‘Jessica Jones’: IGH & Dr. Koslov – Season 1 Refresher & Recap

In Season 2 of Jessica Jones, IGH will be playing a bigger role it did in Season 1. And Dr. Koslov may also make another appearance, as he’s pretty intertwined with IGH. But you may not remember everything that happened with IGH and Dr. Koslov during the first season. Here’s a refresher and recap about IGH to help you out as you start watching Jessica Jones.

Will Simpson in Season 1 had a big connection with IGH and Dr. Koslov. Koslov was the former special ops soldier’s doctor, who had experimented on him by giving him Combat Enhancer drugs. The drugs ultimately backfired. Yes, they made Will much stronger. But they were also very addictive and caused him to lose his grip on reality, slowly being overcome by rage. In fact, at one point, Simpson even attacks Trish and Jessica in an unhinged attempt to kill Kilgrave. Jessica and Trish left Will for dead, but IGH and Dr. Koslov came back and reclaimed him at the very end of Season 1.

So that alone is enough to tell you that IGH isn’t the most reputable company in the world (and that’s the understatement of the year right there.) IGH is described as a private research corporation that employed Dr. Koslov and funded his research. No one knows what IGH stands for (or even if it does.) The company has no webpage, contact number, or history that Trish can find in Season 1 when she first hears about it.

We later learn that IGH is, at least partially, a paramilitary group specializing in enhancing soldiers’ performance. But there’s a lot more to IGH than just that. Trish discovers in Season 1 that IGH actually paid for some of Jessica’s medical bills. Yes, when Jessica Jones was in a car crash that killed her parents and her brother, IGH paid for the operations and medications that saved Jessica’s life. Trish’s mom, Dorothy Walker, knew about this but didn’t tell anyone because she thought it was an unimportant charity write-off. The details would have stayed hidden if Trish hadn’t discovered this in Jessica’s files.

As an interesting aside, in real life IGH refers to “immunoglobulin heavy locus,” a region on human chromosome 14 that has a gene for the heavy chains of antibodies.

As another interesting side note, Luke Cage’s powers appear to not be connected to IGH at all, at least as far as we know at this time. (Minor spoilers ahead for Luke Cage.Dr. Burstein gave Cage his powers via an experimental treatment to help his cells regenerate faster after he was seriously injured in a cage fight. Rackham tampers with the experiment, causing an explosion that kills him and Burstein.