​ "The Book Of Blood: Chapter One: Requiem" - Black Lightning S02E05 Review

Call me surprised. Here I thought Black Lightning was just repeating itself, and I was going to switch over to The Flash. Don't get me wrong, tonight's episode was pretty good thanks to the presence of real-life contortionist Troy James as meta contortionist Rag Doll. Even if, as with the recent Channel Zero, they don't seem to want to trust Mr. James with dialogue, instead having actor Phil LaMarr provide "the voice of Rag Doll". And watching Elongated Man, the very stretchy superhero take on Rag Doll, the not very stretchy supervillain (even by meta standards) was entertaining.

But enough about The Flash, which seems to otherwise be stuck in its moribund subplots with Sherloque, and Caitlin's father, and Cisco's power crisis, and Nora distrusting her present-day mother because of what she does in the future. Let's look at Black Lightning. Which ended the first four episodes two weeks ago with "The Book of Consequences" and Tobias returning to public life. And starting up with "The Book of Blood".

Oh, and spoiler alert. Or rather more spoilers than the usual spoilers that come with the territory of writing a review.

Everyone ready? Cool. Then here's the shocker: Peter Gambi (James Remar) is dead. Or if he isn't dead, he should be dead. Because they do the Death of Peter thing pretty damn well. The episode starts with Peter buying some fruit and driving home. And being attacked by guys with military-grade weapon. Peter's SUV goes off the road, flips, and explodes.

We get some brief bits with Tobias, and I'm still liking Marvin Jones III in the part. He's like the Kingpin over on Marvel's Daredevil, but a lot more emotional and over-the-top. He hauls in a councilman (Eric Lynch) and tells him he owns him because he knows about how Proctor paid the guy off. And Tobias tells the guy to rack up his pool balls.

There's also a bit later on where Tobias is having an anniversary meal for his dead henchwoman Syonide. And calls in Khalil and gives him one of those "don't disappoint me" type warnings while talking about caviar and Biblical stories about older brothers killing weak younger brothers out of love. It's a very bravura series of performances by Jones.

There's also a minor subplot with Lynn and Jace (Jennifer Riker), which seems to come from a different episode. Jace proposes a way to save all of the Green Light Babies (GLBs) by treating them as a gestalt. Lynn seizes on the idea but it kills all but fourteen of the GLBs. Jace knew it would kill all but fourteen of the GLBs, but is willing to accept it as acceptable losses. Since I don't think we know how many GLBs there are, it's hard to tell if fourteen is a good or bad survival rate. Lynn slaps Jace and has her taken away, but we'll probably get Jace back.

The rest of the episode deals on loss: mostly Jeff and Anissa dealing with Peter's death. Jennifer cries and looks at some photos (and deals with Khalil visiting her), and Lynn doesn't do much other than act supportive. Jeff takes it hardest, and goes through the five stages of grief. He figures that Peter faked his own death, and on most shows he'd probably be right. And while having Peter die at the beginning of the episode rather than the end is somewhat odd plot timing, it works well here. We get to see Peter die and then people immediately deal with its aftermath. As opposed to having to wait a week or two between episodes.

Jeff then goes and gets drunk, and picks a fight with some guy hitting on a waitress. He then returns to the bar to talk to the owner, his buddy Two-Bits (Jason Louder), and confirms Peter is dead and no one knows who is responsible. Then Jeff goes to the tailor shop and breaks into tears, and Anissa is there to comfort him.

Anissa not only goes through her own period of grief for the man who helped her become a superhero (even though we don't see Thunder this episode). But she goes to Grace for sexual comfort. Grace gives in but the next morning tells Anissa she can't keep coming to her for sex and then leaving her.

Grace's tattoos also seem to have a creepy beneath-the-skin life of their own, which Grace is taking medicine to prevent. This apparently leads into Anissa's other subplot this week. She starts working at Reverend Holt's clinic. A young couple come to see her because the girl, Anaya (Birgundi Baker) is pregnant. They're from South Freeland, and something weird is going on there. The boyfriend, Deacon, staggers in later with pinpricks in his face, asks Anissa to save Anaya and his unborn child, and dies. And then silver liquid pours out of the pinpricks and it moves on its own.

Anissa drives to South Freeland, but Sheriff Clark stops her on the road and tells her no place is open that Anissa wants to see. Something superspeeds past Anissa's car, and she drives off while Clark calmly looks after her.

Oh, and Tobias is trying to move the clinic out of the area. By anonymously donating money to have it move and get better equipment. But he also has a reporter on his payroll raise the issue of if Tobias is the anonymous donor. Meaning Tobias wants people to think he's the anonymous donor. What that means so far, I'm not sure.

So "Requiem" works pretty well, all things considered. Helped primarily by Cress Williams' performance. It also helps that while it doesn't get into the whole racial/social thing that helped season 1 stand out, it also doesn’t dwell too much on all the plot elements that dragged down the first episodes. It focuses mostly on the performances of Cress and Nafessa Williams, but even the other actors get some stuff to do. Khalil (Jordan Calloway) comes across as more sympathetic than usual. China Anne McCain gets some good moments with Calloway. Even Inspector Bill (Damon Gupton) and Two-Bits have their moments.

Overall, "Requiem" is certainly the best episode of the season, and perhaps of the series so far. It dumps most of the season 2 baggage so far or puts it into its own neat little boxes away from the main action (like the Lynn/Jace subplot), and just lets Cress Williams act. It also tells a story about people, rather than superheroes. Although there's the whole bit with the silver liquid--which is apparently tied into Grace--and what's going down in South Freeland, "Requiem" doesn't have any superheroics going on. It could be any drama with someone dying and his friends and family reacting to it. Which makes it a pleasant change from Black Lightning so far.

And if they tell us down the road Peter somehow survived, I'll be very disappointed. It sure seems like he's dead here, so here's hoping the creative team doesn't hit the comic book reset button and bring Peter back.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?