Mid-February 2019 saw Netflix get all the way out of the Marvel business when the streamer cancelled the last two of the superhero dramas it had partnered on with the company. Jessica Jones was on that chopping block, along with The Punisher, and signaled the end (for the foreseeable future) of new Marvel content on Netflix. While fans were disappointed, few people who had been paying attention to the moves Netflix had been making (along with the coming plans for a new streaming service in the form of Disney+) were truly surprised, seeing as how Daredevil, Luke Cage and Iron Fist had also been cancelled previously.
While Jessica Jones star Krysten Ritter took to Instagram that same day to let fans know what "a dream" it was for her to play the character, as well as how much she loved the cast, crew and fans who supported the show, we didn't hear anything from another actor who was a major part of Jessica Jones: David Tennant, who played supervillain / purple lover / Jessica's tormentor Kilgrave on the first two seasons. Now, though, the former Doctor Who star has let us in on how he views the cancellation, and his charitable attitude may surprise some.
I don’t really regard it as a cancellation so much as something having the life that it should have. Three seasons of that story is great. Rather than thinking of it as something that was cancelled, I think of it as something that had three seasons that will live in the memory.
Well, kudos to David Tennant for looking at Jessica Jones getting canned in the most positive light possible. Some of this is probably just due to the fact that Tennant has been on many TV shows by now, and has seen his time on them (as well and the shows themselves) come and go, so he fully understands that this is just the ebb and flow of the television business. But, also, who wants to be a part of a show that sticks around well past the time it should have had its swan song? As he noted to the crowd assembled at South by Southwest (via Entertainment Weekly), Jessica Jones is still set to debut its third season sometime this year, and three seasons feels right for the story they wanted to tell. Honestly, who among us had envisioned watching the show into the next decade?
Another good bit of news is that Jessica Jones wasn't cut off at the knees. While the announcement was made just last month, the series had finished filming Season 3 and those behind the show had seen Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage get cancelled months prior, so they must have had some idea, even if they hadn't been officially told yet, that they might not get another shot at tying up loose ends. Hopefully they were able to craft a season that brings Jessica's story to a fitting end, without leaving any infuriating questions for the audience that will never be answered.
David Tennant was also able to put to rest one rumored component of Jessica Jones Season 3, as he noted that he actually will not be back. EW was able to confirm this with other sources, as well, so it looks like the tweet from showrunner and creator Melissa Rosenberg that seemed to hint that Kilgrave would show up again was misleading. Of course, whether that was on purpose or not is anyone's guess.
SPOILER ALERT for Jessica Jones Seasons 1 and 2 coming up!
This is probably good news, too. We all loved what Tennant was able to do with the beyond villainous Kilgrave in Season 1, but his character was killed by our heroine at the end of that batch of episodes. And, regardless of your feelings on the decision to take out Jessica's arch nemesis that soon, we had already seen him show up in the following season as a hallucination, so bringing that idea back a second time would have probably felt pretty played out.
As noted earlier, Jessica Jones will debut its final set of new episodes sometime later this year, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates on when you can binge the last new season of Marvel on Netflix, David Tennant's absence notwithstanding.
