A.K.A. Jessica Jones Season 1 Probably Features This Supervillain

While it still isn’t clear when Netflix will deliver Melissa Rosenberg’s A.K.A. Jessica Jones to its comic-loving subscribers, we have a pretty good idea of who we’ll be seeing the kickass detective facing in her first season. If audition videos signify what we think they do, Jones will be targeted once more by Zebediah Killgrave, also known as the Purple Man. Isn’t that grape, er, great?

Awful puns aside, ComicBookMovie detected an audition video where actress Meghan Ory is reading for the role of Jessica, who is called Julia in the video. (Even the auditions used the A.K.A. factor.) In one of several scenes, Ory is talking to a character named “Tracy,” and she’s freaking out over someone named “Kincade” being back and sending clients to her detective agency. She compares the case to own history with “Kincade,” bringing up how he can make people do things, and the dangers of what will happen if he gets a hold of her again.

”the

Sure, Melissa Rosenberg might have come up with a completely new villain named Kincade that terrorized Jessica in some way that isn’t referring to her spell under Purple Man’s command in the comics. But after “Tracy,” whom we’re definitely assuming is Luke Cage, says that she’s better equipped to handle him, she mentions a past failure, saying “that’s what started all of this.” That’s pretty much ex-superhero now-P.I. Jessica Jones’ origin story in a nutshell. If this show posits something other than the Purple Man as the cause of Jones’ fears, that’ll be disconcerting, but it’s still too early in the process to start waving torches. Watch Ory’s entire audition below.

Unfortunately, the second video that CBM posted to strengthen these claims has been removed. In it, they say actor Nick Court was reading the Kincade role, and that it detailed the first meeting between him and Julia/Jessica. That would have been interesting to hear, Internet.

Killgrave seemed likely to make an appearance in Jessica Jones’ first leading role in a major series, given his major ties to her character’s history, but Rosenberg and Netflix have offered up so little information about what fans can expect. Other than “Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones,” that is. And it’s still entirely possible that the villain will only appear in brief antagonistic moments, emerging in full for the Defenders miniseries. I love this “anything can happen” point in a show’s infancy, as opposed to the “boy, they’ll do anything” cynicism of later-season series.

For now, we’ll hope that A.K.A. Jessica Jones is coming in early 2016, by which point I will have watched Daredevil a half-dozen times.

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.