Netflix
Now that Jessica Jones Season 2 is premiering on Netflix, you’ll likely be wanting a background refresher on some of the key characters from Season 1. One of those characters is Will Simpson. Here’s everything you need to remember about the role he played in Season 1.
During Season 1, Trish became involved with Will Simpson, a cop and former special ops soldier. He was a police officer for the NYPD, and his unlikely romance with Trish started after he tried to kill her while under Kilgrave’s control. Will had previously volunteered for an IGH pharmaceutical experiment where he was given combat enhancers by Dr. Koslov. But he quit the program because he couldn’t control his rage when he was taking the drugs.
Kilgrave had ordered Will to kill Trish. He asked her to let her into his apartment, claiming to be on official police business. When she did, he attacked her and tried to strangle her. But Jessica arrived just in time to help her friend. She pretended that Trish had died in order to get Simpson to believe he had completed his mission and leave. When Will told Kilgrave about his success, Kilgrave ordered him to jump off a balcony. Jessica saved his life and after that, Will was able to get control of his mind again.
Will was overcome with grief over killing Trish, and tried to break down her apartment door to try to get to her body. But Jessica answered the door and Will found out that Trish was still alive. That’s when Jessica explained Kilgrave’s power to Will. He wanted to help Jessica take down Kilgrave, but he was also very paranoid after what happened to him, so Jessica suggested he join the Kilgrave Victim Support Group.
Still overcome with guilt, Will went to Trish’s apartment to try to make things right. Trish was afraid to let him in, but he told her that he brought her an illegal gun so she could defend herself. They talked on either side of the locked door for several hours. Trish finally let him in, and over time their relationship changed from platonic to romantic.
Will and Jessica worked together on a plan to capture Kilgrave, but it ultimately failed. Will blamed Jessica for what happened, and told Trish so. Trish eventually revealed that she might have a source who knew where Kilgrave was. Will wanted to kill Kilgrave, but Trish thought he should suffer in jail. Will eventually tracked down Kilgrave again and planted a bomb in Kilgrave’s attic to try to kill him. Jessica insisted she had a better plan, and she told Kilgrave about the bomb. They eventually caught Kilgrave yet again, and Jessica once again wouldn’t let Will kill him.
Kilgrave eventually figured out everything that Will had done and had a bomb delivered to him, which exploded and seriously injured Will. At the hospital, Will insisted that Dr. Koslov treat him. When Koslov arrived, Will said that he wanted to rejoin IGH and take Combat Enhancers to recover. He soon recovered very quickly. He took more pills than he was supposed to, and began to go insane and lose control, even murdering someone in cold blood. He later attacked Kilgrave’s father and Trish. He got worse and worse as time went on, in his quest to kill Kilgrave at any cost. He took more and more Combat Enhancer drugs and ended up attacking Jessica. Jessica and Trish fought back, ultimately leaving Simpson injured and unconscious, where IGH and Koslov picked him up.
At the beginning of Season 2, Jessica and Trish think that Simpson is dead. The last time we saw Will Simpson, Jessica had defeated him even while he was in his enhanced state, and Trish helped Jessica by taking Will’s enhanced pills to help defeat him.