Black Lightning S01E07 Review: Magic Dust

Black Lightning, Season 1, Episode 7: Equinox - The Book of Fate

Well, that was a very eventful episode. The episode picks up the quality after arguably losing a fair amount of steam in the past couple of episodes. The conversation between Black Lightning and Thunder is predictable -- if acted well -- because it would be suicidal for a superhero show to introduce a character based on a superhero, with superpowers, and then not have her actually embrace the fact that it's her responsibility now to use those powers to aid the weak and down-trodden. So there was really nothing but a foregone conclusion as far as Anissa's story was headed. The episode thankfully keeps the conversations relatively low-key and subtle, though, with both Jefferson and Lynn evidently feeling more than a bit of shame for keeping this a secret from their daughters (and also, as Jefferson noted, a fair amount of hypocrisy on his part on whether superheroing is a legitimate 'calling') but also the fact that Anissa is their baby girl and no sane parent would ever want their child to be a vigilante. Eventually both parents independently decide that it's easier and healthier to help Anissa be trained to be a proper superhero as opposed to have her run wily-nily smashing statues on a personal crusade, and the scene of Lynn asking Gambi for a favour -- creating a new costume for Anissa (presumably her post-New-52 black and gold costume) -- is far more touching than I expected.  

Anissa herself has to deal with some consequence as she discovers that, hey, her digging around probably got the editor, Mr. Poe, killed -- something that is really sobering considering she's been jazzed up at this idealized version of a superhero that just beats up terrorists and bad guys and stomps on statues. 

The episode works on a very slow burn as Gambi, Black Lightning, Tobias and Lady Eve all go through their own schemes and agendas. Black Lightning has to figure out the whole family situation, and has a fair amount of suspicion about Gambi (who manages to handwave it away of not wanting Jefferson to be super-obsessed with Tobias). Gambi's trying to play both sides and try to get Eve and the mysterious syndicate to "take out" Tobias, and we get an extremely badass moment when Gambi suits up in a dapper getup and just murders Joey Toledo, causing Tobias to refuse to back down and declare that it's war. 

The real business behind Lady Eve, Gambi and Tobias's mysterious illumminati-esque organization is still vague, but the power struggle ends up coming to a climax at the end of the episode. Black Lightning confronts Tobias and Tori Whale in their nightclub, while Tobias's men attempt to kill Lady Eve with a bunch of fancy sci-fi guns intended to shoot lightning and frame Freeland's resident superhero. Tobias ends up winning as an assassin hiding in a coffin ends up murdering Lady Eve and frying her to death with lightning (though Eve did get a pretty badass action scene, for her credit). And while Black Lightning ends up confronting Tobias, he gets outnumbered, and Tobias's sister Tori gets killed by a stray bullet. Tori isn't the most relevant character throughout the series, honestly feeling more like squandered potential than anything, having not done much but act as someone for Tobias to bounce dialogue off of, but it's definitely a huge impact of a final act that truly feels eventful, especially when the good inspector calls Black Lightning to tell him that he's gone too far. 

And then add the trippy cliffhanger, where Lala comes back from the dead in a hotel room, and the Lawanda steps in, turns into mist and embeds her face as a tattoo on Lala's chest. The hell's up with that? It's a bit sudden, and honestly it might mean that all of Lady Eve's talk about magic albino bone dust might actually come into play with some magic thrown in. Very curious, because none of the Black Lightning stories I've read has actually involved magic... but then the show has proven to adapt stories taken from Black Lightning's time in the Outsiders. So... I do think that it's a bit abrupt since the whole introduction of a metahuman gene conspiracy deal is mostly just handwaved aside, but it's neat. 

Overall, there are definitely some aspects of the show that feels problematic, but I, for one, am definitely enjoying Black Lightning a whole lot, and this episode's definitely one of the better ones, rising the stakes (four characters die in this episode, two of them being major recurring characters) and injecting some much-needed escalation to the plot.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Tobias's aide is confirmed to be named Syonide (sic). We've seen her since the first episode, I think, but this is the first time that she has actually been addressed on-screen. Syonide is a codename passed down from multiple minions associated with Tobias Whale and the 100. This Syonide seems to be based specifically on the second villain to take up the mantle of Syonide, a lady that works directly under Tobias Whale. 
• Tobias has a copy of Moby Dick on his desk. I find that really funny.