This article consists of nothing but Jessica Jones Season 3 spoilers. We have a spoiler free review right here if you prefer.
Everyone’s favorite hard-boiled detective (and former superhero – not that she wants to talk about it) is back for one last case. While Jessica Jones, Trish Walker, and the rest of Hell’s Kitchen are reeling from Jess’s mother’s death at the end of last season and parsing out what it means to be a hero, we did our best to find all the Marvel Easter eggs throughout the Netflix show’s final season.
So here’s how this works. We’ve compiled everything we can on our first run through these episodes, but we’re bound to have missed a couple of Marvel references. If you spot something we missed, let us know in the comments. If it checks out, we’ll update this until it becomes the best and most complete list of Marvel and MCU Easter eggs in Jessica Jones Season 3!
Now, pour yourself a glass of something good and let’s get to work…
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Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 1: AKA The Perfect Burger
“As Jessica focuses on helping the helpless, Dorothy Walker shows up at Alias to beg for help finding a missing Trish.”
– The girl Jessica is “rescuing” from her Dad in Mexico is named “Cassie Yazdan” a name that doesn’t seem to have any larger Marvel significance. On the other hand, Jessica starting off a “mission” by tackling a mundane case like this is right out of the original Alias comics, which often saw her busting cheating husbands and the like in the background of her larger caseload.
– Jessica’s upbeat, professional receptionist is named Gillian, played by trans actress Aneesh Sheth. No Marvel Comics parallel here, but it’s worth noting that Gillian is the first live action Marvel trans character, thought she won’t be the last. In July, she’ll be joined by a friend of Peter and Ned in Spider-Man: Far From Home, played by actor Zach Barack (Boy Meets Girl).
– Jeri Hogarth’s apartment number is 6C. It’s worth pointing out that Jeryn Hogarth, her Marvel Comics counterpart, first appeared in Iron Fist #6. So this apartment number is 6 Comics? Or it’s a coincidence. But probably not!
– The scuzzy drunken baseball player plays for the fictional New York Scouts. This is mildly annoying, because it has already been established that the New York City of the MCU has the traditional New York sports teams in them. There was the shot of Citi Field as well as the overt reference to the New York Mets in Avengers: Endgame, and Peter Parker has been well established as a Mets fan both on the screen in Spider-Man: Homecoming and in comics throughout the decades. Perhaps Marvel didn’t want to besmirch the good (ahem) name of a real sports team with this player’s skeevy antics.
– In Dorothy Walker’s apartment there’s a framed Patsy Walker comic on her night table. I can’t tell if it’s an actual vintage Patsy Walker Marvel comic, but it definitely uses the authentic, old logo.
– On Patsy’s desk there’s a newspaper with the headline “Breaking Ground” on it. We couldn’t make out what that was in reference to and will check again. There’s also a book about “Victor Catalda” (a fictional artist whose name pops up again) but that doesn’t appear to have any larger MCU significance.
– Neither Peter Lyonne nor Kith Lyonne have any Marvel Comics parallels that we’re aware of. That actress is Sarita Choudhury, who played Saul’s wife Mira on the first few seasons of Homeland.
– Jeri cracks that she only represents “a couple of them” in regards to superheroes she provides services for. One of those is Jessica, and of course there is the Iron Fist connection. And soon to be Patsy, as we learn in the next episode, although without her knowledge of Patsy’s “Hellcat” activities.
– Tony Nominee Benjamin Walker plays Erik, whose last name is a tiny bit of a spoiler, so we’re saving that for later in this guide. Also he’s apparently famous for the lead role in the American Psycho musical – which is actually a thing – a rather enjoyable detail given the plot here.
– Patsy’s bright yellow shirt under her black/dark blue outfit while skulking around is an homage/tease of her Hellcat costume.
Later in the series, when she follows people during the day she wears some cat-eye shaped sunglasses, too.
– Detective Costa is back again and references his husband who we eventually (briefly) meet. There’s definitely more substantial representation elsewhere on the show (Jeri and her various paramours and Jess’s new assistant Gillian come to mind), but there’s something to be said for having enough LGBTQ characters that a throwaway line isn’t your only representation. It’s just texture, part of the fabric of the world, instead of something the creators break an arm trying to pat themselves on the back for (cough) Endgame.
– Jess getting stabbed…this show has been pretty inconsistent with just how tough Jessica’s skin is supposed to be. She’s never been considered bulletproof, but it does seem like she gets stabbed a little too easily here.
