Marvel's Jessica Jones Finale Recap: Family Ties — Plus, Grade

Jessica Jones doesn’t really need to drink more booze — but if she decided to up her intake after the events of the Season 2 finale, no one would blame her. By the end of the hour, she’s rescued a family from a fiery car wreck, narrowly avoided getting arrested, been irrevocably betrayed by a friend and lost her mother, for good this time.

And that would drive just about anyone to drink.

her mother is alive — not to mention superpowered and capable of killing people (which she has done) — Jessica has spent much of Season 2 rediscovering her relationship with her mom and agonizing over whether to turn her in to the police (which she has done).

But at the start of the Season 2 finale, Alisa Jones has escaped from prison and dodged the police’s attempts to recapture her. Now she and Jessica are in a stolen RV, making their way to the border. Alisa believes that she and Jessica should work together, using their combined powers to do actual good instead of demolishing pianos and murdering detectives. (The fact that Jessica is the only person who can keep her mom’s temper in check is just a bonus.)

At first, Jessica is skeptical of her mom’s idea. But after the two of them save a family and truck driver from a grisly car accident on their way to the border, she has a change of heart. Maybe teaming up with her mom wouldn’t be so bad, even if it means a lifetime of running from the cops.

Jessica makes a quick pit stop at a roadside diner, where she meets up with Oscar to tell him she’s leaving town. She explains how isolated she’s felt her entire life and hopes that perhaps this new gig with her mom will be more fulfilling. But just as she’s about to leave, Jessica realizes that Oscar had been followed: There are cops everywhere in that diner, and they’re coming for her and her mom. Though Jessica manages to escape the restaurant unscathed — evading the cops is so much easier when you can throw tabletops at them! — Alisa knows there’s not much time until the police catch up, and she seems exhausted by the prospect of running from the law for the next few decades.

Alisa and Jessica get all the way to Westchester, N.Y., where they stop at the Playland amusement park. Jessica wants to hop on a sailboat and make an escape on the water, but Alisa has a different idea. She spies an enormous Ferris wheel at the center of the park and, after busting open Playland’s gate, heads over to the ride and turns it on. “They’re gonna see the lights,” Jessica warns her mom, who calmly responds, “Let them come. It’s good that it’s here.”

The two women climb into a Ferris wheel car and have what will ultimately be their last conversation. “I have gone as far as I can go,” Alisa tells her daughter. “Maybe I don’t have to be amazing. Maybe I just made you.” But just as Jessica begins to protest — “No, I won’t let you” — she’s cut off by a bullet that goes through her mom’s head. Jessica peers over the Ferris wheel car to see who just murdered her mother… and she spots Trish standing below, gun raised. (“I had to! I had to save you!” Trish shouts, but Jessica maintains that Alisa’s death was not Trish’s call to make, even if she did break out of the hospital to make it.)