Spoilers Black Lightning - Season 1

[theenglish]

Do I need a defense? My bad memory for faces is universal, not specific to any one ethnicity. Indeed, I had the hardest time following the plot of Veronica Mars in its first several episodes because I couldn't tell all the generically good-looking young white guys apart. And when I binge-watched the first two seasons of The Magicians a few months back, it took me several episodes to figure out that Margo and Kady were two different women. When shows have large casts, I just need a few weeks to learn the faces and names well enough to tell people apart. Of course, Black Lightning doesn't have that same problem, because there are no other regular characters who look anything like Anissa, but sometimes I'd see her in a scene and it'd take me a moment to be sure I was seeing her and not some guest character. Now, though, as I said, I've learned her features well enough that it's easier to recognize her.

The other day, I went to the bank to do some business, and I talked to a banker that I'd previously only met once before, several months ago. The only way I could remember that I had met her before was that I had her business card; otherwise I would've had no idea, because one meeting is not enough for me to learn someone's face. But she recognized me right away, which surprised me, given all the hundreds of customers she must've talked to in the interim. Since I'm not good at recognizing people, I don't realize how easy it is for most people to do it. I kind of envy that skill.

I have the same issue--even with famous actors in make-up. I didn't even know that that was Cate Blanchett in Thor until my wife pointed it out to me half way through the movie.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

If Fox could make a Sleepy Hollow/Bones crossover work, I'm pretty sure Berlanti and co. could combine Black Lightning with the Arrowverse shows.
It might be more serious and political than the others, but I haven't anything in BL that would prevent it from crossing over with the Arrowverse shows.

What they've done in other series is that the visiting characters are written to match the tone of that series. Arrow characters act a little lighter when they are in Central City and the reverse is also true.

Black Lightning's social and political structure is such a defining, large departure from the other DC TV series that a crossover would guarantee watering down BL's firm tone and message, which is nowhere to be found in the Arrowverse. /when they had a chance to demonstrate how they would handle serious issues in that "crisis" crossover, with it alternate world Nazis--it failed to present the grim subject as anything other than G.I. Joe cartoon-esque collection of baddies making Cobra Commander threats in between moustache-twirling hokum.

Black Lightning is on a clear path tied to very pointed issues completely alien to the other series, so to modify the other series' characters to fit BL, or the other way around would be as impossible to ignore (and work) as merging the 70s versions of the Super Friends' Wonder Twins with Batman: The Animated Series.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

By contrast, BL has featured a metahuman hero from the start and has acknowledged that other superheroes exist in its world.

It may be easier once BL has established more metas and their place in its world. Green Light looks like it's possibly part of an experiment to create metas. But one of my problems with Earth-38 is that it's so defined by the aliens and very few metas (maybe Livewire, Silver Banshee, others?).

The other reason to prefer an Earth-38 setting is because having two shows on that Earth would help balance having three CW shows -- plus Constantine and three animated shows -- based on Earth-1.

I wasn't thinking of BL being on Earth-1 either but separate from the other series, Earth-BL if you will.

As part of Earth-38, BL would be outclassed by almost every single alien who all seem to be powerful enough to be a challenge to Kara. To me, ignoring it, the absence of the connections would be conspicuous like how the Marvel TV series sometimes seem to be in the MCU by name only. When looking into BL, no one mentions Livewire? When investigating metas no one mentions all the super-powered aliens running around? Is Olivia Marsden the president?

I think it diminishes the ability of the series to define how BL, Freeland and the rest fit into the world at large and places him into an established pecking order. And for what? So Guardian can come to Freeland for a very special episode? Already you have to turn a blind eye to how many times Ollie should probably have called Team Flash for an assist.

If you're not going to integrate it from the beginning the benefits of making that connection later start to wane. I remember you were quite opposed to making Supergirl part of Earth-1 when the move was made to CW.

Perhaps Lady Eve would still be around is she had looked into Kryptonian bone dust.

 

[Christopher]

But one of my problems with Earth-38 is that it's so defined by the aliens and very few metas (maybe Livewire, Silver Banshee, others?).

Arrow is defined by street-level vigilantes; The Flash is defined by metahumans; Legends is defined by time travel. Every world has a lot of different things going on, and the strength of a shared universe is that different series can flesh out different parts of that world. If they were all alike, what would be the point?

I wasn't thinking of BL being on Earth-1 either but separate from the other series, Earth-BL if you will.

It very well might be. But it's ambiguous at this point.

As part of Earth-38, BL would be outclassed by almost every single alien who all seem to be powerful enough to be a challenge to Kara.

