Overall, these recent two episodes of Black Lightning back to back were pretty solid altogether offering up great action elements within the fight scenes, story progression surrounding certain characters with some enticing twist reveals, and interesting larger world building concepts worth exploring down the line. Below are my personal favorite highlights from episodes 9 to 10, so keep in mind that I won't be focusing on listing off every important beat from the show at this point but instead just the elements that caught my attention. That means no mentions of Jen's identity crisis leading to her going against everyone's warnings to her yet again (really tired of this character), Anissa and Grace's relationship dilemma, or Jefferson and Lynn's continuing marital problems. These are crucial to the show now, but they're not the type of stuff that hooks me in whatsoever, so don't be surprise if I look over several significant story points.
Black Lightning Vs. Ishmael (Episode 9)
I have to admit that despite not liking the over the top performance given with the Ishmael character on the show (not sure if this is the director or actor’s doing), I am liking the action elements surrounding his fight scenes. In this episode, we actually get a pretty solid fight scene with Jefferson taking on Ishmael after learning more about him and knowing that he’s a priority threat towards his family and Freeland. Before I talk about the fight itself, I do wanna point out other admirable component to this episode which is the fact that they take the time to briefly show Jefferson actually studying the security footage showing Ishmael fighting Thunder and Grace almost as if prepping himself for his eventual confrontation. This was something that I wasn’t expecting the show to do and an idea that I very much loved as it showed a more strategic and mature superhero veteran side to Jefferson.
Now for the actual fight, Black Lightning and Ishmael both give their proper badass introductions to each other before getting right to combat giving us some solid choreography. I love how Jefferson lightning bolt attack gets countered by Ishmael who surprises with some force shield tech forming from the handle of his blades. Aside from being a pretty cool ability, my thought immediately went to whether or not the League of Assassins give him that tech to use or was that something that he himself had from the get go. There’s quite a few really cool close combat hand to hand elements here like Jefferson using mini electrical shields to block Ishmael’s sword swings as both fighters show off their formidable almost equal ground martial arts skills. There’s also a nice moment where Jefferson uses his lightning whip move to swing over Ishmael for an attack which Ishmael uses to his advantage to kick Jefferson down.
Again, lots of great counters and dodges in this fight giving the whole thing a legitimate sense of weight that Jefferson wasn’t just fighting some unworthy of his time street thug but a genuinely threatening criminal who can go toe to toe with his meta powers and fighting prowess. Things get even more tension driven once Tobias Whale’s meta dampening related tech activates rendering Jefferson completely powerless in the fight. It’s one of the rare cases in Black Lightning where I think the fight scenes overall matches up to the likes of the Arrowverse’s greatest action oriented series, Arrow. I’m legitimately excited to see how this fight gets followed back up in the season.
More Khalil/Painkiller (Episode 9)
I don’t have too much to say about this part of the episode except that I’m happy to see Khalil’s story continued on from the Painkiller spinoff backdoor pilot episode. I also think that it’s great that they introduce the idea that he can deliver both his poisoning ability and an immediate antidote which brilliantly highlights the idea of his dual persona in an interesting way. Much like what I said about The Gifted series on the FX network doing a great job at using the mutants' powers as extensions of their characters more so than just "cool abilities", Black Lightning is doing a similar thing here with Khalil. I can’t wait to see him reunite with Tobias Whale for a potential rematch.
References To Arrow (Episode 9)
In another reference to the League of Assassins, the team finally looks into Ishmael to which they discover his ties to the League of Assassins. I like that it’s Gambi (and I guess in part T.C. with his computer dark web hacking abilities) who explains the League to the others who rightfully shouldn’t know about them. I think it’s interesting that Black Lighting this season has essentially kept the legacy of Arrow alive more than any other show which is interesting since it was technically the most disconnected from it pre-Crisis. Considering that this is the last season, I do wonder if the writers are taking every opportunity possible to tie-in the other shows fully embracing its new shared universe continuity. Whether that’s the case or not, I absolutely love that they’re utilizing a major part of Arrow on their show’s story. Funny enough, as far as Post-Crisis storytelling goes, I think Black Lightning has made efforts to bring in elements from the other shows in major ways more than the other shows themselves. Hmmm.
