, so he shuts it. Hogarth calls to tell him about Peter and says that with his suspicions, he might visit the office. Macolm decides he'll take some vacation days, but assures Hogarth that Peter can't trace this to her and no one else knows of his activity, deleting the files in the process. As Trish replaces the album and bureau, then takes photos of the apartment, Jess finds a spot to watch Sallinger, thinking how loners actually crave love and attention. They see a pimp, Gor, demand money from a hooker, Barry (Jamie Neumann). To her surprise, Erik arrives and talks to Sallinger, then pays the pimp and takes Berry inside. She follows and interrupts as they argue, tossing Barry aside, and learns she's actually Erik's estranged sister, Brianna, whom he wanted to get to safety. He reveals Sallinger threatened Brianna, saying Erik slipped up. Erik warned about what he'd do if the man touched Brianna, but Sallinger simply threatened her again, saying Erik can't comprehend what he is. Although Erik normally lets Brianna do what she wants, he wants to get her somewhere safe, and Jess is able to force her compliance. Zaya is suspicious of Malcolm's situation, aware he's not telling her something, but he makes excuses for himself and Hogarth to brush things off.
Jess returns home as Gillian, who is there overtime because she likes Trish, helps the latter discover that multiple people from the pictures are known cases.
Jess takes the bloody money to Malcolm, asking that he use the "free time" of his vacation to watch Brianna and saying it's important. Malcolm uses his new PI skills to deduce Brianna is Erik's sister he wants to keep safe, and asks that he know who to look out for. Erik, who doesn't trust Malcolm, says the man is giving him a headache and rating it a 3, but Jess decides to trust her gut and goes in Malcolm's apartment. Jess returns to her hushed apartment, and Gillian and Trish reveal four people alone from their list showed up in missing persons databases, with just the cases they know about stretching back a decade. Erik goes to shower, and Gillian wants to call the police, but Jess reminds them that the photos were illegally gained and their other evidence is Erik's headache. Trish stomps to the door, wanting to beat Sallinger until he confesses. Jess says she wants to do this, but isn't an idiot. Jess starts to say something but halts, and Jess sits at her desk, so Gillian leaves, telling them to work it out because she's sick of people tossing aside friends and family like there's always more. Meanwhile, Zaya shows Hogarth a video Peter posted where he claims he was going to come clean and atone, yet Hogarth ignored due process and outed him. She cries slander when he goes on about how she represents powered people she has at her beck and call who get away with heinous crimes, only to be stunned into silence when he moves the camera and reveals he slit his wrists. He begs people to not let Hogarth get away with this, and Zaya suggests she stay since the police want to talk to her, but Hogarth tries calling Kith and rushes out. Back at Alias, Jessica admits she won't let Trish prove herself an equal because she knows what happens when Trish tries to do this. Trish demands that she "let go" of what happened with her mom, as it's time, defending herself that she was in the right for killing someone who murdered others and may have eventually killed Jess. Jess says she can't let it go because she had her mom back and had someone, but Trish points out she already had someone and walks out. Erik enters in his towel and asks if Jess wants to talk about the problem, but she says she'd prefer to forget and starts kissing him. Hogarth returns to her apartment and calls Kith when she can't find her. She asks how she's doing, but Kith growls for her to stay away from her. With Malcolm watching Brianna, Jess and Trish take dangerous action against Sallinger to find proof of his victims.
So then. Who does Trish think she is that she can decide when the time is for Jessica to be over her mother's death?
We're not supposed to agree with Jessica's coping methods, and it's obvious she's been ignoring that, like Trish said, her mom was a murderer. However, that gives Trish no right to decide Jess needs to stop being angry at her and move on from her mom dying. Essentially what's happening is Trish did something that hurt Jess immensely, and has since been going "Well I did that, but can't you see that you being upset about my actions is hurting me?" You don't get to decide how upset someone can be after you hurt them, and in no way is it all right to decide for them when to move on. Although I disagree with Jessica's methods at times, especially for coping, Trish can be insufferable and quite a hypocrite. If I'm remembering right, she used to constantly have to rein in Jessica and worried that she would assault people. Now? She's so impatient she puts them in a situation where they can't move forward with their evidence and wants to go right to beating Sallinger for a confession. She doesn't seem to understand that not only is their evidence not good enough as it is, but injuring Sallinger would only cause problems. This is, in part, because of his intelligence she refuses to acknowledge for whatever reason. I especially found her obnoxious after she again suggests her violence method, when she says "You know what, Jess?" only to change her mind and stop. Gillian steps in and says they could actually talk about the problem, but Trish says Jessica doesn't do that and wants to leave. Trish is the one who started something only to refuse to speak, and we've seen that her past attempt to reach out to Jess through email, not even talking to her face. Jess was turning down her calls and everything, but it's natural for a person who suffered a loss to retreat inward, and Trish might've seen more success waitinga bit, then approaching Jess directly, rather than by phone or email. Jess isn't innocent of not sharing her feelings, but it's not fair for Trish to pin the blame solely on her, when she herself has refused to talk. In this episode I did like how Erik's power was occasionally used, and it made me realize it's sort of like Peter Parker's spider sense. There's one point in the episode where his power is able to warn him of approaching danger, and it was at this moment I realized the description of his ability sot of reminded me of the spider sense, though the headache sounds