Jessica Jones season 2 episode 7 review: Who’s the man that broke Jessica’s heart?
The journey of Jessica’s mom
Normally we start off episodes with a little narration from Jessica but this time, it’s her mother (named Alisa Jones) as she tells the story of what happened.
After the car accident Alisa had severe burns all over her body and her face was badly disfigured. At this point she already has her super powers and when she wakes up and sees herself, she is scared, made even more scared when the nurse triggers the alarm. Dr. Karl promises to help fix her and after 5 years he (with the help of the real Dr. Hansen) is able to have most of her disfigurement removed except for some burns on the back of her head. She is told that her husband and son died, but that Jessica survived.
Once Alisa is more mobile and feeling better, Dr. Karl doesn’t want to stop experimenting on her, especially because of the unexpected temper issues that have appeared. While part of this seems like Dr. Karl wants more data for his research, part of this also seems like he is genuinely falling for her. All Alisa wants is to know what’s happened to Jessica, He tells her that because her recovery was going to take years he had arranged for Jessica to be adopted into another family and that when Jessica was discharged there were no symptoms of superpowers. At first she’s relieved to know that Jessica was taken care of, but when he tells her that to save Alisa’s life he had to declare her dead and that Jessica thinks her whole family is dead that news devastates her.
Alisa waits for her opportunity to escape and after pretending to take her sedatives she breaks free, badly hurts Inez, and kills the other nurse after finding out who adopted Jessica before escaping.
The man that broke Jessica
Along with Alisa’s flashbacks we also had flashbacks to Jessica and Trish growing up together. At this point Jessica is starting up college and Trish has a second shot at fame after “It’s Patsy” is over with a pop song that as terrible as it is will be stuck in our head all day now. Trish is getting deep into the club and drug scene and as much as Jessica tries to get her to slow down, she just won’t. They are roommates and Trish has been helping to pay for Jessica to go to college and for her rent, but with Trish’s partying and always having everyone over they are reaching a tipping point where Jessica doesn’t want Trish’s help and Trish wants Jessica to support her no matter how silly she thinks her dreams are.
After that fight, Jessica ends up dropping out of college and moving in with her bartender boyfriend (Sterling) and we see what Jessica is like when she’s in a relationship that makes her happy. This is not a side of Jessica that we are used to seeing and realize that this is the man that ruined it for every other man out there that wants to have a real relationship with her.
We also saw how deeply integrated this man is in her every day life now. She got her famous leather jacket that she’s been wearing for like 10 years now at that time – she stole it one night out with her boyfriend from a store. He was also a whiskey drinker (introducing her to her drink of choice) and that he was planning on opening a club called “Alias” which now the name of her own business.
When he starts hitting up Trish to be an investor in his club idea and we see all the expensive items that Jessica is stealing for him we started to worry that he’s a bit of a scam artist. Our fears were a little more confirmed when some pretty rough guys show up at his house demanding for their investment money in his club back since nothing is actually happening. When they start to beat up Sterling, Jessica lays a beat down on them, but still isn’t seeing Sterling for anything more than the love of her life.
Jessica meet’s Sterling at a bar and when she goes to the bathroom she has a brief interaction with her mom for the first time. Alisa goes back up stairs and sees Sterling is being roughed up and taken out back by the same guys Jessica scared off the night before. This time though they are asking for Sterling to talk Jessica into doing some shady jobs with them and be their muscle. After seeing that Sterling is happy to sell Jessica out to these guys (for a part of the profits from the jobs), Alisa beats him to death and takes off. Jessica finds him dead, never knowing what he was planning behind her back and is broken from this loss.
When the men are arrested for killing Sterling, she recognizes them as the men she roughed up the night before and she takes on the blame of his death. If there’s one thing Jessica is good at, it’s blaming herself for everything. She has a real self-loathing thinking she got her family killed and now thinking that she killed Sterling as well.
Alisa realizes that her anger is a real problem and goes back to Dr. Karl and he promises her that he will make her well enough to see Jessica again some day.
Related – Check out our review of Jessica Jones episode 8.
CarterMatt Verdict
After hearing Alisa’s story we wondered how Jessica would react. Would she run into her arms and hug her? Would she be upset over blaming herself for Sterling’s death all these years when it was her mother that killed him? Is there forgiveness in her heart? Ultimately, Jessica did not forgive her mother, which is what we expected. Jessica is hardened and can’t let go of the past, even if there’s an opportunity to build something with her mother. It’s going to take a lot more than an explanation to gain Jessica’s forgiveness.
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