And Team Arrow would be outclassed by almost every metahuman Team Flash faces. Again, why expect two different shows to tackle the same kind of villains? It's the nature of superhero fiction that heroes get the villains best suited to them. And Freeland's a long way from National City, probably a lot farther than Star City is from Central City. (After all, National City is basically LA and Freeland is basically Atlanta.)

If you're not going to integrate it from the beginning the benefits of making that connection later start to wane. I remember you were quite opposed to making Supergirl part of Earth-1 when the move was made to CW.

That's not at all comparable. I didn't want Supergirl to be on Earth-1 because it would've contradicted the established history of both universes -- Earth-1 being a world where the existence of superpowers was only recently revealed to the public, and Supergirl being in a world where Superman had been openly active for a dozen years. They obviously couldn't fit, not because of any personal preference on my part, but simply because of the objective facts on the ground. This case isn't comparable, because BL is a new show and we know very little about the world it's in. So far, nothing of what we know definitively rules out being on Earth-38 (or Earth-1), though nothing explicitly establishes it either. It remains an open question until we get more facts. Because that's how you make decisions: Based on the data, not on personal wishes or desires.

 

[The Realist]

As an aside, that National City is an LA analogue has been getting harder and harder to believe since the move to the CW, unless Earth-38's Southern California is somehow climatically completely different from ours. So much gray and wet and heavy jackets and misty breath.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

So far, nothing of what we know definitively rules out being on Earth-38 (or Earth-1), though nothing explicitly establishes it either. It remains an open question until we get more facts. Because that's how you make decisions: Based on the data, not on personal wishes or desires.

I don't need that last line, thank you. Maybe I'm not expressing it well but I'm trying to give my opinion on making BL part of Earth-38, I'm not saying that it absolutely isn't.

 

[JD]

Black Lightning's social and political structure is such a defining, large departure from the other DC TV series that a crossover would guarantee watering down BL's firm tone and message, which is nowhere to be found in the Arrowverse. /when they had a chance to demonstrate how they would handle serious issues in that "crisis" crossover, with it alternate world Nazis--it failed to present the grim subject as anything other than G.I. Joe cartoon-esque collection of baddies making Cobra Commander threats in between moustache-twirling hokum.

Black Lightning is on a clear path tied to very pointed issues completely alien to the other series, so to modify the other series' characters to fit BL, or the other way around would be as impossible to ignore (and work) as merging the 70s versions of the Super Friends' Wonder Twins with Batman: The Animated Series.

This is basically the same thing you said before, and I still don't see a problem. There have been plenty of shows with varying tones doing crossovers in the past.
Hell, Alphas did a crossover with Warehouse 13 and those two are probably even more divergent in tone than Black Lightning and the Arrowverse shows are.
I don't even really see where things like tone or the kind of issues they deal with matter when it comes to crossovers, none of that has any impact how believable it is that the characters exist in the same multiverse/universe.
Bones & Sleepy Hollow really weren't that different in terms of tone and style, but it was still a strange crossover because Bones was a real world murder mystery show with no real supernatural elements in the series, and Sleepy Hollow was a series filled with monsters and magic. The Alphas and Warehouse 13 was strange for similar reasons, Alphas was a much more grounded show that never really had the kind of craziness that W13 did on a regular basis.
At this point we haven't established anywhere near enough about the wider BL world to say what can and can't coexist with it.

 

[Christopher]

As an aside, that National City is an LA analogue has been getting harder and harder to believe since the move to the CW, unless Earth-38's Southern California is somehow climatically completely different from ours. So much gray and wet and heavy jackets and misty breath.

They still use Los Angeles skyline footage in their establishing shots and flying sequences. National City is sort of a hybrid of LA and Vancouver now, but the LA element is still present.

Besides, Vancouver's even farther from Atlanta, so it doesn't exactly disprove the point.

Hell, Alphas did a crossover with Warehouse 13 and those two are probably even more divergent in tone than Black Lightning and the Arrowverse shows are.

That was a crossover I wish they hadn't done, since Alphas was a far more serious show and didn't belong in the same reality as the goofier W13. That crossover, like the earlier Eureka/W13 crossovers, was evidently mandated by the network and I doubt the producers would've done it on their own. Luckily, they minimized the crossover element; Lindsay Wagner played the same character with the same job, but she made no specific reference to any characters or events from W13, so she could be seen as a separate version of the same character.

At this point we haven't established anywhere near enough about the wider BL world to say what can and can't coexist with it.

