MCU: Every Netflix Marvel Season Ranked Worst To Best
Six shows. Thirteen seasons. Which ones disappointed and which ones stood tall?
Back in April of 2015, the first season of Daredevil hit like a runaway train, proving immensely popular with fans and critics alike before kicking off a run of interconnected shows in its wake. And now, with the release of the third season of Jessica Jones earlier this month, we've reached the end of the entirety of the Marvel/Netflix partnership.
As part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Netflix shows shone a light on the ground floor of a world where the Avengers were busy battling aliens and robots, with heroes like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the Punisher operating in back alleys and mean streets. Even when undead ninjas and mystical orders entered the picture, things often remained grounded - for better or worse - as these heroes dealt with real crime, from gun runners and drug dealers to criminal kingpins.
Through a total of thirteen seasons across six different shows, fans got to meet a whole roster of heroes and villains and experience often great storytelling and action, though the monumental run wasn't without some truly frustrating lows. Now that we've reached the end of a short era, let's run down each season of the Netflix chapter of the MCU to sort out which ones represented the best there was to offer...
13. Jessica Jones: Season 2
It's not controversial to say that the first season of Jessica Jones remains one of the most acclaimed entries to come out of the Netflix/Marvel partnership. The cast was solid, the storytelling was great, and the overall fresh, unique tone went a long way in differentiating itself from its predecessor - the first season of Daredevil - in a way that made it hard not to be excited for its inevitable second season.
For that very reason, the fact that season two - which released in 2018 - failed to even come close to the bar set by season one made it all the more disappointing. It could be argued that of all the shows, Jones' second season suffered most from the 13 episode stretch, which has been a common critical complaint over the years, as the first season's laserlike focus was replaced by a meandering narrative that felt needlessly padded out.
Barring one great appearance, Kilgrave's absence from the series was truly felt, as there's a void in the second season that the show didn't even attempt to fill.
Even lingering threads from season one - like Will Simpson - ended up going to waste so that the season could stretch out Jessica and her mother's story or give more screentime to Hogarth's disconnected subplot, and though the cast was still great with what they were given, it simply wasn't enough, the highly anticipated follow-up to a beloved first season committing one of the worst sins: Simply being boring.