Black Lightning‘s getting more serialized than ever, with Anissa meeting Anaya’s family and uncovering just what was going on with her and Deacon, and Lynn dealing with the tragic aftermath of Jace’s treachery. Plus, Khalil finally learned the truth from Whale about the path he put him on.
1. “We started out like Romeo and Juliet but it ended up in tragedy”
Anissa learns Anaya’s part of the Perdi, a black community of farmers that’s lived in South Freeland since the Civil War. Deacon came from the white community on the other side of town known as the Sange, and he was murdered by Joshua, one of Anaya’s brethren who was furious that she fell for a white man. Needless to say, Anissa has wound up in quite a complicated situation. Similarly, Ananya’s father is quite a multi-layered man: he’s deaf, he’s very aggressive about the Sange, and had no idea one of them was the father of Anaya’s children. (Ah yes: Anaya goes into labor this week, and gives birth to twins, one black, one white.) After Khalil got his spine fixed, it’s great to see another disabled character on the show who’s complex and nuanced.
2. Gambi’s Alive?!
Revealed very quickly during the cold open is that Gambi is still alive, which made sense, I didn’t buy he died and I think the writers knew that. (I loved how the flashback briefly transitioned from black-and-white to color when he detonated the car.) We pick up with him torturing and then killing one of the men hired to take him out, which is pretty nasty (particularly the close-up of his severed fingers), but then Gambi has always been a piece of work. He doesn’t let Jefferson know he’s still alive, which is just as well given how packed this episode is, although he does send his drone to assist in the climactic fight with the Sange.
3. A New Big Bad
The Sange are controlled by Looker (Sofia Vassilieva), who infects her thralls with a liquid metal called the Element that’s generated from her body. We learn Looker took over the Sange 30 years ago, and Vassilieva did a great job, like Krondon Jones, of portraying a character who is older than they seem: there’s an unnerving slowness in her performance that gives off the vibe of a decrepit 19th century slaveowner, instead of a young woman. Jefferson gets a hunch from the date of her arrival that she got her powers from the ASA vaccine, just like him, and interestingly, her eyes look very similar to his when using her powers. At first I thought Looker’s powers, and those the twins derive from Deacon, looked too similar to Black Lightning, but it proved to be an interesting tell as to her origins.
Also, do her powers remind anyone else of the “too much iron in your blood” sequence from X-Men 2?
4. Ding Ding Ding
I’d been waiting for this fight for a few episodes now, and we finally got it when Whale decided to physically punish Khalil for his failures. This week, Khalil was ordered to take out Reverend Holt, and he finally realized it was Whale who ordered the first hit that caused him to become paralyzed. He decides to warn Holt that he’ll be killed if he doesn’t relocate the clinic, but like a true god-fearing man, Holt doesn’t mind laying down his life for his community, and instead prays for Khalil’s soul. When Whale decides to punish Khalil for his failure, Khalil’s happy to fight back, but Whale demonstrates why he’s proved so resilient all these years, and orders Khalil to not only kill the Reverend, but his mom too. Khalil shows up bruised and Jennifer’s, and ironically, decides to flee instead of Holt. I suppose everyone needs a bit of time off before the second round.
5. Lynn’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Lynn’s understandably distressed after Jace manipulated her into killing 14 of the cryogenically frozen vaccine victims. I feel with all that’s going on, and the sometimes haphazard intercutting of the storylines, that this storyline didn’t have as much emotional impact as it could’ve had: that said, the scene where one bereaved parent fenderbends her car, and then demands to know if his daughter is still alive or not, was quite distressing. It was also sweet seeing Jennifer trying to comfort her mom, despite some overly honest comments, given how antagonistic their relationship tends to be. (Similarly, it was great seeing how much Jefferson and Anissa’s rapport has improved while helping the Perdi.)
