Black Lightning (Netflix, Season 4)
Nov. 14th, 2021 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroJefferson took another round of semi-retirement after the Markovian War ended and his best friend was killed. But crime in general (and Tobias Whale in particular) doesn’t take a break in Freeland.
They clearly are trying to respect the headlines and balance superhero power fantasy with vaguely realistic situations, like one where police do a no-knock raid that kills both occupants and leads to an uprising and protests and more violence…and then rewinds to have Black Lightning stop the cops before the situation turns deadly. Though it’s faint praise, this remains the best-written of the CW DC shows from a character perspective (even if, four seasons in, their unwillingness to learn from their mistakes is getting frustrating).
Replacing Jennifer’s actor was actually done impressively well, making several episodes out of her overloading and them needing to re-form her body, and then the various characters getting used to her different in-universe appearance. Turning the loss of Jennifer’s actor into a major plotline was smart—half the season gets dedicated to her trying to fit in as “new Jenn” and the original actress comes back for the finale to wrap it up. (And they left the “clues” nebulous enough that if they hadn’t had the original actress for that episode, they could have spun the reveal completely differently.) For that matter, they clearly had to sharply limit crowd scenes, but that only really comes up in occasionally random empty restaurants—so much of the series takes place at night or in secret locations anyway. For that matter, I’m sure that 90% of the cops, goons, random security guards and the like were all the same half-dozen stuntmen in assorted masks and helmets, but those sorts of characters work better being mostly faceless anyway.
The “Painkiller” episode was using Anissa and Grace’s honeymoon as an excuse to make the pilot of a new series, and I honestly found it painful as such. After that, they over-used Painkiller as the hyper-competent character who never has any real setbacks. The actor is very good looking and does wonderful snark, but they don’t have enough for the character to actually make a series out of in a way that would be watchable (at least for me).
Anissa drove me nuts with her constant unwillingness to communicate with Grace or actually form a partnership with her. In retrospect, she was clearly following the bad relationship habits she learned from her parents. Also, she’s in her 20s and in her first serious relationship. This show relies on characters making stupid choices as much as any of the others, but at least it tries to make them realistically stupid choices.
They leave plenty of things open from the series finale: Painkiller gets set free from the Pierces by way of memory wipe. Lightning, Thunder, T.C. and Black Lightning himself are still active for crossovers. Lala gets freed from his Han Solo impression and can show up elsewhere. But the big emotional arcs wrap up, Tobias is dead and his schemes are thwarted (as is Ishmael and the crazy police chief is disgraced), and the family is in a stable place.
Overall: As I keep noting, it’s a CW superhero show, but it was the best-written of the bunch, if also the darkest. And I’m kind of glad it ran a solid 4-season arc and didn’t outstay its welcome.
They clearly are trying to respect the headlines and balance superhero power fantasy with vaguely realistic situations, like one where police do a no-knock raid that kills both occupants and leads to an uprising and protests and more violence…and then rewinds to have Black Lightning stop the cops before the situation turns deadly. Though it’s faint praise, this remains the best-written of the CW DC shows from a character perspective (even if, four seasons in, their unwillingness to learn from their mistakes is getting frustrating).
Replacing Jennifer’s actor was actually done impressively well, making several episodes out of her overloading and them needing to re-form her body, and then the various characters getting used to her different in-universe appearance. Turning the loss of Jennifer’s actor into a major plotline was smart—half the season gets dedicated to her trying to fit in as “new Jenn” and the original actress comes back for the finale to wrap it up. (And they left the “clues” nebulous enough that if they hadn’t had the original actress for that episode, they could have spun the reveal completely differently.) For that matter, they clearly had to sharply limit crowd scenes, but that only really comes up in occasionally random empty restaurants—so much of the series takes place at night or in secret locations anyway. For that matter, I’m sure that 90% of the cops, goons, random security guards and the like were all the same half-dozen stuntmen in assorted masks and helmets, but those sorts of characters work better being mostly faceless anyway.
The “Painkiller” episode was using Anissa and Grace’s honeymoon as an excuse to make the pilot of a new series, and I honestly found it painful as such. After that, they over-used Painkiller as the hyper-competent character who never has any real setbacks. The actor is very good looking and does wonderful snark, but they don’t have enough for the character to actually make a series out of in a way that would be watchable (at least for me).
Anissa drove me nuts with her constant unwillingness to communicate with Grace or actually form a partnership with her. In retrospect, she was clearly following the bad relationship habits she learned from her parents. Also, she’s in her 20s and in her first serious relationship. This show relies on characters making stupid choices as much as any of the others, but at least it tries to make them realistically stupid choices.
They leave plenty of things open from the series finale: Painkiller gets set free from the Pierces by way of memory wipe. Lightning, Thunder, T.C. and Black Lightning himself are still active for crossovers. Lala gets freed from his Han Solo impression and can show up elsewhere. But the big emotional arcs wrap up, Tobias is dead and his schemes are thwarted (as is Ishmael and the crazy police chief is disgraced), and the family is in a stable place.
Overall: As I keep noting, it’s a CW superhero show, but it was the best-written of the bunch, if also the darkest. And I’m kind of glad it ran a solid 4-season arc and didn’t outstay its welcome.
