Look Who Finally Stomped Her Way Back Into the MCU!

After teasing the perfect entry point for the other Defenders in the season one finale of Daredevil: Born Again — as members of Matt’s little resistance army — I’ve basically just been sitting around waiting for my favorite superstrong sleuth to finally stomp her way into the MCU. Like, I’ve been enjoying this season plenty, but deep down I’ve mostly just been tolerating it until it delivered Jessica Jones unto my eyeballs. And it did, last night, in episode six, which was five episodes too late for my taste, but I’ll let that slide because at least we got one hell of a reintroduction!

The episode opened on the aftermath of Vanessa’s death, including Fisk snapping the poor surgeon who failed her like a twig before moving on to her funeral, but it was the sight of a house in the suburbs that caught me. It’s not often that Daredevil leaves the confines of New York City, so of course something must be amiss. A little girl in fairy wings plays in her living room while cookies cool in the kitchen, but the domestic bliss is interrupted when a black SUV full of dudes in bulletproof vests pulls up. Her mother, in socks and sweats, steps outside, and even before the camera reveals her face, we know exactly who she is when bodies start flying beyond the windows.

Jessica Jones is a mother now, which isn’t a huge surprise if you know the comics. Though the show hasn’t officially revealed the father yet, Jessica does call her daughter Danielle, which means we’re looking at Danielle Cage, Jessica’s child with Luke Cage! The fact that Jessica Jones bakes cookies now is the real shocker, but I appreciate the way Born Again has already given her character more evolution than seasons two and three of her own Netflix show did combined. I don’t need to know what happened in all the years between then and now - it’s enough to see that she’s doing well.

Or at least she was, until she started helping Matt. She meets Daredevil on a rooftop, where she starts connecting a whole lot of dots for him. She tells him it wasn’t the Task Force that attacked her — it was the CIA, which has also been working with Fisk on his gunrunning. She even knows about Mr. Charles, who had actually called her in the past, trying to recruit supes to do his dirty work. Considering Charles stumps for Valentina, I imagine it had something to do with the Thunderbolts or some other initiative, but Jessica turned him down - though she hints that not everyone else did, to which Matt responds with a knowing, “Oh…” It was all very wink-wink-nudge-nudge, like I’m supposed to know who they’re talking about, which in turn makes me think Luke signed up? He’s the only one Matt and Jessica both would care about. I mean, I guess it could have been Danny Rand, but I can’t imagine the CIA would want him or that Jessica would give a crap. Literally nobody cares about Danny Rand

She also reveals that Fisk moved that secret weapon shipment from the port to… the warehouse they’re standing across from. Essentially, Fisk stole the guns the CIA wanted and gave them to his Task Force, to aid them in hunting down Daredevil, Bullseye, and whichever other vigilantes Fisk wants to pin Vanessa’s death on, so Jessica proposes they go mess things up. Which they do, spectacularly. Jessica bursts through the warehouse wall like sarcastic Kool-Aid Man while Daredevil politely uses the door, and then they team up to burn the place down after punching everyone in it. It’s great, in the way all the big action set-pieces in this show tend to be, but it’s got an extra special zip to it because Daredevil doesn’t often get to team up with someone for his ass-kicking - and it’s been so long since we’ve had the privilege of seeing Jessica kick ass at all.

So yeah, the return of Jessica Jones was the highlight of the season for me, but it was actually a fairly small part of the episode itself. Functionally, she was nothing more than a frowny-faced info dump, brought in to bring Matt up to speed on Fisk’s ties to the CIA just as Fisk was busy burning that bridge down himself. She shines so brightly because she represents a simple, uncomplicated pleasure in the sea of tangled, slow-moving plot threads that each made incremental progress last night. Daniel finally confronts BB about her secret broadcasts. Mr. Charles goes to the Governor to flip on Fisk. Karen and Matt fight about vengeance vs. justice for like the umpteenth time. Heather strangles Buck in some sort of cathartic release/ mental breakdown thingy that was unnecessary but also the most interesting thing her character has done in two seasons. Daredevil tries to talk some sense into Fisk and fails, but hey — the show just needs to put them in the same room together every so often. And the resistance reaches a fever pitch outside City Hall as protestors converge on the Task Force…

… and the Task Force finally captures Karen Page.

The stage has been set for the last two episodes of the season, and as much as I should be wondering how the final clash between Kingpin and Daredevil for the soul of NYC will play out, mostly I just want to know if Jessica is going to be coming back before it’s all over. Matt’s gonna need some help, right? Just let me have this!