Also, note the wild eyes of the ski-masked would-be assassin here. When the villain is revealed in a few episodes, this feels like a minor Marvel Comics Easter egg.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 2: AKA You’re Welcome
“Tensions run high between Jessica and Trish as Trish hones her new catlike skills and scours the city for a chance to be a hero.”
– Not an Easter egg, but it’s fun to know that this episode was directed by Krysten Ritter!
– This is the first and only episode to be narrated by anyone other than Jessica. It’s fun that Krysten and co. leaned pretty hard into making this feel like a full blown origin story/pilot episode for a Hellcat series. Considering the complaints these shows often get about not having enough story to sustain 13 episodes, it’s surprising that we haven’t seen more bottle episodes or backdoor pilot type hours like this one.
– Trish’s quote about “everything I’ve gleaned from you” in regards to lessons she learned from Jessica is amusing considering that one of those things is using Bing for searches. Nobody uses Bing. Bing employees do not use Bing.
– We didn’t catch all of those New York Bulletin headlines during that montage, so please feel free to help us out.
– Trish has a decidedly unheroic “picking a costume” montage, a staple of a different age of superhero storytelling, one perhaps “best” (cough) exemplified by the pilot episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. But during her time in the changing room, we see her try on an actual cat mask, as well as a yellow and blue spandex number that is the closest we’ll ever come to seeing her comic book Hellcat suit on screen (it is accompanied by an appropriate “hell no” from Trish). This is a nice bookend to the briefly glimpsed “Jewel” costume she presented to Jessica in season 1.
– The big eyed mask Trish first tried on looks an awful lot like the masks they wear to rob banks in the movie Sugar and Spice, minus the wigs. Trish certainly has a lot in common with those ladies, as blondes with bubbly exteriors and a penchant for dark humor and ass kicking. Trish also tried on a lucha libre mask and green and purple eye masks reminiscent of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If nothing else, Trish would probably feel some camaraderie with fellow New Yorker, member of the media, and yellow ensemble enthusiast April O’Neil. And this wouldn’t be the first overt TMNT reference in the Marvel Netflix universe, either!
– The red/black/gold leather look that she passes over does look very Captain Marvel. In fact, it looks nearly identical (the jacket at least) to a jacket Chloe Grace Moretz wore on the cover of Glamour back in 2016. Fans assumed it was a Captain Marvel jacket but it was apparently just a coincidence. Carol Danvers was meant to be on this show when it was first destined for ABC, but they swapped her out for the more obscure Patsy Walker when they needed to play catch-up and have a solo female hero film to compete with Wonder Woman. While Carol and Jess are very tight and would make a great duo, they ultimately couldn’t bear to lose Carol from the MCU for that many years. Plus, it allows for the dichotomy of the screw up with powers and the “success” without them…well, at least until now.
– But while Trish strays pretty far from her comic book costume (and with good reason), there are still elements of it in the attire she chooses to go into action. She’s still wearing a yellow shirt, and there are hints of blue and purple in her scarf and hat. The hat also has a kind of “cat scratch” motif. Hell, she’s even modeling a yellow cardigan on that awful home shopping show! It’s hilarious and Peak Rich White Lady that in the end she just goes with athleisure. Kinda like Danny Rand’s crimefighting gear on Iron Fist.
– The show airs on ARN (American Retail Network), which as far as we can tell has never appeared in the comics, but feel free to correct us if we’re wrong.
– There doesn’t appear to be any significance to either Andrew Brandt or his sister, Madeline. If only they had gone with Ellen Brandt as the sister’s name, we would have a Man-Thing connection! And Man-Thing isn’t just a funny name, it would actually be an important connection to make based on…something else we’re going to get to soon enough.
– Trish’s training montage was a huge break with form for this show – it’s a staple of the genre but we’ve never seen Jessica’s powers on obvious display. It’s usually casual, in the dark, to the point where audience members have a lot of questions about what she can and can’t do. And she definitely doesn’t put in effort. Instead we have Trish honing her craft in broad daylight so we have a very clear idea of her powerset. This sequence appears to have been filmed under the Queensboro Bridge in Astoria, NYC, where you can occasionally find small martial arts classes training in the early mornings.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 3: AKA I Have No Spleen
“Itching to get back out on the streets and find her attacker, Jessica defies her doctor’s advice. Jeri reconnects with her college flame, Kith.”
– We’re having trouble figuring out if Malcolm’s new girlfriend, Zaya, has any Marvel Comics connections. Let us know!
