Warning: Spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Netflix’s “Jessica Jones” ahead.
Arguably the most fearsome bad guy in the Marvel universe, David Tennant’s Kilgrave in “Jessica Jones” wasn’t plotting to overthrow the democratic order of some metropolis by force, shoot laser beams at moon or any such storybook villainy. His evil stemmed from a less obvious power: Kilgrave could compel people to do exactly as he said simply by saying it, a type of mind control that made for a darkly entertaining yet deeply unsettling antagonist.
Yet when Kilgrave forced Jessica (Krysten Ritter) to confront him, she snapped his neck. A tidy conclusion for Season 1, but one that left viewers wondering how "Jessica Jones" could possibly follow up Tennant’s captivating performance.
Series creator Melissa Rosenberg acknowledged the challenge ahead of her at New York Magazine’s Vulture Festival in New York on Saturday. And — rest assured — she knows what she’s doing.
Asked whether it was “daunting” to think up a fresh antagonist for the upcoming second season, Rosenberg scoffed.
"Oh, not at all," she said, explaining that the recipe for writing Jessica a new arch-nemesis merely needs to draw on the reluctant heroine's grudges.
"For this show, for this character, the ‘big bad’ is all about how personal it is to her,” Rosenberg said. "Having some guy go in and say, ‘I’m going to take over the city!’ [She] doesn’t care. It’s not going to resonate. So whatever we do just has to be intimate or personal in a way. Not necessarily the history or such, but just connected directly."
For what it's worth, our money's on the mysterious "IGH."
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