Hello dear Black Lightning viewers. This week brings us the season 2 finale of the show, and I have to say I’m a little disappointed, but let’s talk about what happened.
Last week, Jen was in a ball of emotion/literal fire after Tobias drove off with Cutter, fleeing his lair. This week, we open on Gambi donning special fireproof gloves and rushing to her aid, only to suffer serious burns himself. Luckily he had already told Black Lightning and Thunder that Jen was in trouble, so they show up pretty fast and as Jen uses her mind-safe-space to calm down, the Power Fam make a plan that Jen and Anissa will take Gambi to the hideout while Jeff checks out Tobias’s now-empty space.
While the Pierce sisters treat Gambi and watch protests over Cape Man’s death on the news, Jeff discovers the missing pod kids and is almost shot by Dr. Jace. But MVP Lynn, who is rightfully pissed at Jace, shows up and literally fights her, punching her in the face, straddles her on the floor, and calls her a bitch. I think this makes Lynn a Mommi.
Anyway Jace gives up intel in exchange for ‘police protection,’ which she says she prefers to the Markovians. But the Markovians send their headhunter, who can basically disapparate, to fetch her from her jail cell.
Meanwhile Tobias continues to invest a lot of time and energy into talking to his painting and playing chess with it, which doesn’t sit well with Cutter, but she’s willing to overlook it for now. They plan to cut all the power in Freeland with the hope that it will aggravate the protesters into rioting and also that it will cut off Black Lightning’s fighting juice. Oh and also so they can send out the evil metas to wreak havoc.
This works to an extent, in that Black Lightning and Thunder almost lose a fight with the evil metas because Black Lightning is losing strength without power in the grid (?? but ok). Luckily, Gambi is all better and he and Jen team up to melt the ice that’s keeping the city’s power from functioning. They have a cute moment and also Jen looks amazing in her suit, I think she has the best one.
Meanwhile, Odell shows up to Tobias’ cave where he kept the pod kids, surprising and annoying Lynn, who is trying to stabilize them. Odell wants to move them right away, but suddenly all the pod doors open and the kids stumble out and wander around. Not fully awake, they wander out to the streets and into the world. Cool!
Back in Tobias’ fancy room with a fish tank and his painting friend, he and Cutter have a fight and she leaves him. Did anyone understand why this was a thing? Anyway, Lala shows up and tries to kill Tobias, but Tobias uses his weird mind powers to weaken him, and then all his face tattoos show up all over his body, making him writhe in pain.
Jen-no-superhero-name-yet shows up to finally enact her revenge on Tobias. When she has him on the brink of death in a flame-lasso, Black Lightning shows up and says that even if Tobias deserves to die, she does not deserve to be a cold-blooded killer. Then they both just kind of beat up Tobias and he ends up arrested by someone who puts him in the most high-tech max security fancy prison ever.
The big twist at the end of the episode does not excite me. We see that among the pod kids still at the ASA facility, is Khalil. I do not want more Khalil storyline. I want Jen to become her own powerful hero without this bro. Please stop bringing him back! Like, please.
In the end, our (extremely well-dressed) family is back together, preparing dinner and processing emotions. But guess who shows up? Odell, obvi! He warns the fam that the Markovian war is coming, and that Freeland is ground zero for it.
Well folks, that’s it for this season! I would like to point out that in a season of sixteen episodes, Anissa had a disappointingly paltry story arc, and Grace was not mentioned *once* in this finale. Quite frustrating given what seemed to have been promised for their storyline.
Here’s hoping this season was a sophomore slump, and the next one will be better. There were some highs this year, but I found the overall arc and subplots of the season to be scattered, a little boring, and neglectful of character development. But let me know what you think! Thanks for following along this season!
