Jefferson Pierce starts training his daughter Anissa and gets some troubling news about the death of his father. And the episode definitely lives up to its title!
Previously, on BLACK LIGHTNING…
What an eventful week in Freeland, which is weird, considering that I think only one random guy died, and we never even learned his name. Considering last week’s death count, that’s an improvement!
After the battle Jefferson went through last week, our hero starts to properly train Anissa in how to use her powers, kicking off the episode with a hologram simulation of potential perps, as she’s forced to defend herself from her father’s attacks. Anissa’s training escalates throughout the episode, as the duo go to the morgue to investigate Lady Eve’s body after she was murdered with a lightning gun at the end of last week’s show and then on a stakeout after they discover the gun that killed her next to a body buried in a shallow grave in the woods. When Jefferson calls Henderson in to get the weapon, some random guy wanders in, finds the gun and accidentally sets off its self-destruct, blowing him to smithereens. Anissa, thankfully, was able to save Jefferson.
Jefferson, though, has bigger problems. After having a conversation with his ex-wife, he goes to talk to Gambi, who reveals that his real name is Peter Esposito, and he came to Freeland 30 years ago as part of a government agency looking to collect people who developed powers after they were given a vaccine. When the vaccine also started killing kids, Esposito couldn’t take it any more and leaked the information to Jefferson father, which led to him being murdered by Tobias Whale. I’m guessing the relationship between Gambi and Black Lightning will be pretty fractured going forward.
Adding on to whatever is happening between Jefferson and Gambi/Esposito, Jefferson’s other daughter, Jennifer, starts to manifest lightning powers at school, frying her phone when one of her friends slips off a ladder. Given how prone this family is to superpowers, they hopefully got the insurance on their phone plans. That could get expensive, otherwise.
On the other side of the law, Lala is back after being killed by Tobias Whale in the first few episodes. He’s trying to re-establish himself in Freeland, but he’s got a pretty big problem, too. He’s having conversations with LaWanda, the woman he killed for trying to get her daughter back. Also, he has a tattoo of LaWanda on his chest and makes out with her ghost in the shower. This show got weird quick.
Not a lot of action this week, but it wasn’t needed. We got a lot of plot development in this episode (which makes sense, since it was titled “Book of Revelations”) and we set up a lot of conflict for the future. This one episode got me back into the show
Show Notes
• The government agency Gambi worked/works for is called the ASA. While we didn’t get a lot of information about it here, it does have some basis in the comics. The American Security Agency “supervised the creation of the national team of super-agents” that were called FORCE OF JULY. Another awesomely corny name. Hey, ARROW and FLASH have ARGUS, SUPERGIRL has the DEO and LEGENDS OF TOMORROW has the TIME BUREAU. Seems like every DC Comics show on the CW has to have their own shady government agency, right?
• Jennifer getting powers also first happened on the page. Jennifer took the name Lightning and was a member of the Justice Society of America after she was introduced in 2008.
The fun should continue in the next episode. Check out the trailer: