Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 14: Original Sin
One of the biggest problems with Black Lightning, I feel, is the pacing. We're two more episodes from the end of the season, and unlike its first season, the second season of Black Lightning just feels all over the place with the story it wants to tell. It probably doesn't help that a significant chunk of this season is taken up by the utterly insipid Looker/Perdi/Sange storyline that honestly felt genuinely out of place, the Jennifer/Khalil storyline was a huge time-sink, while a lot of other far more interesting storylines are left on the backburner.
This episode has the very much unexpected return of Lala, the Tattooed Man, who was presumed dead in a huge explosion at the end of the first season. It's an utterly bizarre surprise, and one that felt confusing more than anything else. I'm a fan of the character, so I don't mind, but I genuinely wished that this return had some foreshadowing of sorts. Lala confronts Jefferson Pierce about his fragmented memories, all the while arguing with the ghosts of the people he's killed. It's a fun little dissection of Lala's backstory, and I genuinely wished that we know more about him as a character instead of just as this enigmatic maybe-magic-maybe-madness character.
And while it does bring Jefferson Pierce's role as a redeemer of lost souls angle, I do feel like the episode does rush through things. Basically, in the past, Lala had blamed Jefferson for getting his buddy Earl to go to the police after being harassed by the 100, which got him in the crosshairs of the gang. Lala remembers that he was the one who pulled the trigger, and quickly gets to the realization that Tobias is the source of all this grief, and goes off to murder him. Apparently being sent by the enigmatic scientist who resurrected him in weird giant blue fluid bubble machines to find redemption, Lala and his ghosts are very much convinced that killing Tobias is the latest step in doing this. It's... it's a weird setup, and while I wouldn't say that it's bad, the pacing and storytelling felt rushed. Throw in the muddled mythology behind Lala's Tattooed Man powers, and I just feel like this entire storyline feels rushed and unsatisfying.
The rest of the Pierce family basically each have their own storylines in this episode, leading to the dinner with everyone going "whooo, I had a big day." Jennifer basically gets a new costume and gets into some fun fluff scenes with Gambi, who tries to keep her sensibilities in mind while designing her new costume. Not sure why everyone mocked Black Lightning's first suit, though -- it's not much more silly than the one he's running around in currently. Anissa continues to chase after Grace, who has Mystique-style shapeshifting abilities, and we get her going back and forth first as Anissa, and later on as Thunder? And we get some kung-fu fighting? It's weird, and easily the weakest storyline in this episode. Gambi, in addition to helping Jennifer make a suit, also gets a side-plot with Hendersen where they find Todd Green's glasses near an exploded car. Not convinced he's dead yet, because, well, no body, no death. This is a comic-book show, after all.
Lynn, meanwhile, gets locked out of the facility by Odell when she refuses to subject Wendy to strenuous tests. Odell compares Wendy to a landmine-detecting dog, and later we get to see Wendy subjected to some horrid wind-tunnel tests. Yes, because essentially torturing your 'assets' is definitely going to make them want to cooperate and bleed for the country. It's just cartoonishly evil, but it does build up Odell's character for the later revelation that he's had the Pierce family bugged, causing him to know that the entire family's in this superhero business. He does kill all of the other agents that are aware of the secret identities, though, so it's curious what he's going to do with this knowledge.
And honestly... there are a fair bit of interesting things going on, with Odell, Tobias, Grace, the Masters of Disaster, Markovia and a whole lot of other interconnecting plotlines. I'm just really not convinced that two episodes is going to be enough to tie up all these loose ends. Ultimately this season honestly just feels poorly-paced and structured, and this episode is another one that feels to be pretty off. Not sure if the show will manage to gather itself before the final two-parter, honestly.
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