Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 8: The Book of Rebellion, Chapter One, Exodus
We're starting "The Book of Rebellion", the third Book in the second season of Black Lightning and... well, it's a whole lot more interesting compared to the Sange/Perdi stuff of the Book of Blood, which in retrospect is just a pretty uninteresting filler arc. This one had a fair bit more buildup and more emotional investment with the characters. And... and, of course, ultimately it's just Khalil and Jennifer eloping from their unhappy situations. Jennifer is a 'bird in a cage' due to her parents demands of her basically being a prisoner in her own home. And while it's actually not an unreasonable demand from Jefferson and Lynn considering everything that's happened to them, Jennifer is also a teenager, and teenagers do utterly stupid things when they get emotional. Khalil's abuse, meanwhile, has been building up throughout this episode, and him feeling uncomfortable as one of Tobias's goons and needing to escape has been pretty well built-up.
We get a pretty fun sequence of teenagers doing stupid things, but with superpowers, as Khalil tries to 'collect' on that one bar or whatever we saw a couple episodes back, and in the process Jennifer is forced to unleash a huge electric explosion that would help Black Lightning, Thunder and Gambi to track them down. We get a couple of more quiet scenes later on, with them bonding over cutting Khalil's dreadlocks, Jennifer confronting Khalil for doing criminal stuff,
I'm definitely not a fan of Tobias basically being reduced to "grr grr I want my minion back", like an angry, petulant child. Tobias Whale has always been petty, but I really do feel like the past couple of episodes have flanderized him a wee bit too much. Throw in some additional implications that Tobias might be delusional and is talking to a picture of Tori is another layer of "oh, this man is actually clinically insane" that I really do feel diminishes Tobias's status. Really felt like they could've done much more with him.
Also, while I'm also glad that Khalil's mother wasn't a casualty of Tobias's petty revenge, the sudden revelation that Tobias has a "no mama" rule really shows up out of nowhere and is just kind of honestly bizarre. That was a great line from Tobias, though: "you're a strong woman. How did you wind up with such a weak-ass son?"
Also, thank you, Anissa, for calling Gambi out about secrets. Sure, Anissa may be a teensy bit hypocritical, but I still think that the grief that Gambi put the Pierce family through really is kind of inexcusable. Gambi does give Thunder a brand-new Kamen Rider motorcycle-buggy thing, though, so that's a good step towards reparations.
Anyway, all of these plot lines end up with Tobias's latest assassin, a lady called "Cutter", hunting Khalil and Jennifer down to where they are hiding at Khalil's aunt's house. Black Lightning and Thunder show up just in time to hold off Cutter and her improbable knife skills, we get a short action sequence, while Khalil and Jennifer run away into the night, blowing up Gambi's drone in the process. We also get Jennifer realizing that Tobias implanted a (pretty obvious) chip into Khalil's forehead, and we get a whole "take control of your powers while dealing with a loved one" trope as Jennifer burns the chip out of Khalil's head. It's well-acted, I suppose, but the whole episode just feels kind of underwhelming overall. Maybe it's something similar with Cloak and Dagger where I just don't particularly like teenage drama? Eh.
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