"The Book of Occupation: Chapter Three: Agent Odell's Pipe-Dream" – Black Lightning Review S03E03

And so the chronicles of life in Freeland continue on Black Lightning. I'm not sure what the title has to do with anything: there's no pipe-dreaming involved. Odell (Bill Duke) has pretty much everyone dancing to his tune. Granted, Tobias (Marvin "Krondon" Jones III) isn't giving in to Odell. But Jeff, Lynn, Jennifer, and Khalil do. Inspector Bill is realizing what a disaster Freeland is becoming under martial law, and Gambi is nowhere to be seen.

We also get more on the romance between Anissa and Grace (Chantal Thuy). It's hard to care about them, because Grace has wandered in. And out. And in to Anissa's life too many times to seem worthy of the feelings Anissa has for her. Either that, or we keep forgetting because Grace keeps disappearing from the show and then coming back when they need some space-filler.

So what are the parts of the episode that aren't space-filler. There's a virus sweeping through the center killing metas, including Bill's co-worker Detective King. She dies while he's there, but not before asking Bill to give her husband some criminal money she stole. Which makes it hard to feel much sympathy for her, but oh well. Bill also tours Freeland with his wife, and an old woman gives him what-for about being worse for the city than the white chief of police was. I have to wonder where the city mayor is in all of this.

Odell gives Jeff a watch which triggers off of Jeff's powers and gives him an instant-change costume. As Black Lightning, Jeff heads off to the Markovian camp and rescues some ASA commandos. Turns out, they were sent there to be captured so they could find Jace, who created the virus. But Jace is gone.

Lynn agrees to help Odell deal with the virus since it's based on her research that Jace "borrowed", and because they both want to save the Freeland metas from dying.

Jennifer has a new friend at school: a transfer student named Brandon (Jahking Guillory). He quotes Martin Luther King Jr. and acts as a reason for Jennifer to provide some exposition about what goes on at Garfield. What with the metas attacking, and Tobias ripping out Khalil's spine, and all that good stuff. Brandon is duly taken aback, which provides the main source of humor in the episode. Later, Odell requisitions Jennifer to go out as Lightning and blow up a Markovian data farm. Which gives Odell information that lets him send Khalil to an address to kill the men there. Who appear to be 100 gang members, not Markovians.

Anissa is on the run from the ASA as Blackbird and manages to escape them by throwing a car at the chopper pursuing her. That was easy. Grace finds her and they make up, and Anissa tries to let Jamilah down easy only for Jamilah to tell her to get over herself, they had a great friends-with-benefits relationship but that's it.

Khalil is now a super-soldier because he's had the skills of twenty-three martial arts styles downloaded into his mind. So he's Neo from The Matrix. Or one of a half-dozen superheroes and villains in the comics with "borrowed" skills. See Prometheus, Nemesis, Paragon, Taskmaster, and a few more. Granted, the mix of martial arts skills makes for some impressive choreography. But it turns Khalil into a cipher, which means actor Jordan Calloway has nothing to do other than look scary and mutter some threatening lines from time to time.

Tobias is in a cell and still aging now he's off the serum he was taking. Odell tortures him with UV light to get him to give up the briefcase. I still like Jones as Tobias. He's aged and captive, but still arrogant and threatening, and there's a certain irony in him being the only one who doesn't end up working for Odell. I could have lived without the Black Lightning hallucination Tobias has at the end because it doesn't serve any purpose. We know Tobias wants Black Lightning dead: do we need to see his hallucination to remind us? It also gives Tobias a chance to revert to his racist ways.

At the end, Odell releases Bill and Lynn. They get home only to find Jennifer and Anissa have other plans, and quickly leave rather than participate in a family reunion. Lynn goes to bed, and in another humorous bit, a disappointed Jeff looks around, turns off the lights, and goes to bed.

There's nothing particularly horrible about "Chapter 3". We get Jeff back in costume and doing some Black Lightning stuff, rather than running around in his white jammies. Lynn doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, but I've never been overwhelmingly fond of actress Christine Adams so I can live with that disappointment. I like Anissa + Jamilah more than Anissa + Grace, so we get a little bit of the former but a little bit more of the latter. So one step forward, two steps back.

Jennifer has a cute "tour of the school" scene with Brandon, but other than to remind the audience of the show's early days, the tour doesn't do anything for the show. Inspector Bill learns he's got a steaming bowl of crap on his table, but, hopefully, he's known that for a while. Having the ASA soldiers come into his station house last week and take one of his officers was clues 1-5.

There are a number of dangling plot threads. What is the house Khalil breaks into on Odell's orders? Why is Jeff so calm about Odell apparently playing him by sending him to rescue the commandos and them requisitioning him to capture Jace? How did Anissa get back into Freeland with the force field around it? When did Jennifer learn such precise control of her powers she can take out a Markovian data farm? Where is Gambi? Where is Lala?

Overall, "Chapter 3" is okay on its own. It doesn't fit with the preceding two episodes of this season, though. Maybe they're trying to set up some more plot threads. But I'm already getting tired of the Freeland occupation story line. Mainly because the creative team hasn't made much effort to justify it, or the Markovian invasion. You've got a foreign army operating on American soil, and no one seems too concerned about it. You've got a U.S. intelligence agency that has basically taken control of Freeland. It's hard to imagine the media wouldn't be all over this. But other than Jamilah doing the occasional bootleg broadcast, there's no mention of this. It's hard to buy into the world of Black Lightning when there's no indication the outside world exists.

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