The Marvel Cinematic Universe started out bright and four-color, with big, flashy superheroes that meshed together into the start of a cohesive world. Then Marvel announced Netflix would bring Daredevil to the small screen in the same world, and we were uncertain that they could make street-level Marvel dark and real enough in a world of flying cars and magic hammers. Daredevil showed us that Marvel could pull it off, and now Marvel is going a bit darker with Jessica Jones, the first episode of which I saw at New York Comic Con.

Jessica Jones is based on Alias, a comic published under the adult Marvel Max imprint. I admit that I have not read it, but it’s now squarely on my list. Also, I will try to stay as spoiler-free as possible for the show.

Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is a superpowered human being, but she isn’t a superhero or very heroic at all. She’s a bitter, sardonic private investigator who pays the bills by solving cases closer to Cheaters than Agents of SHIELD. But she has a history in the increasingly murky world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She’s joined by Luke Cage (Mike Colter), a not-yet-revealed-but-Marvel-fans-already-know-is-superhuman dive bar owner, who’s getting his own self-titled show on Netflix next year after Jessica Jones; Harper (Carrie-Anne Moss), a high-profile lawyer who appreciates Jones’ unique talents; and Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor), a talk show host and Jones’ friend. Then there’s Kilgrave (David Tennant), an antagonist known in the Marvel comics world as the Purple Man. That’s where Jessica Jones gets darker and more uncomfortable than Daredevil, and the first episode alone showed that.

The Purple Man in the comics controls people with pheromones. He effectively mesmerizes them, making them susceptible to any command he gives them. Where mind control is often written off as just another comic book trope that is resolved by the end of the arc, Alias treated it as a traumatizing violation, and the reason Jones stopped being a superhero. That thread seems to run throughout Jessica Jones.

Where Daredevil is dark and rough, Jessica Jones is skewed and creepy. Daredevil focused on the violence of the street-level Marvel universe as it appeared in Hell’s Kitchen, and everything about the show was built around that as “seen” through the lens of Matt Murdock’s blindness. Details are concealed by shadows or shown in an explosion of violence. The lighting, the camera angles, the interaction between characters as innuendo and secrets and banter, all of it painted a picture of a nasty little part of a city plagued by crime. Something that could be solved, or at least addressed, with a masked vigilante beating people.

Jessica Jones starts bleaker. Through Jones’ eyes, the city isn’t coarse and shadowy. It’s warped and greasy. Uncomfortable, wobbly camera angles and shots that emphasize the play of colors against each other instead of the contrast of light and dark make everything feel off-balance and vulnerable.

This feeling extends to Jones’ character; Ritter makes excellent work appearing uncomfortable in her own skin. She’s not a two-toned hero like Matt Murdock, balancing bright idealism and dark violence for her own personal crusade. There’s no dichotomy here. She’s bitter, sarcastic, and outright damaged, without a mask to hide behind or a code to follow. She isn’t necessarily a more real character than Murdock (who Charlie Cox portraya very well in Daredevil), but her situation feels more real simply because of the apparent lack of a heroic purpose.

All this means that I can’t tell much about Jessica Jones from the first episode, except that it might be harder to get into than Daredevil. Unlike Matt, who despite his violent mission wore a friendly smile and kept his friends close, Jessica habitually pushes everyone away. Her interactions with others are off-putting and abrupt, and there’s very little playfulness outside of her inner monologue and some amusing editing choices.

Jessica Jones isn’t just another Daredevil-like story of a dark, gritty, street-level MCU. It’s very much its own thing, and it’s setting up to go into much more unpleasant territory. I was uncomfortable, and I was hooked. I want to see where the show will go through its 13-episode season, even if parts of it have me shuddering and squirming. It’s new, very different, and downright jarring when compared with everything else in the MCU. The closest comparison would be with Daredevil, but that’s still comparing two very different R-rated movies in a world where we’ve mostly just seen the PG and PG-13 side of things. I’m looking forward to seeing more when Jessica Jones hits Netflix this November.