Black Lightning S02E04 Review: Rush Job

Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 4: Translucent Freak

Wow, Black Lightning really has some horrible pacing problems this season, huh? Last season, I criticized Black Lightning somewhat for taking its time in slowly building up characters before they become relevant, leading to some really drawn-out scenes with characters like Anissa, Khalil and La-La before they become really relevant to the story... but at the same time, I also feel like it really humanizes them and gives the audience a solid understanding of the characters. 

This season, on the other hand, moves way, way too fast, not giving any of the plot threads any real time to breathe. And it consistently tries to squeeze every ongoing B-plot into a single episode, which really hurts the pacing especially when the episodes still insist on having the slower-paced "lesson of the week" scenes. It hurts these episodes as a whole, honestly.

Take this episode, for example. "Translucent Freak" has this attempted running theme of zero tolerance versus second chances, of the difference in ethics. Most obvious and blatant is the argument between Jefferson and new principal Lowry in their handling of a fight in Freeland. Jefferson gets them to stop fighting and to sternly tell them to make up and shake hands before passing judgment, believing that it'll make them better people. Lowry, meanwhile, is a caricature of a villain that just screams "ZERO POLICY" and expels the offending students. It's just childish. Likewise, the argument between Lynn and Jace, between compassion and progress, ends up feeling moot when Jace is just a strawman villain who's oh-so-happy to watch people die, call the dead metahumans by derogatory names and is way too excited to potentially torture a metahuman family. Throw in the fact that both the principal and ASA-laboratory subplots feel weirdly detached from the rest of the episode, and the problems just keep mounting.

Like, yeah, the actors are great, and the scene where Jefferson rushes into Lowry's office and basically tells him to piss the fuck off is awesome, but the episode as a whole feels a whole lot like disjointed scenes smooshed together. 

There's this weird subplot running in the background about Tobias Whale being arrested. Last episode it was thrown to us with barely any buildup and treated as this huge twist. This episode just bull-rushes through Hendersen and Jefferson talking about just how inadmissible Jefferson's childhood witness would be in front of a court, and with a lack of evidence, Tobias ends up being freed and basically becomes a villain-with-good-publicity, Kingpin/Luthor style, at the end of the episode. Oh, and somewhere in between, Tobias makes a deal with Vladislav Slovak to allow him to spill blood in Freeland in exchange for setting up body scanners in an attempt to figure out Black Lightning's secret identity.

But the whole Tobias-in-jail stuff is bizarrely fast, and if they're going to do this in a half-assed way like this, at least let it play out for a longer period of time. Throw Tobias in jail as the big event in the season premiere, and let the things happen in the background or something. It just feels weirdly unearned.

The Jefferson/Anissa argument is likewise insanely rushed -- Jeff and Anissa have an argument over the whole Robin Hood deal last episode, Jeff pulls the dad card, Anissa moves out, Jeff turns out to be right, Anissa apologizes, and then they stop the attempted bombing of the free clinic. It's not a real story or progression, it's the bare minimum plot points strung up together. Again, the actors are competent enough to make the scenes at least feel believable, but there's only so much great performances can do when the writing, editing and pacing is just so haphazard.

What else goes on in this episode? There's a lot, I guess? Gambi apparently has Kara chained up in his basement, and he wants information. After a single scene, Kara dies but gave Gambi her cell phone. What... what was the point of this scene, exactly? It's weirdly convoluted when all it ends up with is Gambi getting the information. Jennifer's storyline starts up with this bizarre out-of-nowhere hallucination helped by Xavier-ripoff-lady, she just spends most of the episode bouncing off Jeff and Anissa, gets told by Jeff and Lynn that she must be homeschooled, and then gives in and calls Khalil.

Anyway, the events that happened in this episode really could've used another episode or three to play out. And honestly, I'm not sure why they decided to move at a breakneck speed like this is even good. I don't feel like I'm watching an episode starring a bunch of characters, I feel like I'm watching a summary of what went on in a half-season. The basic bare bones of the story is decent, but the execution is honestly pretty piss-poor. The show doesn't really feel like it earned any of the developments that happened here, and it feels like "hey, these things happen, we need to move on to the next arc, kthxbye". Boo.