on season 2 of JJ canon

Short version: I didn't finish it because I didn't like what I did see.

Long version: My problems with season 2 were many, but the biggest annoyances relevant to this journal can be sorted into four categories.

• "How did Defenders actually affect everyone?": Apparently, it largely didn't.
• "How shitty can we be?": One of the points of Jessica Jones (and indeed the entire Netflix MCU) is that here's a bunch of really fucked-up people who aren't always that great, particularly to each other, but you like them and care about them anyway because they're complex and interesting. Season 2 took this to its illogical extreme, constantly bringing out everyone's biggest flaws (Jessica's antipathy, sullenness, drinking habits, selfishness; Trish's issues with boundaries and also drugs; Jeri's entire existence; etc.) and throwing them at you as if it was a challenge. Do you still like them? Have they reached the maximum threshold for tolerable shittiness yet? (The answer is sometimes, sometimes but clearly because they needed to invent drama, and you did that last season lady.)
• "How (relevantly) angsty can we be?": Did we really need a plot thread about the adult man who sexually manipulated Trish as a teenager? Yes, #metoo, but: it was only dredged up to create extra drama, it felt like it was there specifically to make the hashtag (in case you forgot this was a show about surviving [sexual] abuse?), it seriously didn't go anywhere, and the potential ramifications of Trish confronting a past abuser were completely ignored in the narrative. Did we really need a plot thread about how, when Jess and Trish had temporarily broken up as friends, Jess' then-boyfriend was murdered by Jess' erstwhile ragemonster of a mother secretly? That's not even relevant to anything, really, but it did virtually nothing to enhance Jess' story and wasted time that could have been spent on other, more valuable things. Did we really need a plot thread about Jeri having a disease? Was that supposed to make us sympathize with her? She's not a good person (see also, the comment about how Pam dressed essentially like she was asking for it). (The answer to all of these questions is no. We didn't need that.)
• "How can we fuck with Trish?": All of the characters were repeatedly fucked with in grossly unnecessary ways, but since this is a roleplay journal for Trish I'm going to talk specifically about Trish. First, the drug problem: we already did this in season 1, with the episode where she took Simpson's performance enhancing drug to get an edge in the fight and then had an aftermath of that. We discussed that then, and she was aware of the consequences of that then. She also pretty well told her mom to fuck off, then apropos of nothing (in order to get some advantage in Jess' investigation, allegedly) she had a relationship with her mom again because the toxic effects of that add so much necessary drama to the story. (They don't.) It made no sense for her to go back down this path again, worse this time, with minimal provocation, and it made no sense that of everyone around her, her mother was the only one who even realized drugs were involved at first and she didn't really even do anything about it (because, I presume, she secretly enjoyed Trish being reliant on her in her substance-dependent state). Jessica was part of her life all through her original drug problem and subsequent rehabilitation, and Jessica was allegedly her closest friend, so she should have seen the signs. Malcolm (who she shouldn't have slept with and taken advantage of because that wasn't cool either) was a former drug addict himself and, again, should have seen the signs and behaved accordingly. And furthermore: it is narratively insulting that Trish, who wants to be a hero so much, is one of the only characters who's actively punished for her good intentions. She does a lot of stupid things in the name of doing the right thing, but that's true of a lot of the heroes who are actively allowed to be heroes, not constantly thwarted and told it's being done wrong.

So. I take Trish from post-Defenders, and I do acknowledge that she's a recovering addict (ergo she doesn't drink or do drugs, and don't ask), but that's that. I don't wanna mess with season 2. Or 3, which I never even bothered watching because it sounds like a tragedy. 

And maybe she's getting to be Hellcat without any of the bullshit.