Black Lightning, Season 3, Episode 3: Agent Odell's Pipe Dream
We're also going to try and cover Black Lightning as best as we can, which has been... interesting? This season opens up with a very odd shake-up to the status quo with the whole "Freeland under siege, and also there's a war with the Markovians, and also two of our main characters is in a secret government base" thing. As the title informs us, government boogeyman Agent Odell is the focus of this episode as we see him bounce around and freely manipulate each and every major character in the show except for Gambi, Anissa and Lala, using half-truths, carrots and sticks wherever applicable. And it's... it's interesting? Three episodes in, and Black Lightning as a show has been keeping the exact specifics of who the Markovians are and what they're doing oblique even from the audience, and while Odell does shed some light into that in this episode, it's still ambiguous enough since we clearly know that Odell's one hell of an unreliable expositor.
We've got a whole load of storylines going on in this episode, some intersecting and some not. Odell and his goons are training Khalil Payne as basically their one-man army, and he apparently has grown an arrogant and ruthless streak if that I-know-23-forms-of-martial-arts scene is anything to go by. Meanwhile, he would later tell Jennifer about how Khalil's mother was found dead, killed by those dirty Markovians because of her connection to metahumans, making it look like he's doing her a favour by telling her first, but eventually convincing her to help literally rain down devastation by blowing up an alleged Markovian communications base or something -- which is a pretty badass scene for good ol' Lightning, admittedly, but Odell's basically given Jennifer a reason to absolutely loathe the Markovians, manipulating the teenage girl into becoming essentially a child soldier.
Odell, meanwhile, goes on with far less subtlety and niceties when dealing with Tobias Whale. Sure, he gets medical treatment to an extent, and Odell even makes an offer to let Tobias out and reclaim his old territories in exchange for the briefcase or whatever, but Tobias won't budge with empty promises, even in the face of torture-by-UV-light. With Lynn, Odell is quick to go from giving orders to the angry, frustrated and overwhelmed doctor and quickly give her the respect that she wants, which is... interesting. It's pretty evident that Odell knows that "well, you gotta help the dying people, doc" is an easy way to get the good doctor to do whatever he wants to. Lynn finds out that this virus is created by Helga Jace, who used that Cyclotronic Man dude from the season premiere as a way to deliver the virus and kill off the Freeland-sympathizing metahumans.
Odell also deals with Black Lightning with a half-truth, promising safety for his family and city, while also not telling Jeffersen the whole story about what he's done to people like Issa or Khalil. Jefferson does get a pretty cool watch that expands into a black-and-yellow suit out of the deal, which Jefferson is quick to realize that it comes with strings attached. Black Lightning sort of gets roped into an operation to rescue a bunch of ASA agents from Markovian capture, and he does so, cooperating with a nice soldier lady who changes the mission from a rescue mission to a (ultimately failed) hunt for dr. Jace. Okay.
We've got a bunch of B-plots going on in the background. That one police lady that got arrested gets sick and dies of the mysterious plague in the meta-gulag, and Hendersen ends up giving a bunch of her implied-to-be-dirty money to her husband. Hendersen also gets slapped by a random Freeland old lady who's not particularly pleased with how the ASA is running the town. Jennifer, meanwhile, also gets to show some new kid (who I don't think is named?) around the school and she's a huge cynic about all the attacks that recently happened there. Oh, and Tobias is hallucinating Black Lightning and vows to kill the 'ghetto glow worm', so his animosity certainly isn't gone towards our main character. There's a bit with Anissa doing her vigilante Blackbird stuff, freeing a bunch of metas and also having a sub-plot with finally meeting the MIA Grace, so, uh... okay, disregard her new girlfriend this season, then? It's weird; the episode basically just quickly has Anissa and Jamillah break up amicably.
The episode ends with Jeffersen and Lynn finally going home and reuniting, but everyone ends up being way, way too exhausted to really do much but go to bed separately. Overall, it's a neat episode that shows the scope of Odell's manipulations and how he has fangs in everything. It's early enough in the season for me to complain about the vagueness about the stakes and whatnot, and this episode is a bit uneven, but otherwise a decent 45 minutes.
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