Black Lightning S01E03 Recap

I’m still smarting a little bit from the fact that LaWanda was murdered – I mean, that really caught me off guard – and like Anissa and Jennifer’s kidnap storyline not having been dropped between episodes one and two, I’m glad that LaWanda’s murder had an effect outside of last week’s episode. Aside from being the motivating factor that got Jefferson to go back to being Black Lightning, for real, yet another silver lining to her death came about; it mobilised the community.

Because of her and her bravery, she kind of became a martyr for the citizens of Freeland. I’m a little torn as to whether or not her funeral was the appropriate place for the reverend to give the community a literal call to action and invite them to march, but I feel like LaWanda would have been happy that he did. I was surprised to see Jennifer, of all people, standing up and applauding at the end of the reverend’s speech because Anissa was the one who did all of the protesting. All Jennifer has been shown to care about is, well, nothing of any real importance. I guess her being kidnapped changed her perspective.

As much as I loved that the citizens of Freeland were getting up off of their feet, no longer scared and actively participating in the salvation of their city, I also knew that it was very, very risky for them. In fact, that was the first thing that came into my mind when the reverend made his speech; the 100 would not take that march sitting down. I did find it to perhaps be a narrative inconsistency, however, that the citizens had held marches in the past (like Anissa said) and the 100 didn’t bother to try to stop those ones, however.

Surprisingly though, the order to squash the march – and by extension the new sense of hope within the city – didn’t come from Tobias. He has a boss apparently, or at least another criminal with whom he works closely; Lady Eve. And she was the one who told him to. Is she the big bad and not Tobias? She seemed very much like the person in charge in that scene. Just when the show subverted my expectations by killing of Lala early, here they introduced a whole other bad guy into the equation. She’s very well played by Jill Scott as well and she seems to be having fun with the role. I kind of like her.

Of course the way the 100 decided to go about squashing the march was by committing a mass shooting. And to make sure they had as much of an opening to do it as possible, they used their power over the police department to ensure that only one patrol car was there to keep the marchers safe. Their plan ultimately failed, though, because Black Lightning was there to pick up the police department’s slack. We didn’t get a fight scene like we had in the previous two episodes, but it was cool seeing Black Lightning use his electricity to form a shield. There were a couple of casualties nonetheless.

Tobias was nearby watching everything unfold and asked his right hand woman, Syonide, to shoot and kill Black Lightning. Another inconsistency I found in the episode was that Black Lightning was somehow able to know that there was a second shooter behind him in the earlier confrontation, but when Syonide shot the reverend (which was a miss because she was supposed to kill Black Lightning) he didn’t notice him at all. And he nor Lynn seemed to notice that Khalil was behind him bleeding out. All of their attention was on the reverend!

Speaking of Khalil, I still don’t buy that Jennifer is into him. It may well be the fault of the actress, China Anne McClain, because nothing in her performance as Jennifer makes me feel like she has feelings for him. Or maybe that’s how it’s supposed to come off? There is little to no chemistry between her and Jordan Calloway, who plays Khalil. It felt like he and Jennifer got to the point where they wanted to have sex super fast. They’d only been dating for a week. Not to say that a set period of time has to pass for them to get to that point or anything. It was just…fast.

I did love how open she was about it to Jefferson and Lynn. It was hilarious. I was glad that her parents were accepting of her choice, not shaming her and made sure that she was comfortable with the decision. Especially that Lynn took her to do the doctor and was making sure that she was well informed and prepared. And that Anissa was supportive as well. Jefferson’s very dad-ish response to the entire thing was quite funny until he decided to corner Khalil and ruin the entire thing for him and Jennifer. I was expecting her to find out and blow up at Jefferson for it. Instead, Khalil got shot and was paralysed. I guess Jefferson doesn’t need to worry about them having sex anymore.

I am so here for Anissa embracing her powers, teaching herself about them and seriously thinking about using them for the greater good. Recording herself testing them out (and then watching it in a library) probably wasn’t the smartest thing I must say. She is 100% going to tell Lynn about them at some point and I’m guessing that when she does Lynn may well tell her about Jefferson being Black Lightning. The girl has to know where her powers come from doesn’t she?

Random thoughts:

1. Are we going to get two episode recaps again?
2. We did.
3. A funeral at night? That’s weird.
4. Tobias just doesn’t like Black people period.
5. Anissa is not wasting anytime getting back into dating. Get it girl.
6. She took out those braids ALREADY?!
7. Why is she upset? She broke up with Anissa didn’t she?
8. Where does Anissa find the time to do her hair?
9. Tobias is salty lol.
10. WTH Gambi! Why’d you delete that?

Black Lightning airs Tuesdays at 9 PM on The CW.