Black Lightning (TV Series, Season 1)
May. 16th, 2018 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI saw a superhero last night, he was black / He said, "This is for the street, Black Lightning's back."
It starts off very similar in tone to Luke Cage, where the super-powered black man who thought he’d left one life behind finds that gang violence will find where he lives. In this case, though, Jefferson Pierce is a high school principal and father of two who is nine years out of the superhero business. This is also much more clearly a superhero show. From the beginning, Pierce is putting on a costume and knocking out bad guys with electro-punches and lightning blasts.
And it pulls no punches with reminding you that whatever the evil conspiracies or the supervillains do, the real villains are racists in positions of power. Clark Kent occasionally has to look like a wuss and run away to protect his secret identity; Jeff Pierce has to endure being beaten by cooked cops, cavity searched and generally dehumanized. When the assbag villain who conspired to kill hundreds of young black people to get a few metahuman test subjects for dissection starts saying he’s Making America Great Again, you know exactly where this show is punching and you’re with them all the way.
I appreciate that they start teasing the greater mysteries early: Gambi is shown as Pierce's Alfred at the beginning, but it's clear he has his own agenda and that he's keeping secrets about who he works for and where his loyalties lie. Tobias is shown to be much more than a simple gang leader from early on, being a small part of a much larger conspiracy and apparently having some sort of anti-aging serum in his body. Anissa stumbles into the conspiracy her grandfather was tracking when looking for general information about her superpowers, and that promises to tell a lot more about the nature of powers in this world. (Which isn't necessarily the same world as Arrow / Flash / et al, but clearly has other heroes protecting other cities. Vixen and Supergirl get name-dropped, but not necessarily implying that they actually exist.)
The Pierce family is really, really damn functional. Despite being divorced, Jeff and Lynn are fantastic co-parents who communicate like champs. The girls genuinely respect them, and resentments rarely last more than an episode because they all understand how to talk them out. Heck, Jeff himself is a masterclass in how to be a badass with anger issues who generally can safely and comfortably talk out his feelings. (Jeff’s tragic flaw is that he thinks if he just pushes himself hard enough, he can do everything. He takes persistence through to the side where it’s dangerous. Compare with Kara’s naivety or Barry’s tendency to make extremely poor life choices.)
There are a ton of hanging plot threads going into season two: Did Lala / Tattooed Man somehow survive being blown up? If the ASA wasn’t directly funding this madness, what are they actually up to? What’s Tobias’ master plan / what was in the briefcase? Will Jennifer get a supersuit and fight crime as Lightning? What’s going to happen with the kids who’ve been in suspended animation for 30 years, and the new ones whose superpowers are likely to kill them? Is this the same world as Arrow/Flash (possibly) or Supergirl (unlikely) or neither? Jeff’s vice-principal works for the ASA but apparently wasn’t primarily part of the rogue op—where does she go from here? Are Anissa and Grace going to smooch?
Overall: I thought this was really well done; dark but not too dark and full of real meat, not just fluff. A necessary change in tone from the other CW DC shows that keeps it fresh. I’m in for next season, oh yeah.
It starts off very similar in tone to Luke Cage, where the super-powered black man who thought he’d left one life behind finds that gang violence will find where he lives. In this case, though, Jefferson Pierce is a high school principal and father of two who is nine years out of the superhero business. This is also much more clearly a superhero show. From the beginning, Pierce is putting on a costume and knocking out bad guys with electro-punches and lightning blasts.
And it pulls no punches with reminding you that whatever the evil conspiracies or the supervillains do, the real villains are racists in positions of power. Clark Kent occasionally has to look like a wuss and run away to protect his secret identity; Jeff Pierce has to endure being beaten by cooked cops, cavity searched and generally dehumanized. When the assbag villain who conspired to kill hundreds of young black people to get a few metahuman test subjects for dissection starts saying he’s Making America Great Again, you know exactly where this show is punching and you’re with them all the way.
I appreciate that they start teasing the greater mysteries early: Gambi is shown as Pierce's Alfred at the beginning, but it's clear he has his own agenda and that he's keeping secrets about who he works for and where his loyalties lie. Tobias is shown to be much more than a simple gang leader from early on, being a small part of a much larger conspiracy and apparently having some sort of anti-aging serum in his body. Anissa stumbles into the conspiracy her grandfather was tracking when looking for general information about her superpowers, and that promises to tell a lot more about the nature of powers in this world. (Which isn't necessarily the same world as Arrow / Flash / et al, but clearly has other heroes protecting other cities. Vixen and Supergirl get name-dropped, but not necessarily implying that they actually exist.)
The Pierce family is really, really damn functional. Despite being divorced, Jeff and Lynn are fantastic co-parents who communicate like champs. The girls genuinely respect them, and resentments rarely last more than an episode because they all understand how to talk them out. Heck, Jeff himself is a masterclass in how to be a badass with anger issues who generally can safely and comfortably talk out his feelings. (Jeff’s tragic flaw is that he thinks if he just pushes himself hard enough, he can do everything. He takes persistence through to the side where it’s dangerous. Compare with Kara’s naivety or Barry’s tendency to make extremely poor life choices.)
There are a ton of hanging plot threads going into season two: Did Lala / Tattooed Man somehow survive being blown up? If the ASA wasn’t directly funding this madness, what are they actually up to? What’s Tobias’ master plan / what was in the briefcase? Will Jennifer get a supersuit and fight crime as Lightning? What’s going to happen with the kids who’ve been in suspended animation for 30 years, and the new ones whose superpowers are likely to kill them? Is this the same world as Arrow/Flash (possibly) or Supergirl (unlikely) or neither? Jeff’s vice-principal works for the ASA but apparently wasn’t primarily part of the rogue op—where does she go from here? Are Anissa and Grace going to smooch?
Overall: I thought this was really well done; dark but not too dark and full of real meat, not just fluff. A necessary change in tone from the other CW DC shows that keeps it fresh. I’m in for next season, oh yeah.
