NOTE: Some major spoilers for the first season of Jessica Jones are present in this article!
Rest easy, true believers! At long last, it’s been confirmed that one of Marvel’s most unconventional heroines will make her way back to Netflix with a second season, with Netflix making the announcement of Jessica Jones’ renewal during the Television Critics Association Winter Tour today. It’s presumed that Krysten Ritter, Carrie-Ann Moss, Rachael Taylor and Wil Traval will all return for the show’s second season, though David Tennant’s involvement is more up in the air for now, as his villain appeared to be killed off at the end of the first season. It’s also unknown if Mike Colter will return for the second season, given that Luke Cage is about to spin off into his own Netflix show later this year, though it’s certainly possible, as Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are married in Marvel Comics lore.
More than likely, the show’s second season will probably deal with Wil Traval’s character embracing his super-villain identity as Nuke, a super-strong, yet crazed military goon who derives berserker-style strength and subsequent cooldown from a series of red, white and blue pills. While Traval’s character didn’t fully become Nuke in Season One, the all-important Nuke pills were given to him later in the season, before he disappeared, with his whereabouts currently unknown. Another potential angle for the second season is Trish Walker developing her own superheroine identity as Hellcat, which was foreshadowed during the first season in a few scenes, with her physical training regimen most notably.
The first season of Jessica Jones debuted last November, and, like sibling series, Daredevil, received enormous critical acclaim and viewership, with our own review of the first season culminating in a stellar 94% overall score. Some speculative Netflix numbers from NBC even appear to suggest that Jessica Jones may have attracted even more unique viewers than Daredevil, even if Daredevil has been streamed slightly more, possibly suggesting that Daredevil has an added count of repeat viewings, no doubt due to the approaching debut of its own second season. Both Marvel shows however appear to be surpassing the debut seasons of even mammoth Netflix shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black in viewership, should the leaked data be believed.
When asked about when we may see the second season of Jessica Jones, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos claims that it depends on what Marvel’s plan is with scheduling crossover Netflix miniseries, The Defenders, which will unite Jones and Cage with Daredevil, and upcoming martial artist hero, Iron Fist. We may see the new Jessica Jones season before or after The Defenders, which sadly corroborates reports that the new season of Jessica Jones may debut as late as 2019.
Sarandos also addressed the report from TVLine, which broke the news of Netflix and Marvel secretly moving ahead with plans for a television series starring The Punisher, who will be introduced during the second season of Daredevil this March. Sarandos gave a non-committal, “No comment” response, though did say that Netflix is currently focusing on casting for Iron Fist, which just found a showrunner in Dexter’s Scott Buck, and has only officially cemented the five Marvel shows that the streaming service has already announced. Sarandos did say that a Punisher-centric series is still very possible though, if the character is received well, and didn’t even deny a potential spin-off series starring new Daredevil anti-heroine, Elektra, should there also be demand for that! Sarandos did however claim that they don’t wish to exceed two Marvel shows a year on their streaming service however, particularly since each Marvel series season takes quite a lot of time and resources to produce.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on Netflix’s Marvel Cinematic Universe shows, so keep walking to Eggplante for all news and updates on Marvel/Netflix collaborations.