It’s been years. Honestly, the Netflix-Marvel era feels like a lifetime ago, a weird fever dream of gritty hallways and yellow-tinted New York streets before everything got swallowed by the shiny, interconnected MCU machine. But if you go back and rewatch Jessica Jones Season 3, something weird happens. It actually holds up. It’s better than you remember.
People mostly talk about the first season because of David Tennant’s Kilgrave. I get it. He was terrifying. But the third season? It was doing something way more complicated. It wasn't just about a guy with mind control; it was about the messy, painful reality of trying to be "good" when you’re a fundamentally broken person. It was the end of an era, literally. By the time this season dropped in June 2019, we already knew the axe had fallen. Netflix had canceled the whole slate.
The Gregory Salinger Problem
Most superhero shows give you a villain who wants to blow up a city. Gregory Salinger, played by Jeremy Bobb, didn't care about cities. He cared about being the smartest person in the room. He was a "highly gifted" serial killer who hated Jessica not because she was a hero, but because she didn't earn her gifts. He saw her as a "cheat."
That’s a wild motivation for a villain.
Salinger was basically the personification of "incel" rage mixed with a pathological need for intellectual validation. He used the law as a weapon. This wasn't a season of big CGI fights. It was a season of legal depositions, evidence tampering, and the agonizing realization that having super strength doesn't mean a damn thing when someone is outsmarting you with a camera and a subpoena.
Trish Walker’s Descent into Hell
If Salinger was the external threat, Trish Walker was the internal tragedy. We watched her for three seasons. We saw her go from the victimized child star "Patsy" to a woman so desperate for agency that she basically destroyed her soul to get it.
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The transformation into Hellcat wasn't a "girl boss" moment. It was a slow-motion car crash.
Remember the scene where she’s practicing her "superhero landing" and just looks ridiculous? It was funny for a second, but then it got dark. Trish became the very thing Jessica spent her life trying to avoid: a vigilante who thinks they are above the law because they have "good intentions." By the time we get to the finale, Trish isn't the sidekick. She’s the antagonist. That final confrontation in the glass-walled building? It wasn't about saving the world. It was about a sister realizing she had to put her other sister in prison for life.
Why the Pacing Actually Works
Critics at the time complained about the "Netflix bloat." You know the drill—13 episodes when it could have been eight. And yeah, there are some subplots that meander. Jeri Hogarth’s ALS diagnosis and her desperate attempt to reconnect with an old flame? It feels disconnected at first.
But look closer.
Hogarth, played by the incredible Carrie-Anne Moss, represents the moral vacuum that Jessica is fighting against. Hogarth is what happens when you have power and zero conscience. She’s the foil to Jessica’s reluctant heroism. While Jessica is trying to figure out if she can be a "hero," Hogarth is busy burning the world down just to feel something before she dies. It’s bleak. It’s adult. It’s something you just don't see in the Disney+ era of Marvel.
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The cinematography in Jessica Jones Season 3 shifted too. It stayed noir, but the blues and purples were sharper. The show looked expensive. It felt like a movie that just happened to be 13 hours long.
The Ending Nobody Talks About
The final shot of the series is Jessica at a ticket counter. She’s about to leave. She’s done with New York. She’s done with the tragedy. And then she hears Kilgrave’s voice in her head—just a whisper—telling her that she’s right to give up.
She stops. She turns around. The purple light fades.
It wasn't a cliffhanger for a Season 4 that never came. It was a definitive statement on her character. Jessica Jones isn't a hero because she wants to be; she’s a hero because she’s too stubborn to let the bastards win. Even the ones in her own head.
The Real-World Impact of Season 3
People forget that showrunner Melissa Rosenberg brought in a nearly all-female writing staff for this final run. You can feel it in the scripts. The way the show handles Salinger’s psychological abuse of women—it’s nuanced. It’s not exploitative. It’s about the specific way men in power try to diminish women who possess more natural talent or strength than they do.
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It was also a pioneer in how it handled trauma. Usually, in comics, you get over your trauma in a training montage. Jessica never gets over hers. She just learns to live around it. Jessica Jones Season 3 leaned into the idea that being a "hero" might actually make your life worse, not better.
Key Takeaways for Rewatching
If you're going to dive back into the 13 episodes, keep an eye on these specific threads:
- The Salinger Photos: Notice how the show uses photography as a metaphor for control. Salinger doesn't just kill; he documents. He turns his victims into "art."
- Erik Gelden’s Power: Jessica’s "love interest" this season has the power to sense evil (literally, it gives him a migraine). It’s a meta-commentary on the show itself—everyone in this world is at least a little bit "grey."
- The Cost of Law: Pay attention to how many times Jessica is stopped not by a fist, but by a lawyer. It’s the most realistic part of the show.
How to Experience the Best of the Series Today
Since the "Defenders" characters have officially migrated to Disney+, the viewing experience is a bit different. The 4K HDR masters are the best way to watch it, especially for the high-contrast noir scenes in the back half of the season.
Don't go in expecting The Avengers. This isn't a show about saving the universe from an alien threat. It’s a show about a woman who drinks too much, hates her job, and is trying to decide if her best friend is a murderer. It’s small-scale, high-stakes emotional warfare.
The best way to appreciate what they did here is to watch it back-to-back with the first season. You see the full arc. You see Jessica go from a victim of a monster to a survivor who has to stop someone she loves from becoming a monster. That’s a heavy, sophisticated story for a "superhero" show. It’s why, despite the cancellation, the season remains a masterclass in character-driven genre storytelling.
Next Steps for the Viewer
- Start with Episode 2 ("A.K.A. You're Welcome"): This episode is directed by Krysten Ritter herself. It gives you a completely different perspective on Trish’s origin story for the season and shows Ritter’s range behind the camera.
- Compare Salinger to Real-Life Cases: If you're into true crime, you'll see shades of BTK or Ted Bundy in Salinger’s meticulousness. It makes his scenes significantly more chilling.
- Watch the Finale for the Subtext: Don't just look at the plot; look at the lighting. The way the "heroic" blue light and the "villainous" purple light interact in the final moments tells the whole story of Jessica’s internal struggle.
The show is finished, but the character's impact on how we tell "gritty" stories is still very much alive. Catch it on Disney+ and pay attention to the silence between the lines. That's where the real story is.