I still say BL is nowhere near as "grounded" as Arrow was in its first two seasons. The first season's most sci-fi element was an earthquake-generating machine. The second season brought in a serum that could give people enhanced strength and endurance, but that was as far as it went with superpowers. Oliver didn't even start wearing a domino mask until midway through season 2 (Barry Allen made it for him). And it wasn't until the third year of the Arrowverse that we saw metahumans and time travel established and masked superheroes started to become a more widespread thing. By contrast, BL opens 9 years after the retirement of an established masked/costumed superhero with metahuman electrical powers, in a world where other superheroes are casually mentioned on the news.

 

[The Realist]

They still use Los Angeles skyline footage in their establishing shots and flying sequences. National City is sort of a hybrid of LA and Vancouver now, but the LA element is still present.

Besides, Vancouver's even farther from Atlanta, so it doesn't exactly disprove the point.

Oh, I know, and I wasn't trying to disagree with you. Just idly musing more than anything. I imagine in theory the show is probably still set in Southern California, but Vancouver location shooting just gives the visual lie to that so frequently. I think a number of good things came out of Sg's move to the CW, but that wasn't one of them.

 

[Christopher]

That's one advantage of Black Lightning being shot in Atlanta. It gives it a distinct look and feel from the other Arrowverse shows -- except, of course, for Constantine, which was also filmed in Atlanta. (And which once tried to pass off the downtown Atlanta skyline as Manhattan, so it isn't just Vancouver shows that are unconvincing as other locations.)

 

[Mr. Adventure]

There's a new promo on Youtube.

Spoiler: In the video...

Is that shot of Jennifer as Lightning at the end new? And is her hair pulled back or cut off in that really quick scene in the beginning?

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I really dig Cress Williams' shirt.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYBWZOiUQAAS1_Y.jpg

Nice to see the cast at a community event while down at SXSW.
https://twitter.com/Michele_Glaze/media

 

[dahj]

And is her hair pulled back or cut off in that really quick scene in the beginning?

That's from the previous episode, her hair's in a bun.
The shot at the end is new.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The shot at the end is new.

Ha, just rewatching it now I missed the scene with Anissa after the eyes the first time, I guess so.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

This is basically the same thing you said before, and I still don't see a problem. There have been plenty of shows with varying tones doing crossovers in the past.
Hell, Alphas did a crossover with Warehouse 13 and those two are probably even more divergent in tone than Black Lightning and the Arrowverse shows are.
I don't even really see where things like tone or the kind of issues they deal with matter when it comes to crossovers, none of that has any impact how believable it is that the characters exist in the same multiverse/universe.

BL's dominant theme is black identity and the full range of black sociopolitical issues faced today in America, which just so happens to have some fantasy element. That is the path of the series which every character (hero and villain) travels--their reason to be, which is not to be found in the other series. That "just so happens" type of approach makes BL share more with certain superhero film adaptations of the past decade or so than any of the other DC series, which are often weighted down with an inarguably lighter (sometimes cartoony) approach that does not fit with a single character or situation on BL....and Black Lightning is better off for being a total departure from that.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I wanted to rewatch the LaWanda episodes and I’m disappointed that they can’t be accessed anymore short of actually buying the episodes outright.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Black Lightning
Episode eight: "The Book of Revelations"

Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning: Interesting that Jefferson has the concept of modulating powers down to a science. While Jefferson is justifiably upset about the events surrounding his father's murder, warning Gambi to stay away from him--and his family screams a backfire coming.

Speaking of Gambi...

Gambi: Finally, Gambi actually has a crisis of conscience after his visit to the local church / listening to Mrs. Johnson's spiritual advice, coming clean to Jefferson. I was hoping the showrunners did not simply make him the snake of this series, and actually give substance to some of his actions involving the A.S.A....

Martin Proctor / The A.S.A.: So, they are behind the metahuman experiments and Green Light's distribution. Nice of Martin to claim his immoral experiments are "God's work". Obviously, he's delusional, along with suffering from the "white caretaker"/"we know what's best for you people" mentality--tying into a vaccine originally designed to make a "threatening" black population docile.

Anissa Pierce: Automatically assuming a guy wearing a Confederate flag shirt is a threat...immature and stupid to say the least. Jefferson was correct in straightening her out (or trying to), only to be met by the weakest excuse of all, "nobody's perfect". As Jefferson observed, she reacts emotionally, instead of thinking ("You don't know a lot!"), the opposite of his "Brains, not brawn" line.

Lynn: I guess we can assume a member of the A.S.A. stole Alvin Pierce's research papers and samples from Lynn's lab.

Jennifer: Now that her power has blossomed, will she trip and fall into trouble--especially if she's confronted by the soon-to-be-enhanced Khalil?

