Since the first episode, Trish Walker has been itching to take more control of her life, whether it’s through Krav Maga lessons or by packing a pistol. She’s also been trying to help others do the same by joining Jessica’s fight against Kilgrave. Although she lacks Jessica’s superpowers, Trish jumps into the fray with endearing blind faith and an unwavering sense of justice. In “AKA I’ve Got the Blues,†we learn just how far she is willing to go to defeat Kilgrave.
The episode begins with Jessica covering Hope’s body with a bloody tablecloth, while the noose victims recover from their near-hanging. Jessica takes a quiet moment to grieve Hope, then turns back to the chaos around her. She fabricates a cover story and convinces everyone to lie to the police. Later, Trish picks up a blood-covered Jessica near the scene. Trish tries to assuage her friend’s guilt by pointing out that trading Albert for Hope made sense. Jessica says Albert is as good as dead, and now, she plans to track every elderly John Doe sent to the city’s morgues. She hopes that Albert’s death will provide a clue to Kilgrave’s whereabouts.
Jessica and Trish arrive at a morgue and try to bluff their way inside to see the body. It doesn’t work, and I’m kind of relieved because it would have felt so convenient to have such a gullible morgue monitor. What does get them in, though, is even more cheesy and annoying. Jessica notices that the monitor is reading a foodie magazine, then promises that Trish could use her “Trish Talk†fame to secure him a table at the restaurant of his choice. He bites. Trish makes a phone call in French and — voila! — they’re inside the morgue. The body isn’t Albert, and the monitor promises to alert Jessica of any suspicious arrivals.
Jessica is ready to visit more morgues, but an exhausted Trish thinks they both need to sleep. Jessica agrees, but then secretly conducts her own search. As she visits morgue after morgue, her exhaustion is palpable. She hallucinates a vision of Kilgrave, then runs after a man in the street, where she’s hit by a food truck. As she writhes on the ground in pain, a crowd surrounds her. With her eyes barely open, she spies a pair of very familiar pointy shoes and lunges at a man — but it’s not Kilgrave. Jessica limps away from the scene.
Back at work in the “Trish Talk†studio, a rested Trish interviews a famous flute player. (There’s no way this is the top-rated talk show in New York, as Jessica claims.) A groveling Simpson interrupts the interview. He apologizes for being an asshole, but Trish stops him cold: “Assholes are a nuisance … you were violent and scary.†He tries to justify his behavior by blaming the military pills he was taking. Trish accepts his apology, and reluctantly agrees to meet up at some point later. Simpson also wants to know where Jessica is, so he can apologize to her too.
Jessica, of course, is recovering from her accident. Later at Trish’s apartment, Trish uses plastic kitchen wrap to bandage Jessica’s ribs, then sweetly tucks her in on the couch. They joke about who she’d be willing to sacrifice if it meant Kilgrave’s death. (Sorry, puppies and nuns.)
There’s so much love and respect between these two. In a series of flashbacks, we see the origins of their friendship. One day, teenage Trish escapes her mother’s abuse by running into a bathroom, where Jessica has just discovered her powers. (She’s lifting a heavy marble sink above her head.) They each have their secrets. “I don’t tell,†Trish says, “and you don’t save me.†But Jessica can’t resist. When she sees Mama Walker forcing Trish to throw up, she tosses her against the wall.
Back on Trish’s couch, Jessica gets a text from her morgue contact. Another John Doe has arrived. Jessica leaves to see if it’s Albert, and her curiosity is piqued when she learns that the body was found at the CDC facility. She peeks under the sheet, only to discover a very burnt Detective Clemons. She calls Trish with the update, surmising that Kilgrave doubled-back to clean up evidence and took out Clemons in the process. Trish is now revved up to hunt for Albert, and promises to meet Jessica at her apartment in an hour.
On her way out, Trish finds Simpson waiting in the hallway. He claims to be there because she said she wanted to meet up later, but there’s a desperation to his demeanor that suggests otherwise. Trish says she’s running out to buy some soy milk — which, bless New York City, you can absolutely do in the middle of the night — but he knows better and asks if she’s going to meet Jessica. He’s mad because Jessica keeps interfering with his attempts to kill Kilgrave. At that moment, two men in black show up. They want to bring Simpson back to his mysterious doctor. When he declines, the men insist. Simpson turns to Trish, slips two red pills into his mouth, and promises her that he’s “got this.†He swivels around and shoots both men dead.
Later, as Simpson cleans up the bloody evidence, he calls Jessica. He’s got a lead on Kilgrave’s whereabouts, and he wants in on the action. He agrees to meet Jessica at her apartment. After he hangs up, we see that Simpson locked Trish in her gym room. It’s a set-up. Using a dumbbell, Trish knocks the hinges off the door. She’s not giving up yet.
Simpson arrives at Jessica’s place with his gun pointed at the door. He’s ready to kill her when she opens it, but when a neighbor enters the hallway, Simpson loses his nerve. After Jessica invites him in, she tells him Clemons is dead, nothing that he’s surprised to hear. Simpson claims he heard from the precinct that Clemons died in a fire. Jessica corrects him: According to the autopsy report, a police-issued bullet killed him. Simpson plays innocent, then Jessica points out that only she and Clemons could have directed him to Albert’s hotel, which means he had been at the CDC facility too … which also explains the burn on his arm. Jessica basically Columbo’d him.
Simpson tries to shoot her, but Jessica kicks his chair down. A brutal fight scene ensues, and it gets even more brutal after Simpson pops another red pill. He throws Jessica through a wall, then kicks her injured ribs. Suddenly, Trish appears and whacks Simpson with a fire extinguisher, which buys them enough time to hide in Jessica’s bathroom. (Go, Patsy, go!) While Simpson tries to break down the bathroom door, Jessica confesses that she’s too injured to beat him. Trish pulls out a bottle of Simpson’s red pills. Simpson warns her not to take them; without a blue pill to bring her down, the red pill will make her brain forget to breathe. She takes one anyway.
Trish busts through the bathroom door and attacks Simpson. There’s a fun, claustrophobic fight in Jessica’s tiny kitchen that ends when Trish knocks Simpson out cold. Trish is super pumped. Too pumped. She starts to suffocate, then collapses. It’s touch-and-go, but after Jessica calls 911, a medic gives her an injection that counteracts the unknown stimulant of the red pill. “You just had to be a hero, didn’t you?†Jessica says in the back of an ambulance. “Learned it from you,†Trish responds. (I wish the show would dial back some of this forced dialogue.)
Later that night in Trish’s hospital room, Jessica wakes up to a text from an unknown number. It says that if she wants to say goodbye to her “boyfriend,†she’d better hurry. Jessica races to Luke’s bar. As she watches from across the street, Luke stares at her through the windows. The blank look on his face says it all — he’s been Kilgraved. Suddenly, as he stands inside, the bar explodes. But did Kilgrave know about Luke’s unbreakable skin? He wanders outside, engulfed in fire, and falls to the ground. Jessica beats the flames off with her jacket and they silently look at each other, the bar burning behind them.