If you're anything like my friends and me, you spent the weekend binging Jessica Jones Season 2. Marvel makes a lot of tv shows nowadays, but in my opinion, Jessica Jones is the best by far.

In Season 1, Jessica Jones, who is essentially a b-list superhero with super strength, fought her arch nemesis Kilgrave. Kilgrave has the power of mind control and used it to rape Jessica and to make her do his bidding. And she's far from his only victim. She spends season 1 fighting the serial rapist and finally kills him in the season finale.

Jessica Jones is an excellent character but so was Kilgrave and fans worried that the show would not be the same without him. From watching the season 2 trailers, I knew season 2 would not be as good as season 1. They'd used up their best card in the premiere season. But season 2 was better then I expected.

Season 2 was about Jessica Jones figuring out who she was. People throughout the season call her a "murderer" and she struggled with whether or not to define herself that way. She discovered how exactly she acquired these superpowers that she had never really bothered to dig into before. It was established in season 1 that her whole immediate family died except for her in a car crash and that she had left that hospital with powers when she'd never had any before. This turns out not to be true.

Digging into her past was a fascinating and necessary plot for the show. And we got some really cool flashbacks of college-aged Jessica and Trish. And we also got this unspeakably awful pop song, courtesy of Trish:

However, I honestly think seasons 1 and 2 should have been switched. First of all, backstories usually come first in superhero plots as they should. They explain why the character is who they are, both physically and personality wise. Also, because season 2 was obviously written after season 1, there weren't really any easter eggs in season 1 about Jessica's past. For example, Jessica had a boyfriend in college that was brutally murdered and he was never even mentioned in season 1 because of course, he didn't exist yet. However, his death is kind of a weird thing for Jessica to never mention until her mom brings it up in a flashback. (More on her mom later.)

However, I do have to give Jessica Jones a bit of a pass on this. Because Jessica herself didn't fully know her backstory and she didn't really have time to dig into it while she was fighting the monster that was Kilgrave. I'm just saying it would be cool if she explored her backstory first and then had to fight Kilgrave with the knowledge of how she had her powers.

When Jessica finds out her mom is alive and was experimented no just like her although, with worse results, I felt mixed about it. Although it's a really good plot and the actress who portrays the mom is excellent, it kinds of comes out of nowhere and throws the show off balance. We've assumed forever that Jessica's whole family is dead. Additionally, the beginning of season 2 was all about Jessica meeting and confronting her maker. But her actually meeting the man who gave her her powers is a lot more anti-climatic then expected. The show seemed to be building up to a climax where Jessica yelled at the doctor who made her what she was, but Jessica's mom got in the way of all that.

Something really nice about season 2 was how we got to see Jessica's real personality, while she wasn't in constant terror of being taken under Kilgrave's control again. On the other hand, we also had one glorious episode where Kilgrave was in Jessica's head after she had done something that upset her to her very core.

Jessica and Trish's relationship also takes a very interesting turn in this season. In season 1, Jessica relies on Trish. But in this season, Trish really needs Jessica. When the show ends, Trish has done something that Jessica doesn't know if she can forgive her for. And the show leaves the door wide open for Trish to become the superhero, Hellcat, that she is in the comics.

Another interesting thing about season 2 was that it had X-Men vibes. A lot of shows are getting political these days, and Jessica Jones did so somewhat subtly last season but this season they just went for it. Jessica and others like her, called "powered people" face prejudice because of their powers. But this plot is not nearly as in your face as it is in, for example, the X-Men spinoff "The Gifted".

This season also has something that is common in a lot of superhero shows that I like to call "side plot syndrome". Trish Walker's return to addiction plot, along with her slowly going out of her mind and Jeri Hogarth's terminal illness plot is to me, more interesting than the main plot. Both characters evolved a lot but perhaps didn't get as much screen time as they should have. Although Trish got plenty of screen time towards the end of the season.

This season was really strong with lots of character development for Jessica Jones. And it's nice to see her not being in constant fear. She also strikes up an actually healthy romance with a man down the hall. Trish's rapid deterioration throughout the series is fascinating and Jeri becomes much more three dimensional. The second season doesn't hold a candle to the first, but it's themes of love, loss, and family and watching Jessica evolve in a post-Kilgrave world definitely make the season worth watching.