LaLa: Rather twisted inner demon in the form of his Lawanda fantasies. Clearly a result of guilt, yet the fantasy has this martyr encouraging him to kill...and being the object of his desires. Really twisted.

Still, now that he's back, I cannot believe his entire life's direction will center on crime. His fantasies are pointing him in the direction of learning the secret of his resurrection, so if and when he runs into Proctor / A.S.A., will he attempt to exploit that discovery? Join them? Help BL? Should be an interesting journey if the showrunners take him out of the simple villain role.

Shadow Board: Nothing about this group in this episode...unless they're just another arm of the A.S.A.

NOTES:

Using the Carl Douglas song Kung Fu Fighting (1974) was too corny. At the time of its original release during the height of the martial arts movie and school craze in North America, it was relevant, but it was eventually turned into the backdrop for too many comedians and/or comedy films, losing its meaning or cool factor.

GRADE: A

 

[Christopher]

This is fun. A superhero dad training a superhero daughter -- that's not a dynamic we've seen much onscreen, if at all. I mean, we've seen veteran heroes training new heroes (Flash/Elongated Man) or their successors (Hank Pym and Scott Lang as Ant-Man), but the family dynamic is a novel twist.

So this is a world where an evil government agency has been hunting down and experimenting on metahumans for over 30 years. That would seem to rule out Earth-1 as its setting. It's not incompatible with Earth-38, though, since we've seen secretive government programs and unethical experimentation on aliens there, so it kind of fits.

And now we have the unified theory of Gambi. It explains a lot about his divided loyalties and why he seems to be playing both sides. He has to maintain the ASA's trust if he's to be effective at protecting the Pierces from them. The ASA is clearly behind Greenlight, and apparently Lady Eve was one of their operatives.

Anyway, I assume Jeff and Gambi will reconcile soon, since Anissa still needs to get her Thunder costume.

Oh yeah, and about that, it was weird that Gambi just casually name-dropped "Black Lightning and Thunder" as the first onscreen mention of Anissa's hero name. You'd think the selection of her name would've been a big moment, not some throwaway thing that happened offscreen.

I'm surprised to see Jennifer's powers manifesting so soon. I was thinking maybe that was something they'd save for season 2, or maybe as a cliffhanger at the end of season 1. It's an odd coincidence that the daughters are manifesting powers only a couple of months apart despite having 7 years' difference in age. And so soon after their father gets back into using his powers regularly, besides. I wonder if there's some shared factor causing it all. Maybe it's just the stress of recent events triggering the girls' latent metagenes. Or maybe Jefferson starting to use his powers again after 9 years is somehow giving off some kind of aura that his daughters' metagenes are resonating with. Or maybe the ASA is putting something in the water.

 

[Dick Whitman]

This is easily my favorite superhero show right now. The whole cast, big and small roles seem so natural. No one seems underused. Which is often the case with some of other CW shows. We will see if they can continue that in the long run.

I think that both daughter's developing their powers so early could be to the show's long term advantage. Establishing already that is a part of what the show is about. With their father having a history before the series as a hero, the writers do not need to take time from Black Lightning progress as a new hero.

I think both Arrow and the Flash have suffered for having team members with heroic destinies sharing screen time with the title heroes. Both Oliver and Barry have been heroes learning as they go. With Roy, Speedy, Black Canaries, Vibe, Kid Flash, Killer Frost, etc often having their developments of powers or identities put on hold to not surpass the title heroes.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I wonder what's up with Lala, that resurrection story seems disconnected from the rest of the plot elements with the metahumans and Green Light, etc. Could that have something to do with the serum Tobias uses? I don't really remember where they explained the serum, did they just throw that out there the way BL seems to with its "supernatural" elements?

The Freeland experiment put me in mind of the tragic Tuskegee syphilis experiment and by extension of plots of blaxploitation films like Three the Hard Way (and humorously in Black Dynamite).

I wonder if Henderson would be suspicious of BL's call about lightning weapons after finding the morgue with the bodies had been forcibly smashed into. Did those weapons come from the ASA?

I'm not sure if the show is burning through subplots too quickly for it's own good or not. It's refreshing not having things drawn out but at the same time it might be shortchanging getting the viewers invested before pulling the rug.

Black Lightning
Episode eight: "The Book of Revelations"

Shadow Board: Nothing about this group in this episode...unless they're just another arm of the A.S.A.

Maybe it's the members that dress like The Shadow like Gambi did when he took out Joey Toledo.

And Lynn really dresses up for the lab. It seems like it'd be hard to clean up the lab in those stiletto heels.