– Victor Catalda keeps coming up and…still no MCU significance that we can find! Nevertheless, he is a completely fictional artist, and the sculpture that is causing so much trouble, “Curious Man in Winter,” is also fictional.
– Jessica utters the words “whatever it takes” an almost certainly unintentional echo of the team’s rallying cry in Avengers: Endgame.
– It might be a coincidence, but we visit the Cassaro Gallery. Dan Cassaro designed the jacket and logo for Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, which is probably the single most essential piece of reading about the history of the comic book industry published in the last decade or more. It’s fascinating, revealing, hilarious…read it.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 4: AKA Customer Service is Standing By
“Jessica learns there’s more to Erik than meets the eye as they track down three potential attackers. Malcolm digs up dirt on Kith’s husband.”
– There is no Marvel significance to Sal Blaskowski and her sons, but they do seem like an echo of the Fratellis from The Goonies, don’t they?
– So it turns out that Erik is a metahuman. His full name Erik Gelden. Which means we finally know who he is!
Erik Gelden is an exceedingly minor Marvel Comics villain known as Mind-Wave. He first appeared, appropriately enough, in the pages of Daredevil #133 in 1976. Comics Erik was more of a traditional telepath rather than TV Erik’s amped up empath/evil sense, and he had a goofy helmet to beef up his powers. He ended up dying a couple of times (comics!), so I don’t think anyone is too worried about the fact that he doesn’t have the old weird ass Mind-Wave helmet on the show.
– Jess refers to The Whizzer’s unfortunate death in season 2. Remember The Whizzer? Poor guy.
– They already did a child porn angle on The Punisher season 2. Maybe this creep was part of that same ring.
– In what is almost certainly a coincidence, we visit the Thomas Moreau Concert Hall, which shares a name with the mutant named Zealot. While the X-Men are indeed on their way to the MCU…this ain’t it, kids.
– Creepy asshole Gregory P. Sallinger shares a name with the second Marvel Comics character to adopt the moniker of Foolkiller, a zealous, often villainous vigilante. While this character doesn’t wear a costume on TV, his black tactical garb and ski mask ALMOST feel like a scaled down version of the Kurt Gerhardt version of the character. We wrote much more about the history of Greg Sallinger and Foolkiller in general right here.
Remember that wild shot of his eyes in the ski mask at the end of the first episode?
Oh, and here’s a weird bit of connection. In the comics, Gregory Sallinger went to college with Peter Parker. And in the comics, Jessica Jones went to high school with Peter Parker! We wrote more about that Jessica Jones/Spider-Man connection right here.
Oh, and remember up above when we were trying to reach for that Man-Thing connection? That wasn’t just because of the silly name. It was because the first version of Foolkiller (a different character by the name of Ross Everbest) first appeared in the pages of the Man-Thing Marvel comic.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 5: AKA I Wish
“Teaming up with Trish to stake out Sallinger, Jessica makes a startling discovery. Jeff’s plot to expose Peter yields unexpected consequences.”
– They’re being a little on-the-nose with the literal blood money in this episode.
– If the term “Chinese wall” strikes you as strange, you’re not alone. Many people object to this term from the legal and business realms, which exists to prevent conflicts of interest within a company. Common suggestions to replace it? Cone of Silence, with all the nerdiness that implies, and “Ethics wall,” which is decidedly ironic given its function here.
– Jessica staying to talk to the cops, Trish leaving to protect her anonymity – this seems to mirror the way things went down when Jessica’s mother died. We’re on a collision course with Trish’s identity being out in the world in a big way, aren’t we?
– Erik’s sister’s name is Brianna, and goes by the nickname of “Berry.” This is where we learned Erik’s last name, but decided to put that info up above when we learned about his powers. Sue us.
– This show’s fake social media is the best. CiaoHive, and later we get InstaYap. We’re currently hoping to have a Den of Geek CiaoHive account set up by the end of the day. Not really. But it would be cool.
– Goran the pimp doesn’t have a specific Marvel parallel, but he does remind me of one of the “Tracksuit Draculas” from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s brilliant and flawless Hawkeye comics.
– Sallinger keeping the bodies of his victims in a tank feels like a vague callback to the very first Foolkiller, Ross Everbest, who kept his first kill, a priest, floating in a weird tube.
– This episode does unfortunately give in to the incredibly lame and overused “superhero’s choice” trope, where you can “save your friend/innocent person” or “catch the bad guy.” C’mon, that doesn’t belong on a show like Jessica Jones.
– It’s very rare that this show does explicit “comic book” lighting and framing, but the bits with Greg developing his photos in the red darkroom, with the mirrors as “panels” sure feels like it.
