Summary
“A.K.A I Have No Spleen” gives Jessica a medical emergency to fret over as her attacker remains elusive.
This Jessica Jones Season 3, Episode 3 recap for the episode titled “A.K.A I Have No Spleen” contains spoilers. You can check out our spoiler-free thoughts on the entire third season by clicking these words. You can also check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these ones.
Having superpowers isn’t everything, especially if you’re not Luke Cage, as Jessica Jones finds out to her detriment in “A.K.A I Have No Spleen” — an episode title to be taken literally. After being stabbed way back in the first episode, she is on death’s door, having had her ostensibly redundant spleen taken out by an absurd wisecracking doctor whose sole function in the hospital seems to be annoying her. There’s no wonder Jessica quickly discharges herself and completely ignores all the advice about changing her unhealthy lifestyle. She swallows tablets with bourbon and eats the burger from the fridge that was left by her romantic liaison.
Besides, she needs her energy to look into the case of Andrew Brandt, which she argues with Trish about. Trish feels as though she has some ownership of the case; Jessica, somewhat reasonably, explains that she has been at this whole business a lot longer, and is better suited to it. “You’ve been a hero five minutes. I’ve been a hero half my life.” But Trish isn’t having that. “You’ve been super. There’s a difference.” Burn!
Malcolm, eager to help despite pissing blood after his car accident in the previous episode and his dodgy work beginning to interfere with his relationship, delivers to Jessica the knife she was stabbed with; it’s impossible to trace, but he bills her for his time anyway. He clearly gets some of his unscrupulous business sense from Hogarth, who spends a good chunk of “A.K.A I Have No Spleen” trying to get into the knickers of her lover girl, Kith, the wife of a university professor, Peter Lyonne, whose computer camera Malcolm bugs in order to acquire dirt. Hogarth’s trademark ruthlessness is becoming much more prevalent as her health deteriorates, and in a great scene shared with Jessica, they bond over both being “invalids”.
The Brandt plot, as well as giving Trish an excuse to flip over a couch, leads to some developments in Trish and Jessica’s fledgling partnership and some new information: Brandt, somewhat predictably, didn’t stab Jessica. In fact, he had nothing at all to do with it, as Jessica figures out for herself when Erik calls around to see how she is. She wasn’t even the target: He was. Which means there’s an even bigger mystery to solve.
