Idiot Boxing: Preacher, season 2 (2017); Jessica Jones, season 2 (2018)

Tulip, Jesse, and Cassidy make New Orleans their home base
for most of season 2. You can never see where the show is
going, which is often fun, though tight plotting is sometimes
sacrificed for the "gonzo" unpredictability.

Preacher, season 2 (2017)

A wild comic book, adapted into an even wilder TV series, grows even more insane in its second season.

The first season saw the introduction of the three primary characters - Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy - as they fled the tiny town of Annville, Texas, after it was laid to waste in a Biblical-style smiting. Armed with the power to literally compel others to do whatever he says, Jesse and his companions set out to find God, who they have learned has abandoned Heaven. The quest leads them to Las Vegas and eventually New Orleans, with the narrative taking several trips back in time to see Tulip and Jesse's back stories. On their trail much of the time is the invincible Saint of Killers, a towering, undead cowboy from the 19th century who has been tasked with finding and killing Jesse so that the power within him can be recaptured and returned to Heaven.

To echo my review of the first season, it is impossible for me to have an unvarnished opinion about this show. I was a tremendous fan of the source comic book back when it was originally released through the 1990s, reading and re-reading it more times than I can remember. Thankfully, I am not a purist when it comes to adapatations of even previously-treasured books. The first season of Preacher showed that, while they were going to use much of the tone and even many details from the original stories, the show runners were going to tell the story very much their own way. I respect this, as a shot-for-shot telling of the original graphic novel would be rather uninspired and quite boring for those of us familiar with the source material. This second season continues that trend, with the story reworking some of the graphic novels' characters and plotlines, while adding some completely orginal ideas. It works quite well, most of the time,

A wonderful highlight of season two is
Pip Torrins's portrayal of the ruthless
Herr Starr. He pefectly captures the
comic version's balance of stone-cold
intensity and sarcasm.

That said, this show still hasn't quite found its footing as much as I had hoped after the first season. Yes, the wild irreverence and anything-goes spirit is fully intact, to be sure. And the gonzo action and thoroughly bizarre characters and scenarios abound, which is also as it should be. But I can't help but feel that the show runners and writers haven't fully discovered a unified, cohesive through-line for certain aspects of the series. There are a few ways that this manifests itself, but the primary one is exactly who Jesse Custer is as a person. In the comics, it is quite clear from early on that he is an old school, John Wayne "tough guy" at his core. Thanks to a brutally tough upbringing and a religious adoration for said movie Western hero, Custer has a backbone of steel and a punk-rock, "screw you" attitude that leads him on his hyper-focused quest for God. In the show, however, there is still a fair bit of hemming, hawing, and a few too many side-plots that get in the way of Jesse's goal, which wasn't even formed until the end of season one, and is consistently blurred or muddled into other plot elements in this second season. It is still there, to be sure, and it does all come back around by the season's final few episodes. But minor plot threads like Tulip's secret marriage and her PTSD after a horrible run-in with the Saint of Killers, along with the little story around Cassidy's son, Dennis, mostly seem to act as minor speed bumps in the greater tale, even if they do provide some decent entertainment. There is also an entire chunk of season two dedicated to Eugene "Arseface" Root attempting to escape Hell, where Jesse accidentally sent him in the previous season. This storyline is interesting for a while, as we figure out just how this particular version of Hell is constructed, but I felt weary of it about halfway through the 13-episode season.

On the whole, though, I still enjoy the show. One big reason is that the casting is excellent. I already lauded the main trio of actors - Cooper, Negga, and Gilgun, all still phenomenal - but this season introduces the primary villain from the comic series: Herr Starr, and he could not have been cast or played any better than Pip Torrens has done thus far. Starr is an icy-cold devotee of calculated order. In the comics, he is ruthless, murderous, and highly capable of seeing his goals through, while at the same time being a sort of running joke, as he is intermittently victimized in various bizarre ways. The TV show continued in this tradition, and Torrens plays the role with a spot-on, no-nonsense air that sells both the character's viciousness and the many darkly humorous moments that unfold around and to him. And though the Featherstone character was not quite as prominent in the comic series, she is given a larger, more varied role and played exceptionally well by Julie Ann Emery. And there are plenty of other lesser parts conceived, written, and performed to perfection throughout this sophomore season.

Despite its logical inconsistencies and some lack of attention to smaller details, I'm still on board with this show. There really isn't anything else quite like it that I've seen on TV, which is a valuable commodity in this "Platinum Age" of television. For one like me, who usually turns to TV for wild, imaginative escapism rather than pseudo-realistic drama, Preacher still fits the bill quite well.

Much of the main characters from season 1 return, though it
can sometimes feel as if the sub-plots focusing on a few of
them can water down the main narrative around Jessica and
the history behind her family and her powers.

Jessica Jones, season 2 (2018)

Another solid season of the Netflix series, if not exactly a masterpiece.

At the end of season one, which was released over two years ago, troubled private eye Jessica Jones had survived the immensely trying ordeal of tracking down and killing Kevin Kilgrave. The sociopathic and morally bankrupt Kilgrave, who possessed the power to force people to do his bidding by merely speaking to them, had focused his sights on Jessica but was ultimately laid low by his previous victim. We next saw Jones in the Netflix mini-series, The Defenders, in which she teamed up with Luke Cage, Danny Rand (a.k.a. "Iron Fist") and Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil), as the quartet fended off the shadowy group "The Hand" from plunging New York City into a realm of chaos and darkness.

Now, nearly a year after the events in The Defenders, Jones is back at her office working as a P.I. and trying to keep herself together. The trauma of having killed a man - even one as murderous and deserving as Kilgrave - haunts Jessica. Her plight isn't helped when other superpowered people begin turning up and dying around Jessica. She soon learns that these deaths are connected to her acquisition of her super strength when she was a young teenager. As she digs deeper into this, she begins to learn some shocking truths about her past. some of which she would clearly like to ignore.

This season was fairly strong and held my interest throughout, though I felt it was just a tad weaker than season one. Kristen Ritter is still excellent at playing the sneering, sarcastic, ultra-cynical Jones, and there is still great satisfaction in seeing her deal with the scum of Hell's Kitchen. And the show still does a great job in making her multi-dimensional. She may be the most obviously flawed "hero" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and the show is all the more unique and engaging for it. And seeing the character have to face certain facts about herself - some within her control and several well beyond her control - only offers us more opportunity to see how she deals with various dilemma, as well as how those dilemmas further impact her search for meaning in her own life.

Janet Taylor does an excellent job as the imposing figure who
plays a major part in this season. While the season can drag
a bit, her story goes a long way towards keeping it engaging.

As with the first season, a decent amount of time is given over to the many secondary characters: Jessica's neighbor and now-aspiring business partner Malcolm, foster-sister and mid-level celebrity Trish Walker, power lawyer Jeri Hogarth, and several others have their own arcs that play out through the thirteen episodes of the season. Some are certainly more interesting than others, but most of them are engaging enough. It certainly helps that these characters are more grounded and complex than what one finds in the MCU's big screen fare. Still, this season does not break the streak of Netflix MCU shows not having enough good material to fill out all 13 episodes. This leads to a bit of watering down of what could be some excellent, shorter seasons.

When I rewatched the first season of Jessica Jones last year, I found that I still enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm currently not sure how excited I'll be to take in this second season again, but I'm certain that I will give it another go.