Black Lightning Vs Ishmael (Episode 10)
One of the best parts about Episode 9 comes to a pretty solid conclusion here as Jefferson, out of desperation, ends his fight with Ishmael by using his stealth camo suit to escape. What I like about the way the writers and director handled this entire fight between the two episodes is that it highlights exactly what I was hoping it would which is Black Lightning’s formidability as a fighter with or without his powers. It also highlights the threat level of Ishmael being pretty much equal to Jefferson in combat skills. I love how the fact that whenever either character looks like they have the upper hand, the other pulls something out of their hat to turn the tables without ever coming across as entirely weaker. This is honestly one of the better hero-villain confrontations that the show has presented thus far. More of this, yes?
Also, on a side note, I’m always delighted in all the cool suit upgrade surprises that Gambi includes in the Pierce family’s outfits. Jen’s suit creates a anti gravity force bubble right when she could’ve easily crashed from losing her powers flying. Jefferson tells Gambi to activate his stealth suit mode to turn completely invisible in order to escape Ishmael. Black Lightning is by far the best series on the Arrowverse when it comes to making the superhero suits multi-functional and practical (making Gambi arguably the most badass “guy behind the chair” type of hero in this shared TV franchise).
Tobias Continues To Be The Show’s Greatest Villain (Episode 10)
One of my favorite parts of this episode was seeing Tobias continue to remind us just why he deserved to remain Black Lightning’s series villain and not just a one and done in the beginning. We get to understand the full breakdown of how Tobias nullified all of the meta powers in Freeland rendering him and whoever he personally choses to be the only ones with powers left. We also see him hire Ishmael and take over Destiny’s resources making him also the most powerful crime boss in Freeland. So in one strategically swift move, Tobias not only returned to Freeland from being a lab rat in Season 3, but positioned himself as frontrunner for mayor, took away all of the metahuman’s power in an entire city except for his, and became the most powerful criminal all while using the Pierce family to achieve his goals. ….Damn. They successfully did with Tobias what Arrow failed to do with Ricardo Diaz (creating a legitimately formidable and engagingly entertaining crime lord worthy of being a season villain) and what Flash failed to do with Cicada (creating a season villain who can take away meta powers making him the top of the food chain in power).
Where things get a little weird however is when we’re introduced to this mysterious board of directors who Tobias seems to answer to. I honestly don’t remember this concept in the previous seasons (might have to look back) so I’m not sure if Black Lightning’s final season just introduced a huge concept to the fans or if they’re continuing from a seed planted long ago that’s finally being paid off here. Either way, the acting during this scene was a bit B-movie level with the board and I wasn’t sure how to feel about Tobias looking like the desperate and impatient underling trying to be with the “big boys”. This actually feels like the Diaz trying to join the Quadrant idea from Arrow and that series did a poor job at setting up that faction. Hopefully, Black Lightning has something well fleshed out and interesting planned with this new powerhouse group.
More Great Painkiller Fights (Episode 10)
This title speaks for itself, but I do wanna emphasize how great it is to see this final season giving audiences a nice little taste at every opportunity to show off what’s in store for the Painkiller series’ action choreography. Seeing Khalil take down the security force was cool, but the highlight for me here is something that I for whatever reason never really thought about with the character being that anyone who comes in contact with his blood gets poisoned instantly. It’s a great reveal since he just intentionally stands there and takes the final security guard’s punch to which the guard (having Khalil’s blood on his fist) starts becoming paralyzed and drops dead. It’s a pretty cool secondary power trait for our hero to have and one that I hope doesn’t get forgotten in the upcoming series.
The Looker Returns? (Episode 10)
Last but not least is the Looker character re-introduction as she is both seen and spotlighted on Tobias Whale’s payroll. The Looker was one of the more interesting villains from Season 2 and one that I never was expected to see show up in any form or fashion ever again. Again, just like the mysterious board of directors that pop up in this episode, I completely forgot about what the deal surrounding this character was from the previous seasons aside from her power base and racial themes surrounding her. Was she revealed back then to have always been under Tobias’s payroll or was this a big twist idea introduced now post-Crisis? Either way, it would be interesting if they brought her back as one of Tobias’s new meta assets now in Freeland furthering his threat level on the show even further as all the great comic book superhero crime bosses like Kingpin, Black Mask, etc. have done in history (it's all about the rogues gallery payroll being thrown at our heroes unexpectedly).
Episode 9 Rating: 8/10Episode 10 Rating: 8/10
Episode 9 Rating: 8/10
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