Marvel's Jessica Jones S01E08 "AKA WWJD?" Recap

In a flashback, a teenage Jessica is preparing to go on a trip with her parents and younger brother. She thinks of it when entering her childhood home where Kilgrave hopes to build a life with her. He has a private security guard present named Hank that searches Jessica and confiscates her phone, which she had set up in a plan to record Kilgrave admitting his role in the death of Hope's parents. Kilgrave says he wants Jessica to choose him and she orders that he not touch her, which he says he won't do until he gets her genuine consent. Kilgrave had gone to the effort of painstakingly recreating all the details and decorations to match how it was when Jessica lived there. Kilgrave introduces her to the waitstaff, Laurent Bouchard and Alva Ramirez. Jessica doesn't want to stay in a house with people forced to be there but Laurent says that his salary is twice what he made at his last job, from which he was fired for drinking on the job. Kilgrave leads her to her childhood bedroom. Trish calls to see where Jessica is and what happened at the police station. Jessica tells the truth about Kilgrave showing up but claims to have left town of her own volition to lay low for the time being, leaving out the fact that she with him, and insults Kilgrave to prove she isn't under his control. Trish knows that Will is missing, having taken a leave of absence from work before disappearing and is now concerned that Kilgrave has him. She still doesn't know that he discovered Kilgrave taking up residence in Jessica's childhood home and Jessica joining.

Kilgrave has left Jessica with a gift, a sparkly purple dress, which she tears apart despite his wishes that she wear it for dinner that night. Jessica gets into an argument with Kilgrave at dinner to test the boundaries and discovers that Kilgrave installed a failsafe when the waitstaff emerge when hearing the noise and hold up knives to their own throats. Later that night, Will sneaks into the house and tries to get Jessica out, believing her to be under Kilgrave's control, but Jessica overpowers him and hides him from Kilgrave knowing that he's there. Will has installed a bomb in the house to take Kilgrave out but Jessica is insistent that Kilgrave must stay alive in order to get Hope off. She steals Will's phone for herself and alerts Kilgrave about the bomb, which Kilgrave's security disposes of. Kilgrave knows that it must have been Will that planted the bomb but is pleased that Jessica saved his life.

Jeri is still in her messy divorce proceedings with Wendy, who remains determined to walk away with a significant amount of Jeri's money. Pam interrupts the meeting to tell Jeri that Jessica has texted to say she's with Kilgrave.

Trish spots Will back in the city and demands answers about why he disappeared. He lets it slip that Kilgrave is out of the city and now thinks that they should leave Kilgrave and Jessica alone. Trish refuses to give up and remains intent on helping Jessica but Will thinks that they would only get in the way and put themselves in danger.

Jessica asks Kilgrave if his actions ever haunt him and Kilgrave begins to reveal a bit about his past and that he harbours negative feelings towards his parents. A neighbour, Mrs. De Luca, interrupts their outdoor breakfast and Kilgrave welcomes her to join them when she offers to tell childhood stories about Jessica. When Mrs. De Luca starts to talk about how Jessica would torment her younger brother and how she did so the day before the accident, Jessica forcefully tells her to stop. Perturbed, Mrs. De Luca claims that she sensed something bad was going to happen before the accident until Kilgrave forces her to admit that this is just a lie she told to try to feel more important. Jessica becomes further enraged when Kilgrave touches her hand. They go inside the house where Jessica tells him he raped her by forcing her what to do and Kilgrave yells that he never knows if people want to be with him and that he has to meticulously choose his words in order to be able to interact with people without forcing them to do his bidding. He then shows her the pendrive that Reva had hidden in the box Jessica dug up. On it is footage of Kilgrave's parents performing painful experiments on him as a child until his abilities manifested and he forces them to stop.

Jessica wonders where Kilgrave's parents are now and he speculates that they might still be alive, as they were young when they had him. Jessica realises that nobody ever taught Kilgrave to be good. After seeing a news story of a man holding his wife and children hostage at gunpoint, Jessica takes Kilgrave to the crime scene unfolding, though not before Kilgrave orders the waitstaff to remove the skin form each other's faces if they don't return in two hours. Jessica and Kilgrave use their abilities to get past the barrier and get the wife and children free, with Kilgrave telling them to not tell anyone they were there before they leave. Kilgrave is prepared to command the man to kill himself but Jessica instructs him to have the man turn himself over to the police instead, as it's not his choice to decide whether the man lives or dies. Kilgrave seems to have enjoyed his experience as a hero and is now inclined to become a superhero duo with Jessica. She tells him he can do it without her but he reminds her that without the intervention she gave, he would've killed the man. She is overcome, realising he is right and leaves to go for a walk to clear her head. Kilgrave not so subtly threatens to harm the waitstaff if she doesn't return.

Jessica visits Trish and tells her about having stayed with Kilgrave and her attempts to reform him. She asks for advice on whether she should stay with Kilgrave and put the grueling work in to try to overhaul his way of using his abilities to help the world.

Jeri texts Jessica, wanting her to find leverage on Wendy, and Kilgrave texts her back pretending to be Jessica saying she's on it. Jessica brings back Chinese food as part of a larger plan that ends in her knocking out the wait staff before injecting Kilgrave with some Sufentanil to knock him out. When she carries Kilgrave out, his security interrupts her getting away until Will shoots him. More security arrive so Jessica flies away with Kilgrave's unconscious body. Mrs. De Luca then approaches Will and the remaining security and detonates the bomb he had left earlier. Will is not dead following the attack, but badly injured.

Marvel's Jessica Jones is available for streaming on Netflix.