Black Lightning S02E15 Review: Screw the Rules, I Have Powers

Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 15: The Alpha

This is the first part of the two-parter season finale and... and looking back at Black Lightning's second season, the plot's a clusterfuck, huh? Random sub-plots that don't go anywhere, that entire chunk of Looker three-parter that is utterly redundant and didn't need to be more than a single episode long, stretching on that Khalil storyline longer than it should, re-introducing Lala waaaay too late for him to feel like anything but a deus ex machina... it's a real shame, because the stories being told in Black Lightning's second season has a lot of potential, but so many of the individual episodes just repeat the same thing over and over again for the B-plots that feel utterly redundant, while plot points that I really wish they had stayed on a bit more ends up glossed over or rushed.

Speaking of plot threads that I am totally over with -- Anissa's little quest to find out Grace really doesn't add anything that couldn't have been done with the overblown, bizarre sequence we had in the past couple of episodes. Gambi is taking forever to make Jennifer's costume, although this episode's scenes are way more fun to watch than the past couple of times that we discuss Jennifer's costume. The Lynn-Wendy-Odell storyline is a rehash of the previous episode's. Like, I get that the show wants to remind us that these storylines are going on, but these scenes feel so utterly redundant that I honestly wished that they could have really been trimmed down significantly.

Odell is a creepy bastard, though, and at least his scenes aren't taking up too much screentime. We get scenes of him monitoring the Pierce family (he has the decency to not see the girls change, at least) and tells Lynn how thankful he is of Black Lightning and Thunder in the final shots of the series. I'm honestly waiting for a bait-and-switch, that Odell's a good guy that's not afraid to get his hands dirty, like the pre-Disney Nick Fury or something. He's interesting, if admittedly a bit one-note at this point.

The Pierce family drama for this episode has to deal with Jefferson laying down the three rules of superheroism. Don't reveal your secret identity, always have backup (Gambi counts) and don't kill. Jennifer in particular has a problem with that last one, and for a topic that's honestly been dealt with ad nauseam in these superhero TV shows, framing the scenes in a father/daughter bonding moment halfway through the series is actually a pretty neat way to do it... even if those random sappy flashbacks are too much. Of course, while Jeff and the others are distracted, Jennifer takes her brand-new costume the moment she eavesdrops on the right piece of information, and goes straight to murder Tobias Whale only to lose control of her powers. Kind of obvious, but... also told relatively decently.

Team Tobias, meanwhile, activates the Masters of Disaster, and we get to briefly see Coldsnap, Heatsroke and New Wave, all of whom deal with the "holy fuck we've been asleep for 30 years" bit waaaay better than Shakedown or Windfall did. Tobias basically films a twisted commercial, using Heatstroke to blow shit up and set fire to some poor politician giving a speech and blowing up gas tanks, in order to sell his metahumans to... to the black market or something. The show's budget probably won't let it show the sheer impact of metahuman trafficking like the animated Young Justice: Outsiders series, but it's still a pretty fun little action scene as Black Lightning and Heatstroke fight each other, even if it does take forever between them finding out that a metahuman is rampaging to Black Lightning actually suiting up

I am a lot less enthused with Helga Jace confronting Tobias over how possessive Cutter is of him. Honestly, Helga's a pretty fun character with a pretty fun actress, but Cutter's always a flat character to me. Plus, we already have so much going on that throwing in this bizarre relationship triangle (mostly non-romantic on Jace's part, but still) is just an odd addition.

Lala still doesn't work for me either, and I really wished he was brought back or foreshadowed a bit earlier. We get to see him talk with his mysterious benefactor, who worked with Lady Eve (I genuinely forgot about her) and also wants revenge against Tobias Whale. And it's mostly just this conversation before Lala shows up at Tobias's base in the climax, proves that he's not afraid of fatal wounds when he briefly fights Cutter... but then the scene just cuts to Cutter being in front of Tobias? That whole sequence felt like it was cut weirdly.

Anyway... it's an okay setup, I guess. Jennifer and Lala are out for blood, Tobias has a literal superhuman army, Odell's doing something, and we get some Pierce family drama. It does set up for a two-parter to resolve the Masters of Disaster and the metahuman black market, so maybe it'll stick the landing? I'm not quite as optimistic, but at least the show's trying. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The other three members of the Masters of Disaster are brought to life by Tobias Whale, and they're for the most part similar to the original line-up of the supervillain team in the comics:
• New Wave (a.k.a. Rebecca Jones) has the ability to become water in the comics.
• Coldsnap (a.k.a. Darryl Robinson) has the ability to make blizzards. The show gives him a last name.
• Heatstroke (a.k.a. Joe) has the ability to control flame. The only one particularly significantly changed, since Heatstroke in the comics is a lady called Joanne, and is in love with Coldsnap.