Jack is a psychopathic woman that Cerberus experimented on to make her the ultimate biotic. She's being held in space prison, and you have to jump through some ridiculous hoops to get her out. Jack is a neat character in concept, but clumsy execution spoils everything that should be good about her.
First of all, it doesn't make any sense that Shepard would take someone as dangerous and unstable as Jack on such an important mission. She's set up as a sociopathic killer. Prisoners make it clear that they would rather stay in torturous space prison than go anywhere with Jack. I don't care how incredibly powerful she is. There are other powerful biotics out there, and they wouldn't put the mission in jeopardy just by existing.
This turns out to not be a concern, though, because Jack isn't a psychopath. She's just a bitch. She cusses a lot, calls Miranda "cheerleader," and generally has a sour attitude. I know the writers wanted her to be really edgy and dangerous, but hurting people's feelings isn't the same has having a borderline personality disorder.
In jail for saying mean things and giving nasty looks.
The worst part about Jack, though, is how offensive her presentation is. As if the designers were terrified that her buzzed head might make her too masculine, she has absurdly huge lips and massive swathes of eyeliner. When you talk to her on the ship, the camera moves to put her breasts – not her face - in frame. And, of course, all of her issues and trauma can be solved by sexual healing.
That's right. Jack has deeply seated trust issues. She has been used and lied to. She's a rape victim with a broken concept of sexuality. But by having sex with her, Shepard can fix all of this.
I know that the dating sims that ME2's character interactions are based on have taught the writers that romance culminates in sex, but here's an idea: If you want to do justice to Jack's issues, don't have a sex scene with her. Establishing a non-sexual relationship founded on respect and patience would be a mature and touching resolution to a romantic storyline with Jack. The implication that Jack fully trusting and opening herself up to someone would take time and many false starts would do wonders for making Jack's issues come alive. Unfortunately, the romances in ME2 smack of Relationship = Sex, and Jack is no exception.
By the way, I know that a rape history is obligatory for a character like Jack, but can we think about it realistically for a moment? Jack uses her superpowers to destroy countless armed Cerberus guards and other super biotic children, but then when she is picked up by a mercenary ship, she suddenly becomes a helpless victim. I don't buy it. Her sexual assault was (unsurprisingly) tagged on to her backstory with no thought given to who or what she is.
Jack has a few things going for her, though. I like that you can sleep with her early in your interactions, resulting in her shutting you out entirely. Her tattoo designs are cool, although I wish they had given her a sports bra top instead of her stupid, Mad Max leather straps. A few of her lines are very well executed, too. When you're touring the lab she was raised in, she alternates between angry and child-like. "This is a bad place," she says of one room, sounding very young and vulnerable. That was a nice touch.
If Jack had been allowed to be the character she should have been, I would have liked her a lot. Instead, she was turned into a bitchy punk girl with a rape backstory.
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