Black Lightning S03E10-11 Review: Addiction

Black Lightning, Season 3, Episode 10: Blessings and Curses Reborn; Episode 11: Lynn's Addiction

Episode 10: Blessings and Curses Reborn
I haven't really been following up with Black Lightning because... I don't really know. I guess the pre-Crisis episodes aren't as interesting as they could've been? I always feel that Black Lightning is a show that's always better served when I binge-watch it anyway, which is why I suppose I left it for last. After the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, we basically get a bit of a reset to the status quo, with Black Lightning zipping back and bursting into the dome-covered Freeland, while Lightning returns back from her bizarre trip into mind-land where Jen meets the other 'possible futures'. This basically leads to a quick little recap where Jen tells Jefferson about her deal with Agent Odell and stuff, since Jen basically went through her character development after seeing the two extreme versions of the path that the alternate Jennifers would take.

And while there will always be the little question burning in the back of my head now that this is a shared universe on why Black Lightning doesn't just call upon the combined might of Supergirl, Superman, the Flash, Martian Manhunter and two dozen other superheroes or to call the D.E.O. and ARGUS to beat up the A.S.A., but whatever, superhero individual title non-crossover clause, I suppose.

Agent Odell, meanwhile, is back to take over the A.S.A. and no real offense to the actors that play Agent Grey or that one power-stealing commando dude, Bill Duke just has the gravitas to actually be a properly imposing villain. Throughout the episode, though, Odell basically puts his foot down, not particularly pleased with the state of events after the Pierces basically decided to revolt, and narrowly avoids getting zapped to death by an angry Jennifer, by way of realistic hologram. Also, thanks to Jennifer bringing her buddy Brandon around as backup (he shoots sand blasts) I guess Brandon gets brought into the loop.

Meanwhile, the rest of the episode basically sort of follows Black Lightning and Anissa (in her Blackbird guise) and they work with the underground to liberate a bunch of metahuman prisoners. It's a basic "trust that your child knows what she's doing" storyline, with Jefferson learning to let Anissa do what she needs to do as the leader of the resistance, even if I do think the "I pick right" "I pick left" sequence was a bit too on the nose and there's no real reason for Anissa to be right other than the plot demands it to be. Another B-plot deals with Lynn being super-duper addicted to Green Light and lashing out to everyone around her, but that's always been a plot point that I felt was kind of random and isn't exactly executed particularly well.

Overall, though, the episode mostly functions to bring us up to speed, and I kind of feel that there's at least part of it that's meant to be a recap after the hiatus and crossover stuff.
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Episode 11: Lynn's Addiction
Episode 11 is all about the subplot I don't really care about, though and that's Lynn's addiction. And... I dunno, I really am not a huge fan of her being addicted to Green Light and fighting with Jefferson about it? It's a decent way to get drama and some mileage out of her actress in theory, but in practice, it's just honestly repetitive and one-dimensional. I guess Lynn's addiction is focused in a more tangible manner by the fact that it's not just physical drugs she's addicted to, but also a bit of a hero complex thing of wanting and needing to solve all the answers on her own? She spends this entire episode basically on her one-woman crusade to deny the ASA of the cure they need, and, arguably, this sort of attitude is what a hero needs. It's just that it's done with the background of her demanding to get her Green Light back and it murks things up a bit.

