Black Lightning season 2 has resumed and oh boy…
1. U-Turn
The midseason finale strongly felt like it was setting up a road trip for Jennifer and Khalil and drawing more hired guns on their tails, but instead we got the young couple holing themselves up in an old mobile home he used to live at, and eventually deciding to return home after Lynn stumbles on them, and makes an emotional plea. (Gotta say, it’s pretty touching Jennifer decided to return home because of the parent she doesn’t get on with.) I wonder if getting out of Freeland was part of an initial plan, but it had to be rolled back for budgetary reasons.
2. Jennifer the Virgin
That’s a rather downbeat moment in the caravan when Jennifer tells Khalil she’s not ready to lose her virginity to him in such a grotty location. It’s a far cry from the girl who told her parents she was ready to have sex at the dinner table, back before any of this happened. It’s not just about sex, or how the flight from Freeland hasn’t worked out like she intended, it’s reflects how depressing the direction of her life has become since the show began, which was also quite touching.
3. Cutter Means Business
Cutter’s menace had been slightly undermined by the previous two episodes, but we’re reminded this week, she was only out of her depth because she’s not used to fighting metahumans. After Khalil hands himself to the police, she boldly lies herself in the middle of the road to stop his escort, before carving up the police all by herself. We don’t see her doing that, but the sequence where Henderson discovers the aftermath was still unsettling.
4. Todd is Great
Speaking of Whale’s henchmen, I love the dynamic his newly hired tech expert Todd is bringing to show. This is a pretty heavy and dramatic show so I’m all for any comic relief, but I like how he brings out the more sophisticated side of Whale, and the way he clashes with Cutter’s old school approach to hunting her victims. He’s like Alan Cumming in GoldenEye, though presumably we’ll see a bit more depth and internal conflict with the screentime a TV show enables.
5. Oh, That’s Nasty
Cutter brings the handcuffed Khalil to Whale, who proceeds to punish him by ripping out his spinal implant: it was horrifying and wince-inducingly graphic. I think the worst part was when he had Khalil chucked out on the street before the church, and you could still see the spinal implant twitching as it reacted to his neural commands. (Ugh, yikes.) I reckon this will be the impetus for Jennifer finally becoming Lightning: hell hath no fury like a woman whose boyfriend was savagely attacked like that.
Bonus thoughts:
– Angelitos Negros (English: Little Black Angels) was a 1948 Mexican film about a racist woman who discovers her mother is black, which had no bearing thematically here. (It’s also the name of a terrific Eartha Kitt song.) I guess it was just a term of endearment for Jennifer and Khalil, as well as a nod to the old man Black Lightning saves.
– That title card art of Jennifer looks a lot like Scarlet Witch.
– It’s funny Whale asked Todd if he likes jazz, because later in the episode we hear an incredibly menacing sounding jazz piece before Whale assaults Khalil. Who said jazz was boring again?