Warning: “Jessica Jones” season 2 finale spoilers ahead.
Normative routine isn’t for Jessica Jones. But in the second season finale of the Netflix series, the Marvel superhero metaphorically hangs up her leather jacket and sits down for a family dinner.
“There’s a somewhat happy ending to it all, which you really don’t see on this kind of show,” says Brooklyn-based J.R. Ramirez, who plays Jessica’s building super/new love interest, Oscar.
By the end of the season that spends its entirety toying with Jessica’s desire to fill a void left by her not-actually-dead mother, the private investigator loses her biological family (again) and adoptive sister all in one swift move. Where’s the happy ending, you ask?
We’ll let Jessica explain: “It took someone coming back from the dead to show me that I’ve been dead, too. The problem is, I never really figured out how to live.”
Instead of choosing to continue down a dark, damaged path with a bottle of whiskey, she knocks on Oscar’s door. But let it be clear, Jessica doesn’t just choose romance. She chooses herself.
“At the end of the season she’s able to sit down and we see her understand that she deserves goodness in her life even though she’s been through all this darkness in her past,” Ramirez explains. The finale gives us a glimpse into “this new storyline of Oscar and his son being that escape for her.”
Below, Ramirez delves into what this relationship might mean for “Jessica Jones” and more.
Oscar is like the calm to Jessica’s storm this season. What’s the draw between these two contrasting characters?
He’s really one of the only characters this season that is pretty stable. I don’t think Jessica has ever come across someone like this in her life, at least we’ve never seen it. That’s why she relates to him in a way where after they’ve been through what they go through this season, we see them together in a way we didn’t see with Luke.
I think (the family dynamic Oscar brings is) something Jessica has never seen. She’s lacked that family aspect because of what’s happened and that’s something that she connects to. I feel it’s one of the main reasons she’s able to open up to Oscar the way she does. Even though she has a foot in and a foot out because she’s Jessica. We see a vulnerability with Jessica and Oscar we haven’t seen before.
He’s a voice of reason for Jessica, but he also plays into her schemes.
He’s a good guy but at the end of the day, he’s a professional at forgery … This guy lives and breathes for his son. At the same time, after he realized Jessica’s a good person, he breaks the law for her. He goes out of his way and potentially puts the one thing that matters to him at risk. That’s just one of the beautiful things that Melissa (Rosenberg) brings to all these characters is the complexity to these roles. They’re so multifaceted.
What might this ending imply for a potential third season?
I honestly don’t know where it’s going to go. Coming in, you don’t see her be in a happy relationship for a really long time. But then again, it would be nice to see that. There are so many avenues they could go down. I would love to see him get his hands dirty with Jessica.
What attracted you to the role of Oscar?
Just a small little company called Marvel. I was really attracted to being able to play a father. It was something I always wanted to do. Also, being Latino. There were no Latino regulars on the show. We’re still unfortunately underrepresented. It breaks my heart. But it’s slowly coming up on the rise as awareness comes out on culture and diversity. The way Melissa did it was beautiful. She highlighted parts of our culture, the food, the family, the artistry. Being able to represent this culture on TV is hands down the most important thing for me.
