Marvel’s Jessica Jones
Episode 1.1 “AKA Ladies Night”
Created by Melissa Rosenberg
Starring Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, Rachael Taylor, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Tennant
Netflix
Premiere date: November 20, 2015

Marvel’s Jessica Jones starts off with a dramatic bang. Taking place in the same dark Manhattan of fellow Netflix seriesDaredevil that contrasts so heavily with the New York that Iron Man and the Avengers saved just a little while ago, the grit and overt noir feels more like something out of Christopher Nolan’s depiction of The Dark Knight. The difference here is that Ra’as Al Ghul’s Detective is 5’9″, female, and doesn’t need a mask to intimidate the baddies.

The first episode, “AKA Ladies Night,” does some interesting things when it comes to its depiction of women. Jessica Jones takes place in a woman’s world. The first ten minutes of the show is bereft of male-speaking roles. The next five introduces a father trying in vain to cope with his daughter’s missing status by attempting to fix a door, while his wife, deals with the business. The next male character you meet is likewise neutered: he’s a video artist. Number 3 is a pathetically portrayed Alpha Male — contrast that with the title super heroine in Krysten Ritter, a woman running the board room in Carrie-Anne Moss top-rate lawyer, and the missing female’s mother, who’s clearly running things at home. This is a wholly different paradigm for the Marvel Cinematic Universe that started off with the male chauvinist Tony Stark in Iron Man less than a decade ago. As comic book content goes, it’s a whole new bag.