worse. It also activates when he's around Malcolm, which I hadn't considered, but was a nice touch for the events Ducasse is going through. He's been doubting his actions all season, and this was especially the case while he investigated Lyonne, so imagine his guilt after the man's suicide. When he found his laptop open, I'd assumed it was going to be revealed that Zaya had discovered his assignment and decided to use it against Hogarth. She hasn't done anything terrible to make me suspect her, but the issue of Malcolm needing to be secretive has been brought up before, and it would've paralleled Malcolm's own ultimatum for Hogarth. Speaking of Hogarth, holy crap what a thing to realize you're responsible for. Hogarth is in a world of trouble, too, especially if cops dig into Malcolm's recent work. Zaya points out to Malcolm that in the end, the decision to commit suicide was Peter's alone, but this wouldn't have happened without their intervention. As stonefaced as she tends to be, we got a rare emotional moment from Hogarth as she watched the video, realizing what had happened. While she deals with this, we get some insight into just how sadistic and brilliant Sallinger is, as he showcases his ability to get away with murder. His intro in this episode is confusing at first as he whimpers about not trying, and I honestly wasn't sure if he was practicing fake tears or if his mind is splintered, but I'd bet on the second. At this point he'd also screwed a red lightbulb in one of his victim's fixtures, which we learn later is because he takes photos and develops them on-site. This is a curious ritual, and it could be something the others take advantage of, as with how tidy he is, messing with his supplies could bother him. He's also in more danger of being caught while he's doing this, as well. He clearly takes time to make sure no one is aware when he's killing, but if he were somehow found out, his need to take and finish the picture takes time. For now, that doesn't seem to be an issue, because we've seen this man is certainly one experienced serial killer. His calm at the end of last episode felt cheesy to me, especially with how he sat and ate an apple with the body in the background, but leaving his victim's apartment was pretty chilling. Sallinger effortlessly walks out of the man's apartment with his body in a suitcase, and walks by tons of people without them suspecting a thing. I was reminded of a scene in John Wick: Chapter 2 in which John (Keanu Reeves) and Cassian (Common) are walking through a busy subway, and continue taking silences shots at each other without anyone else reacting. In an interview with Screen Junkies, the John Wick directors explained they got this idea when one of their crew members tripped and fell in New York. Rather than help him people ignored the situation and walked around or over him. This gave them the idea that no one would notice if a gunfight happened around them, which is sort of what you see here. Rather than make a big deal about it, Sallinger simply walks through the crowd, who don't even turn to look at him, and if they did, they'd just see luggage. Another video I thought of came from Wired, in which former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez was rating the plausibility of disguises in movies. In one clip, Megan Fox quickly changes out of a disguise in a crowded building, and Mendez explains that there actually is a precept that the bigger a crowd is, the more you can actually get away with, as people aren't paying attention. By not drawing attention to himself, Sallinger is able to go about his day as if nothing had happened, because no one is paying attention. It frustrates me watching shows and movies when a person is trying to get away with something, and they act so nervous they give themselves away. The key in this situation is that Sallinger acts and looks like a normal person, so there's no reason for people to wonder about him, and he can go on his way blending in. At the same time that he's brilliant, the show does a good job of not turning him into some kind of omniscient god who can predict their opponent's every move. This is something that happens a lot with characters whose intelligence is actually a super power, and it just grows boring for me. It's an issue I had with the main villain in Bleach, Sosuke Aizen who was ridiculously smart, and the foe from the final arc, Juha Bach, who was literally omniscient. My issue with Bach focused more on how his power was essentially being a god, so the focus here is on Aizen, who I thought had a silly degree of intelligence. Over time, it was revealed that Aizen had been orchestrating and manipulating essentially everything that happened throughout the series, down to main character Ichigo's birth. Spoiler alert on a series that's been over for a few years now, but we learn that, along with Ichigo having soul reaper powers because his dad is a Shinigami, his mother was from the group the Quincies, and he gained powers of the ghostly Hollows because one of Aizen's experiments attacked her, leaving traces behind. Aizen kept watch over this, and was also able to use his illusory sword ability to make himself an alibi when he experimented on other reapers, allowing him to blame another character for their situation. In battle his extreme intelligence is shown further, but I feel I'm rambling, so I'll just say that characters being able to just say "Aha, you saw through my plan, but I've had 17 backups for that and they all hide my master plan, you fool!" bothers me. Jess and Trish are actually able to pull some fast ones on Sallinger in this episode, thanks partially to the fact he is unaware of Trish's presence and abilities. Like Jess said, he's researched her, and I think it's likely he even knew she was following him before he encountered Erik. But because he didn't know about Trish, they're able to snoop through there and find evidence and build a profile on him while Jess keeps an eye on him. As Sallinger says himself, he's not the one who screws up, but the addition of a new foe is a way to surprise him, much like what happened when he first stabbed Jess. With Jess and Trish caught in a chess game with someone who seems three steps ahead and Hogarth and Malcolm in hot water after Lyonne's suicide, things are getting tense again on Jessica Jones.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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