This week on Black Lightning, Tobias Whale was elected Mayor of Freeland after running virtually unopposed, but the Pierces and their allies managed to unravel his schemes, from the harvesting of meta DNA, to the framing of Lynn — as it turned out, Whale was paying season 2 villain Looker to brainwash Agent Mason into concocting the charges against the family.
1. Farewell Uriah, We Barely Knew Thee
After learning Jennifer and J.J. are the same person, Whale sends Red to attack her during a date with Uriah. She tells her would-be boyfriend to run, but her powers are still rusty after her trip to the ionosphere, and Red’s bullets bounce off her electromagnetic shield and kill Uriah. Damn, Jennifer just can’t get a break can she? Farewell to another promising love interest — I suspect T.C., who’s feeling guilty after setting the pair up on their date, will probably become closer to Jen and admit his feelings for her after this. What’s frustrating is, Jennifer’s distraught, but other than T.C., she doesn’t talk about something this traumatic with anyone else — I officially do not care for how compartmentalized this show’s storylines are.
2. Shakur Should’ve Known Something Was Up
After learning from Khalil about Looker’s involvement, Jefferson invites Shakur to the bar and tells him about her, as well as the serum that Lynn developed to counteract her powers. I feel like Shakur should’ve realized instantly, the moment Jefferson told him that, that he’s Black Lightning: sure, he may be in denial — and we do see he doesn’t take Jeff’s lie of omission well once he admits it — but since when does a neighborhood school principal know all the underworld dealings of a metahuman criminal?
3. Their Plan Was for Mason to Take a Sip?
Jefferson and Shakur break Looker’s hold on Mason by inviting him to an interrogation room, where Jefferson planned to “confess” to everything, while serving the FBI agent a coffee cup laced with Lynn’s antidote. OK guys: what if he’d been so focused that he didn’t drink it? What if he already had a drink? Was Shakur going to grab him? Splash it all over him? Force feed him? Oh well: it was still clever of Jeff to subconsciously cue him into drinking from the cup.
4. Khalil vs. Racist Abuse
While cutting his path towards Looker herself, Khalil encounters a particularly sleazy puppet, who keeps referring to him as a “boy.” “I’m a grown ass man,” he responds, before killing him. Looker’s much more openly racist than she was in her last appearance: when she enters Khalil’s mindscape, she refers to him and Painkiller as “mandingos,” and for once, I think Painkiller spoke for us all when he replied, “hell no.”
It was an impressive fight that followed, especially since it had the added complication of including both versions of Khalil. Our anti-hero gets the upper hand with his poison, which deprives Looker of her powers. I understand Khalil had to capture her alive to clear Lynn’s name, but I also doubt anyone would mind if he went back on his word to give her back her powers: what a horrible woman.
5. Jeff Wants to Get Remarried
After Looker’s confession clears Lynn’s name, she and Jeff decide to celebrate having good news for once. However, his mind is preoccupied by Keith Michaels mentioning that they never actually remarried during the chaos of the past few years: I guess that, while we didn’t get a ceremony for Grace and Anissa, the show may actually conclude with wedding bells for our lead protagonist — I can live with that.
Bonus Thoughts:
– Speaking of Jen’s love interests, whatever happened to Brandon? Was COVID a factor in his absence this season?
– Whale playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was intriguing, because he’s a self-loathing Black man with albinism, and Beethoven is the subject of conspiracy theories that he was a Black man whitewashed by historians. (For a composer we know was Black for sure, look up Chevalier de Saint-Georges.)
– After being siloed in Gambi’s storyline since her debut, it was cool to see Lauren be greeted by Anissa.
– The revelation that Freeland’s soil is filled with promethium was pretty striking: is this why the ASA preyed on the city for so long? After all, radiation equals superpowers in superhero comics.
See you all next week for the penultimate episode, “The Book of Resurrection, Part One.”
