Coping With Murder

In Jessica Jones season two, Jessica Jones learned that the coping habits she has been using were not the best for her and those around her. Jessica has been using alcohol, meaningless sex, bottling emotions, and pushing away friends and family in order to cope with the fact that she thinks she killed her family. She did not actually kill her family but she blames herself. Her family got in a car crash together and she was the only survivor, or so she thought. She learns the history behind how she got her powers and that her mother is also alive and has powers stronger than Jessica. They got these powers on the death bed, and a doctor decided they were the perfect candidates for his illegal program that changed people’s DNA to make them into super humans. These experiments play a big role in the psychological well-being of Jessica throughout this show. The reason she becomes a PI is because she wants to investigate the mysterious nature of these experiments that, originally, she has no memory of. She has small flashbacks occasionally that help her to learn more and more about how she survived and became super strong. She has the help of her adopted sister Trish and her associate, Malcolm, who is a recovering drug addict who is just trying to find something to do to pass his time besides doing drugs. Jessica is not the best influence for him due to her problems too. Through season one, Jessica is just pushing all of her problems away and internalizing her emotions. In season two, she starts to realize that she does not have to live this way. She starts to open up more, get closer and trust people, and actually starts to almost have a boyfriend. These are huge strides in the scheme of things, because Jessica has many mental health issues including a short temper. These coping mechanisms she uses, mixed with her mental health issues, make for a very volatile person that should be kept on a short leash. This is the main reason why law enforcement keeps her on a short leash and always assumes when bodies start to come in under mysterious circumstances, then she is usually involved. She is not very fond of this assumption because she is treated differently for being powered and she does not like this. She does not want to kill people. She feels remorse after she kills people, but people that do not know her, do not realize just how sorry she feels for any time she has killed anyone. Also she got blamed for many people’s murders, when they were not, in reality, anywhere close to her fault. She is blamed for the death of a detective. Jessica is trying to talk her mom down from killing Trish, and the detective pulls a gun and got to close, and Jessica’s mom grabbed her and jumped out the window with her in hand. The detective died on the pavement. This is not Jessica’s fault, she was trying to not have her mother die, but other people thought her death was the only way to be safe from her. Jessica realizes that a piece of her mother is still there and that she is the only one that can reach her, but everyone else is scared of her power and thinks she should have to die.