Black Lightning (Netflix, Season 3)
Apr. 9th, 2021 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe city of Freeland, home to an assortment of unstable metahumans due to the drug Green Light, has been completely locked down by the ASA as the country of Markovia looks to invade.
This remains, in general, better written than the majority of the CW DC shows…though that’s kinda damning with faint praise. They manage to get through most episodes without anyone having to be an inexplicable idiot; which is credit to both Odell’s ability as a manipulator and the fact that two major characters are still young enough to make age-appropriate dumb choices. (The closest anyone gets to making Flash-level dumb choices is Brandon, and he’s a 17-year-old with superpowers and no adult supervision, so that’s realistic.) And the ridiculous premise (the government completely locks down an American city, imposes martial law, kidnaps lots of citizens for medical experimentation, and lies to the public about everything) is shockingly believable in 2021, especially given that it’s a majority black city. Honestly, the only real difficulty I had was the fact that Freeland is in Georgia and the Markovians (Markovia is apparently in Europe) are establishing military camps and outposts nearby. The US government can create a forcefield to lock down an entire city, but can’t drop a few bombs on the enemy encampments on US soil?
Though the science occasionally gives me trouble—when it’s pure comic book science like forcefields and superpowers, I’m cool. When TC has to hack the blockchain to trace a bitcoin purchase…less so. I was a little upset Jamilah Olsen didn’t get used post-crisis (except to get killed in a quick cameo); she was clearly the Earth-73 version of James Olsen and I wanted to see what they did with her after Crisis. I loved the build up to the power-copying meta fighting Black Lightning…which lasted all of 30 seconds because Jefferson has been doing this for decades and knows his own weakness. (Actually, that guy jobs a lot. He also get plastered by Lynn to remind us that in addition to being a brilliant scientist, she’s smart enough to be prepared for violence.)
Trying several plotlines together at the end of the season with the reveal of the briefcase and the Lady Eve plotline and their relation to Dr. Jace and Gravedigger was good, but I found making Gravedigger a supervillain that could be punched to resolve everything unsatisfactory. The villain is the US government, and that fits badly with the Crisis one-Earth retcon, because the ASA should have been locking down Central City and torturing Cisco for six years if they wanted metas so badly.
It was also pretty obvious as we approached the end of the season that Grace wasn’t likely to survive; I suppose I should be grateful they “only” put her in a coma. Tobias is clearly back to be a villain next season, as is Lala; Lady Eve could go either way. The fact that Gravedigger inexplicably survived the explosion at the Pit means they have plans for him. The fact that they seem to have wrapped up the interactions with Markovia means they probably won’t be going with my theory about Brandon/Geo-Force (which is that his long-lost father is Markovian royalty). I’ve heard that they’re shopping a Painkiller spinoff show; I suspect the success of that will determine whether we see any more of Khaleel. I wasn’t expecting them to kill Henderson, but killing Dr. Jace made sense—there’s nothing useful left to do with her. Lynn being back on the glimmer drug is its own mess.
I appreciated the cameo by “Judge Isabella” at the end, too.
Overall: I suspect Netflix won’t be getting the next seasons of CW shows until at least next fall, so it was nice to have one of last season’s in reserve to watch now. And this show continues to be pretty solid, though I’m mildly concerned that the come-down next season will be rocky. We’ll see!
This remains, in general, better written than the majority of the CW DC shows…though that’s kinda damning with faint praise. They manage to get through most episodes without anyone having to be an inexplicable idiot; which is credit to both Odell’s ability as a manipulator and the fact that two major characters are still young enough to make age-appropriate dumb choices. (The closest anyone gets to making Flash-level dumb choices is Brandon, and he’s a 17-year-old with superpowers and no adult supervision, so that’s realistic.) And the ridiculous premise (the government completely locks down an American city, imposes martial law, kidnaps lots of citizens for medical experimentation, and lies to the public about everything) is shockingly believable in 2021, especially given that it’s a majority black city. Honestly, the only real difficulty I had was the fact that Freeland is in Georgia and the Markovians (Markovia is apparently in Europe) are establishing military camps and outposts nearby. The US government can create a forcefield to lock down an entire city, but can’t drop a few bombs on the enemy encampments on US soil?
Though the science occasionally gives me trouble—when it’s pure comic book science like forcefields and superpowers, I’m cool. When TC has to hack the blockchain to trace a bitcoin purchase…less so. I was a little upset Jamilah Olsen didn’t get used post-crisis (except to get killed in a quick cameo); she was clearly the Earth-73 version of James Olsen and I wanted to see what they did with her after Crisis. I loved the build up to the power-copying meta fighting Black Lightning…which lasted all of 30 seconds because Jefferson has been doing this for decades and knows his own weakness. (Actually, that guy jobs a lot. He also get plastered by Lynn to remind us that in addition to being a brilliant scientist, she’s smart enough to be prepared for violence.)
Trying several plotlines together at the end of the season with the reveal of the briefcase and the Lady Eve plotline and their relation to Dr. Jace and Gravedigger was good, but I found making Gravedigger a supervillain that could be punched to resolve everything unsatisfactory. The villain is the US government, and that fits badly with the Crisis one-Earth retcon, because the ASA should have been locking down Central City and torturing Cisco for six years if they wanted metas so badly.
It was also pretty obvious as we approached the end of the season that Grace wasn’t likely to survive; I suppose I should be grateful they “only” put her in a coma. Tobias is clearly back to be a villain next season, as is Lala; Lady Eve could go either way. The fact that Gravedigger inexplicably survived the explosion at the Pit means they have plans for him. The fact that they seem to have wrapped up the interactions with Markovia means they probably won’t be going with my theory about Brandon/Geo-Force (which is that his long-lost father is Markovian royalty). I’ve heard that they’re shopping a Painkiller spinoff show; I suspect the success of that will determine whether we see any more of Khaleel. I wasn’t expecting them to kill Henderson, but killing Dr. Jace made sense—there’s nothing useful left to do with her. Lynn being back on the glimmer drug is its own mess.
I appreciated the cameo by “Judge Isabella” at the end, too.
Overall: I suspect Netflix won’t be getting the next seasons of CW shows until at least next fall, so it was nice to have one of last season’s in reserve to watch now. And this show continues to be pretty solid, though I’m mildly concerned that the come-down next season will be rocky. We’ll see!
