Black Lightning S01E13 Review: Power Struggle

Black Lightning, Season 1, Episode 13:  Shadow of Death: The Book of War

Well, that's a season finale. It's more of an open-ended season finale, though, since Black Lightning's family doesn't really even deal with Tobias Whale, Khalil or La-La as an end-of-season boss, but they do deal with Martin Proctor, who's revealed to be a rogue ASA agent instead of having the weight of the US government behind him. It's a bit underwhelming, but at the same time there is definitely enough shake-up and enough of a resolution for it to be a win for the good guys, I suppose. 

The season finale moved a bit too slow, I think, with a fair amount of flashback sequence to Jefferson and Alvin Pierce as children, and then a bit where they talk as ghosts in limbo or something, but it's not that distracting. There is a bit of a subversion of the climactic main hero versus main villain fight, because all that happens is Black Lightning, Thunder, Gambi, Lynn and Jennifer fighting against the faceless ASA goons in the cabin once Jennifer charges Black Lightning's powers back up. It's okay, and I do like that it's not a "we're the Justice League/Avengers now" and Jennifer in particular is more scared than anything. 

But the good guys end up facing off Proctor, and after a bit of a talk with him, Gambi shoots Proctor in the head. Meanwhile, Inspector Hendersen and the rest of the police force arrives to arrest the defeated tactical squad, and Jefferson does what his father did and blew the whistle on the whole metahuman child kidnapping facility, exposing the ASA's doings and making their crimes public. It feels a bit too clean and not as exciting or flashy, but it works. I just felt that it could be better. And having Proctor's rant be way too hammy and repeating "make America great again" like three times in the episode felt a bit too much for me to take him seriously. 

Meanwhile, poor La-La has been built up throughout the entire season as a bit of a main player, but it turns out that Tobias Whale sponsored his resurrection, has him completely under his control, and has a pretty badass scene of showing just how much he's his pawn and dubs him the "Tattoo Man"... and essentially just uses him to distract Proctor for all of five minutes before blowing La-La up with a mouth grenade. What? That felt weird. Clearly we haven't seen the last of La-La, but that felt like an insanely abrupt end to him. Why even have him in the episode if that's all you're going to do with him?

Tobias, Khalil and Syonide end up just waiting for Proctor to send the bulk of his forces to hunt down Black Lightning, before showing up at the ASA facility and murdering everyone, and it's a nice 'multiple factions fighting' thing. Proctor escapes (only to get killed by Gambi later on) but Tobias's crew ends up walking away with the suitcase MacGuffin, which contains the secret to curing the kids stuck in the laboratory facility. 

Ultimately, the season finale is... serviceable, but definitely a step down from a huge chunk of quality writing throughout the first season of Black Lightning. I did enjoy it and there are a fair bit of pretty good moments here (mostly from Tobias, whose dialogue throughout the entire episode is just extremely quotable), but I definitely feel that they could do better. Fortunately, we do have the second season for that. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Khalil Payne is given the codename 'Painkiller' by Tobias, based on a very minor Black Lightning enemy that appeared for three issues in the 90's run. The comics version of Painkiller wasn't named and had the ability to anesthesize any part of the human body. Khalil's abilities are expounded upon here by Gambi, who notes that his implants produce a neurotoxin that he launches via his darts, making them a bit less silly. 
• La-La is also given a supervillain name, the Tattooed Man (or Tattoo Man, considering Tobias's inflection). There have been multiple Tattooed Men in the DC comics, but none of them are Black Lightning villains or have weird quasi-mystic powers and hallucinations, and La-La likely doesn't share much with any previous Tattooed Man beyond the name. The most famous Tattooed Man is the first, Abel Tarrant, a Green Lantern villain who used ink exposed to 'mysterious chemicals' to tattoo himself, allowing him to manifest his tattoos into actual physical objects.