Well, this is a surprise.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Marvel Jessica Jones has found a best friend for its titular character in Rachael Taylor, whose acting credits include Grey’s Anatomy, Crisis, and the 2011 Charlie’s Angels reboot series. Here’s their description of the character:
Taylor will play Trish Walker, Jessica’s best friend, who works as a syndicated radio talk show host, former model and child TV star known to her adoring fans as “Patsy” Walker. As Jessica’s closest friend, Trish helps her embark on the most dangerous case of Jessica’s career.
Patsy Walker? As in “Patricia Walker Baxter Hellstrom” Patsy Walker? As in Hellcat??
A bit of background: Patsy Walker made her first appearance as a character in the original Miss America comic in the ’40s, after which she was spun off into several teen-humor/romance titles like Patsy and Hedy, Patsy and her Pals, and Patsy Walker. Then in the ’70s Marvel went, “Lol screw that, make her a superhero,” and gave her a new backstory where she was actually the daughter of the comic book writer who’d written all those lovable Patsy comics of old. Then she joined the Avengers and later the Defenders, using martial-arts training that was taught to her by Moondragon. Most recently she was a regularly recurring character in Charles Soule’s She-Hulk short-lived title, too. Also, her soul might have been promised to Satan one time. Comics are weird, friends.
Walker and Jessica Jones aren’t exactly known for having a relationship with each other in the Marvel Universe. She also doesn’t appear in Alias, the comic book that outlines Jones’ origin story and which, given their recent casting of The Purple Man, seems to be what Netflix is basing their adaptation on. But that doesn’t matter, because we’re getting more live action versions of awesome female superheroes, which is tremendously awesome. Fingers crossed that one day we might also get a green-skinned Jennifer Walters to join the clique, too.
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