I also kind of wished that we actually had any sort of foreshadowing that Sergeant Gardner Gayle exists at all, because it genuinely does feel like a bit of an ass-pull that Lynn suddenly has this sympathetic-to-the-good-guys member of the ASA that is ready and willing and has all the resources able to sneak Lynn's bag (and drugs) out, sneak her in, and basically cover for her while she injects Tobias Whale with an invisibility superpower serum and sneaks him out. It kind of is a storyline that is fine on its own, but as part of a greater season feels kind of random. Lynn revealing that she shot herself up with some super-strength serum to bop Tobias in the face is a well-done moment, as is the sudden plot twist that Lynn and Gayle got tasered in the back by what I assume to be Markovian agents.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Pierce family are doing... stuff. More than a bit angry about the fact that Odell has apparently gotten Jennifer to go around and blow up buildings and potentially kill Markovians in the process, so Jeff brings Anissa and Gambi in for a strike force to beat up Odell's convoy of ominous black SUV's and threatens him with stuff, and Odell's answers to a lot of the Pierce family's accusations are basically deflections, trying to quote Martin Luther King and quoting the Lord's Prayer. Okay, sure. But Jefferson isn't that brutal, of course, and all they are doing is basically getting the biometric data they needed to create a digital replica of Odell to order the ASA out or something...

But, of course, Jennifer comes in at the exactly wrong moment and gets into an argument about hypocrisy (she's not wrong, technically, but at the same time she just wants to straight-up murder Odell and that's a no-no) and then the ASA commandos show up, and then Khalil Payne shows up, all Terminator-like, and poor Jenn just basically goes into a bit of a shock at the sight of her dead zombie boyfriend. Not really understanding what's going on, Jennifer restrains Jeff and Anissa from Painkiller and tries to talk him down, and this whole sequence is enough for the ASA commandos to extract Odell. Of course, at the end of the episode they have Painkiller sedated in the Gambicave, and thanks to Gambi's computer-speaking metahuman buddy Technocrat, they find out that Khalil's mind is still alive underneath all the robotic programming after all.

And the episode ends with the Pierce family basically fractured -- Lynn's driven away her family members and has gone off on her own solo attempt to be a hero without telling anyone; Jennifer's hurt and angry at the two huge chunks of information that her family's kept from her (the attack on Odell and Khalil being alive), and whatever happens in the next couple of episodes will have the Pierces dealing with this angst.

Also, there's a B-plot with Lala basically sending out Devonte (which I think was one of the Pod kids? Why is he with the 100?) to spy on a new gangster in Freeland, and turns out it's the resurrected Lady Eve! I'm not sure where this is really going to lead, because Lala's been disappearing and reappearing at random points in the season, and whatever's going on in this episode honestly genuinely feels like a random unrelated side-story with barely any relevance to the main storyline. The only real way this can tie in to the greater storyline, really, is the revelation, via Gambi's new buddy Baron (a.k.a. Technocrat; he speaks to computers), that Lady Eve was the person behind Gambi's assassination. Oh, I suppose Baron's pretty dang charming, he has been showing up in the background of the past two or three episodes, hanging out with Gambi and apparently Gambi sees young Jeff in Technocrat. It's a bit of an awkward intro for the character, but ultimately a decent one. Basically, both Brandon (a.k.a. not-Geo-Force) and Baron are looped into the Pierces. Okay, sure.

Anyway, despite some questionable storylines, episode 11 is a decent one.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Odell mentions multiple times in this episode that he comes from Gotham City, which, of course, is now part of Earth-Prime alongside the entire world of Black Lightning. 
• Brandon talks about possible code-names, listing "Quake Boy", "Earth-Force" and "Geo" among them, which, of course, clues us in to the fact that Brandon is a race-lifted and age-lifted version of the superhero Geo-Force, a.k.a. Brion Markov of Markovia, the earth-manipulating prince of Markovia and a fellow founding member of the Outsiders alongside Black Lightning in the comics. 
• Baron, a.k.a. "T.C.", is very loosely based on Technocrat, or Geoffrey Barron, a business magnate that attempted to sell battle armours to the nation of Markovia. Donning his own Technocrat armour to defend himself when the Outsiders were framed for the murder of Markovia's queen, Technocrat joined the Outsiders in helping to clear their name and would join the group himself. 
• Gardner Gayle in the comics is the superhero Atomic Knight, who utilized a STAR labs battle-suit to fight crime. He participated in a virtual reality experiment that had him interact in a post-atomic-war world. As the Atomic Knight, he would briefly join the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and later on as a member of the Outsiders.