The Marvel-Netflix Universe’s Final Hero

Like the superhero-turned-private-investigator she brought to life with the Netflix drama Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Melissa Rosenberg prefers not to overstay her welcome.

So, before the third season began filming in the summer of 2018, she chose to make it her last as the series’ showrunner. She signed a deal to develop projects at Warner Bros. Television. She told her cast, her fellow writers, and her crew ahead of the official announcement. She even selected her potential replacements, she told me one afternoon in early May: “I had two, three people I was working with who easily could have taken over the show if they wanted.”

And then, the death knell arrived. In February, Netflix along with , which had just aired its second season. Because the streaming service had already , , and months earlier, the move effectively ended Marvel’s output on Netflix, the studio’s attempt to create a set of interconnected TV shows that would serve as the dark and gritty antidote to its big-screen offerings. But with one season still to air, was left in a unique position: Its final batch of episodes would serve as the world’s last entry. The series had to pull double duty. “It doesn’t surprise me that Jessica