Jessica Jones is back as the hard drinking, self-loathing private investigator. She is much more together than she was at the beginning of Volume 1, but get a couple of drinks in her and she will fuck inappropriate people.
Jessica heads to a small town to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl who is either a mutant, lied about being a mutant, or had rumors spread about her that she is a mutant. In this small town, mutants are the hated group du jour.
A lot of everyday ugliness is uncovered. In the background, Matt Murdock is outed as Daredevil, and Scott Lang, Ant Man, is calling to set up a date with Jessica. The teen girl, Rebecca, is a huge Daredevil fan. Jessica gets drunk and does what she does, throwing herself into another round of self-loathing. But in the end, she gets her shit together and does the job.
Super powers are not required to do evil, or good, in the world. Jessica encounters one evil person, but he’s broken no laws. Some people are bad people, but not evil. Others are imperfect people who screw up.
Jessica is confronted with the ways that she hurts herself and others. In the previous volume, Luke Cage comes off as kind of a dick. Here, he has an opportunity to point out that there were two adults involved and one of them needs to own her shit.
Jessica and Scott set up a dinner date that is both excruciating and delightful. The mixed blessing of being set up by a mutual friend is dissected. Scott asks Jessica not to drink, and Jessica tells Scott something that makes him uncomfortable. We know that Jessica and Luke end up having a baby and getting married, so this Scott thing won’t go anywhere. Still it was fun, and a nice way to end the volume.