Jessica Jones season 2 episode 9 review: AKA Shark in the Bathtub, Monster in the Bed

Jessica and Alisa continue their bizarre buddy routine. Trish somehow falls backward into a huge job opportunity. As for Oscar, he just gets dreamier.

What’s worse: losing a parent as a kid? Or losing a parent as a kid, briefly reuniting with them and then losing them again?

Jessica Jones is no stranger to hard questions or to loss, but her situation in AKA Shark in the Bathtub, Monster in the Bed just might be the most difficult one she’s ever encountered. Turns out I was wrong about Alisa.

She can control her outbursts, but she won’t. So her daughter is forced to choose between having her mom and causing massive damage to others or giving her mom and causing massive damage to herself.

Jess decides on the latter, as we all knew she would.

Before she turns Alisa in to the police, Jessica and her mom spend the day together and trick themselves into thinking they can just keep going on as they are. They’ll patch each other up after fights, laugh at Alisa’s lack of culinary skills, enjoy cheap booze, and work Alias cases as a team. Jess helps keep Alisa’s rage at bay, and Alisa tries to convince Jess the car wreck wasn’t her fault.

The Joneses help Oscar out when his ex tries to kidnap Vido. I won’t lie: I found the scene where the two women use their combined super-strength to stop a moving bus as touching and exciting as the writers were probably going for.

In that moment everything between Jessica and Alisa is perfect. So much so that Alisa wants to repeat the experience.

“What we did today for that boy… All this time, I’ve been repressing my strength, hiding it,” Alisa says to her daughter. “But what if we used it? I could do something.”

Just when you think that things will work out, Pryce, Alisa’s would-be assassin, wakes up. Alisa makes a passionate argument to kill him, which would apparently solve all her and Jess’ problems. (Which, yeah, right.)

That’s when Jessica realizes that Pryce has a point: she can stop her mother from killing but will never be able to rewire her brain. The hard truth of it is that, in Alisa’s mind, murder is always a viable option.

So Jess sends her mother off to the special prison for supers, successfully begging Alisa not to hurt anyone else.

“I’m like my mother in one way,” Jessica narrates as the police surround the two Joneses. “Neither of us get a happy ending. This is how I lose my mom.”

Meanwhile, Trish continues on her downward spiral in this episode, but at least Jessica finally notices that her addict foster-sister is using again. (Better late than never.)

Trish can’t convince Inez to talk about IGH on her show, which leads to a Network-esque on-air meltdown. Trish is probably one of Jessica Jones‘ more polarizing characters, so I can’t believe her throwing a temper tantrum, impulsively quitting and somehow parlaying that into a position at a major news network will win her any fans.

However, if you’ll allow me to indulge in some schadenfreude, I doubt Trish’s ZCN dreams will come true anyway. She discovers her IGH inhaler is empty (I was wondering when that was going to happen) and is freaking out because 1) some gnarly withdrawal symptoms are on their way and 2) ZCN’s Ronald Garcia tells her to keep doing whatever it is that causes her “spark.”

Trish is too strung out to realize it, but her passion about investigative journalism was always there — the IGH inhaler just made her more belligerent about it. But I doubt she’ll have this aha moment for another episode or two.

Finally, this is neither here nor there, really, but I’d like to add that Oscar is fantastic. Like Outlander‘s Jamie and Victoria‘s Prince Albert, Oscar seems to be a dreamboat created for and by heterosexual women.

He started out as a jerk, quickly redeemed himself, and proved to be the rare person actually worthy of Jessica Jones’ trust. He’s good-looking, smart and artistic, and best of all, he isn’t pushy.

He also gets points for being intuitive. After the Joneses get Vido back, Oscar tells Jess he knows Alisa has abilities like hers. He also picks up that the mother and daughter are in hot water, yet he reserves judgment.

“Whatever trouble [your mother’s] in, all I know is that she helped me get my kid back,” he tells Jess. “If you need something — papers to get her out, anything.”

It’s heartbreaking to see Jessica give up the mother who just returned to her life, but at least she has someone to go to in her hour of need.

Next: Jessica Jones S2E8 recap: AKA Ain’t We Got Fun

Misc.

• Alisa on why Jessica shouldn’t kill Pryce: “I just don’t want my kid to go to prison.”
• Jessica on why Alisa shouldn’t kill Pryce: “Well, I don’t want my mother to murder anyone else.”
• Malcolm apparently takes the day off with the excuse he’s visiting his parents. So that’s what the kids are calling drug relapses these days, huh?
• Whatever Jeri and Inez share is screwed up beyond belief, but at least they’re honest with each other: “You’re a user. Takes one to know one, right?”
• Another reason I like Oscar: “I don’t know. You’re shot. I like you. I’m involved.”
• The IGH inhaler might enhance speed and strength, but it doesn’t make breakups or professional frustration any easier, hence Trish slamming her laptop shut upon seeing Griffin’s news story.
• There’s no way Jeri would take anyone to a Chick-Fil-A, even if they could cure her ALS.
• It’s unclear whether Shane successfully heals Jeri or not, but I don’t think Jeri would weep in front of anyone unless it was in response to a miracle.
• This time in Jessica Jones‘ Marvel references:
  • Oscar knows Vido is on a long trip because his Captain America toy is gone.
  • Stan Lee‘s face is on a bus advertisement.