– Erik’s fight with Gregory, in which he is stuck in a chokehold for much of the conflict, feels a little like the fight between Bruce Willis’ David Dunn and the nameless killer at the end of Unbreakable.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 6: AKA Sorry Face
“As the police sift through the gruesome crime scene, Jessica and Trish race to find Sallinger’s latest captive.”
– Trish calls her mother out on physical abuse and facilitating sexual abuse, bringing back a theme from last season.
– Greg’s assorted talks about how Jessica and other powered individuals have “cheated” to get ahead is almost the kind of dialogue you would expect from the Foolkiller of the comics. Lines like “an honest assessment of your falsity” and “asserting fairness in an unfair world” are both perfect examples of over-the-top supervillain dialogue, but also kind of chilling in their serial killer directness.
– Jessica throwing Trish out the window to “out” her to her mother almost feels like the alternate cut of Richard Donner’s Superman II, in which Lois Lane jumped out a window at the Daily Planet in an attempt to force Clark Kent to reveal his identity.
– We’ve seen Detective Costa pull this move – “yelling” at Jessica to keep up appearances while actually helping her out on the sly – more than once on the show, but of course I can’t think of any specific instances right now. This is pretty much SOP for their relationship though.
– Jessica breaking Malcolm’s door is a running joke that dates back to her own problems keeping her office door intact during season one.
– As far as we know, Gregory Sallinger never had a brother named Donny in the comics. But the idea of a relative being a first kill for a serial killer seems like a fairly well-worn trope.
– Jeri says he’d never authorize leaving her as a client but “Danny Rand is on some sort of a sabbatical.” While it would be fun and amusing to read this as a reference to Iron Fist’s cancelation, this season was already well into production at the time that was announced. Instead, it’s a reference to the actual conclusion of Iron Fist season 2, which saw Danny Rand heading off to travel the world to get his head back together.
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 7: AKA The Double Half-Wappinger
“Jessica and Trish go on a road trip to dig into Sallinger’s past and unearth a horrifying discovery.”
– As expected, WJBP TV is back! They’re basically the official local news station of the MCU version of NYC.
– Jessica’s Interpol shirt is pretty sharp. We just wanted to point that out.
– Sallinger calls himself an “easy target” and Jessica and Trish “feminist vindicators,” saying maybe they’re trying to “Take Back the Night,” refering the protest movement that started on college campuses in the 1980s to end sexual assault, and invoking some incel rhetoric.
– This episode had some elements reminiscent of Alias Volume 2, when Jessica investigates the disappearance of a supposedly powered teen girl in a small, old-fashioned town with a church preaching hatred against powered people. In both stories, the townspeople know who Jessica is and are on guard when she arrives, making her investigation more difficult. Much like Jessica’s relationship with the sheriff here, in the comic there’s a local journalist who at first seems like a frustrating nuisance but they ultimately have a more complicated relationship and she’s even helpful. It feels like the Jessica Jones writers borrowed elements of that story and then made it work for Sallinger’s hometown and the Nathan story, except that Nathan is just a talented human and unfortunately very much deceased.
– Jessica references Wendy’s brutal season 1 death, with the line, “what I know is when you cozy up to maniacs, you get hurt. People around you get hurt.”
– Trish pulls a version of a Peter Parker here, calling in a tip on herself to get her picture in the paper, although with a higher risk factor, since she doesn’t control which shot will be chosen so she can’t keep an eye out for any images that might reveal her identity.
– So, this might be the deepest cut in the history of the Marvel Netflix shows. Gregory is teaching wrestling at the “Willie Dance Community Center.” Willie Dance appeared exactly ONE in Marvel Comics, in the pages of Luke Cage in 1975. He was a dim-witted wrestler who accidentally drank the super soldier serum and became “X the Marvel.”
Jessica Jones Season 3 Episode 8: AKA Camera Ready
“When Sallinger posts a video teasing his next crime, Jessica responds with her own media play. Jeri demands that Malcolm identify the masked woman.”
This episode is high on drama and stakes but light on Marvel Easter eggs. That’s fine with us. But it’s not completely bereft!
– Trish’s mom, of course, does not approve of her daughter’s costume, and thinks it should have a theme. “Like cats!”
– The video Sallinger sends, teasing his next crime, is reminiscent of the first Foolkiller, Ross Everbest, who would hand out cards to potential victims informing them tha they had 24 hours to live.
We’ll keep updating this with more information as we get it. Let us know what else you found in the comments, or hit Mike up on Twitter!