What makes the show stand out is that it does not shy away from these topics and treats them like the audience is adult rather than dance around the topic. There’s one terrible scene where Hope, who we met in the first episode and who was raped by Kilgrave physically, finds out she’s pregnant and goes to great lengths to obtain an abortion to the point where she pays a prison inmate (as she is in jail for murdering her parents under Kilgrave’s command) to beat her and induce a miscarriage. We never see the beating but Hope tells Jessica that “every minute the fetus inside me feels like he’s raping me again and again.”

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Kilgrave is someone you could know. He practices the arts of gaslighting and manipulation. This makes him dangerous and though he exists in a fiction, there are people like that in real life. They might not have superpowers, but they manipulate vulnerable women into thinking they are loved until they have what they want and then discard them like cheap playthings instead of human beings. Caroline Siede remarked in A.V. Club “By making Kilgrave more charming than menacing, Jessica Jones is hinting at a hard truth through a superhero lens: Abusers don’t just rely on physical threats. They cultivate a sense of trust and intimacy with their victims that keeps the cycle of violence going.”

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It’s one of the reasons that watching Kilgrave die in the final episode could be viewed as satisfying to some viewers who have been in that position. But that is just one type of person that could be. There’s the subject of Will Simpson, the New York Police Sergeant who transitions subtly from victim to abuser in the series.

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He’s sent by Kilgrave to kill Jessica’s friend Trish. He has been violated and ordered to do this and after seeing a dead Trish (who in fact is not dead, but Simpson does not know that Jessica manipulated it to look that way), he goes back to Kilgrave only to narrowly avoid being forced to kill himself. Simpson feels guilty for what he has done to Trish and tries to apologize, not realizing that Trish does not wish to be reminded of how she was attacked in her own home. She just wants him to LEAVE. But Simpson makes the apology about him and his absolution rather than Trish’s safety or mental health. He then downward spirals, wanting to kill Kilgrave and ignoring the needs and wishes of both Jessica and Trish.

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Simpson wants a sense of control to get his revenge and it becomes scary very quickly as eventually “his pleading and eventual violence toward Jessica and Trish is so reminiscent of how many abusers try to frame the narrative: Their victims are ‘making’ them violent, any cruel actions they take are actually the fault of the victim. If only their victims would accept them, or treat them better, or fix them, they would stop being violent” explains Yang.

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Obviously being a victim of abuse by Kilgrave does not excuse Simpson’s behavior of abusing others, but I think Yang sums it up best here:

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Simpson and Kilgrave certainly have different motivations for their destructive actions. But, as Jessica points out, intent doesn’t matter. Their actions and consequences are what matter. That’s an important distinction that needs to be made at a time when courts and media alike dismiss many real-life cases of abuse because the abuser “couldn’t know” what they were doing was wrong. Violence is a symptom of a culture that indulges bad behavior as being inherently and unavoidably part of masculinity, or even a romantic expression of desire and protectiveness. Jessica Jones refuses to let those excuses slide. It condemns abusers even as it acknowledges their reasoning and motivation. Kilgrave is not charming, once you know who he really is. Simpson is not just overprotective, once you see what he’s done. Reasons change; abuse is abuse. When abuse is more identifiable, we have multiple ways to discuss it and deconstruct it. Just like Jessica and Trish, when we can name this behavior as abuse, we’re better equipped to support each other and fight back against it.

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And that’s what women should to take away from Jessica Jones. We need to realize that abuse is abuse and learn to support each other and fight back against it. We do not need superpowers for that. It could be dangerous, but facing your fears is part of life. Simpson and Kilgrave are important elements that represent two major facets of abuse.