That was nicely average for an episode of Black Lightning. Nothing bad, but unfortunately nothing great. It was just... okay. But they can't all be winners.
The battle for Freeland continues in rather haphazard manner. Odell isn't dead despite looking really really hurt last week. However, he doesn't make an appearance this week, and Major Sara Grey (Katy O'Brian) takes his place as the director of operations. And I have to agree with Jennifer, made up and dressed in a suit, Grey looks Eddie Munster.
Like or hate Odell, and I haven't been too fond of him recently, he at least provided the glue that held a lot of the plots in place. Grey isn't anywhere near his level of schemer and manipulator. Most of her scenes involve leading soldiers into battles. When it comes to aiming rifles at people, Ms. O'Brian does well enough.
There's a lot going on in "Chapter Two: Henderson's Opus". Although very little of it has to do with Inspector Bill, so why he gets a name check in the title, I have no idea. None of the titles this season have been particularly apropos of anything. "Maryam's Tasbih"? "Odell's Pipe-Dream"? "Lynn's Ouroboros"? So why should this one? Granted, Bill does get some stuff to do, arguing with Jeff, mostly. Somehow, Black Lightning discovers the Insurgency has planted a bomb on a checkpoint hummer and defuses it. Bill and Holt are nearby and are none too happy with having their plans interfered with.
This leads to an angry argument between Jeff and Bill where Bill complains he doesn't know where Jeff stands. Jeff is shocked his friend would use a bomb that could harm innocents. Bill calls Jeff out on his high-handed "my way or the highway" ways, and it's clear Jeff isn't going to change so Bill storms out.
During this, the ASA are searching house to house for Markovians, and they get close to where Reverend Holt (Clifton Powell) is hiding meta children. Director Oz Scott does one of those bait-and-switches where you think the soldiers are going to find Holt and the children in a closet. It turns out that they're at Two-Bits' bar hiding in the backroom, nowhere near the church. I like Jason C. Louder as Two-Bits and Powell as Holt. Holt has been another of those glues holding the series together, and his defiant preacher is a fun part. Two-Bits is Two-Bits: a Han Solo-like criminal with a heart of gold. They do what they do, and they do it well.
Grace is still hiding out with Anissa, but they figure the ASA will find her soon, and she can't control her shapeshifting. In a decent scene, Anissa invites Jeff over and asks him to help her get Grace out of the city. We get some of that Pierce family magic Black Lightning used to do so well.
Such magic is nowhere present with Jennifer, who first interacts with Grey trying to get information on Dr. Jace. She then offers the information to Brandon if he'll help her find the connection between their powers. Which I'm still not getting: he has earth-control powers, she has energy generation. Why that has any kind of special relationship, I don't know. Brandon eventually figures Jennifer is playing him and tells her to get out.
Lynn is only part of the extended Pierce family this week, because she's teamed up with Gambi. Gambi asks Lynn to help get him into The Pit. Lynn gets Grey to give her access to the secure areas, and does something with some device Gambi gave her (clone a security card, I think). Gambi gets in, finds Khalil, and Lynn is able to bring up his third-person memories of kissing Jennifer and having his spine ripped out. Khalil's memory has been pretty much wiped so he doesn't remember Lynn, and takes orders from Gambi. Lynn wants to save Khalil, Gambi advises her to kill Khalil while she can. When she refuses, Gambi leaves.
Black Lightning finds himself helping the ASA soldiers, frying some shooters who... I guess are Markovians. It's all filmed in darkness with lightning strobes, so it's impossible to tell. Later, Black Lightning agrees to help Anissa, and smuggles Grace and the meta children out of Freeland. The soldiers find them and Black Lightning fries them. This ends up with Grey assigning Khalil to kill Black Lightning. And I won't be unhappy to see some meta-on-meta action.
That's it for this week. As I noted, there's a lot of plots running around. Black Lightning and Anissa are reunited, Lynn is keeping Khalil alive against Gambi's advice, Jeff and Bill are disagreeing on how to resist the ASA, Holt blusters and prays to God a lot, Jennifer does whatever she's doing with Brandon. There's no sign of Tobias or Odell, which means neither of the two main villains are present. As noted, Major Gray is weak sauce by comparison.
At this point, I agree with my SO that the creative team seems to be padding things out until the Crisis event in December. Nothing really happened this week. Grace is out of Freeland, and hopefully she's gone for a while. I still don't understand what her power is: she's a shapeshifter who can turn into anything, but favors being a leopard. When she's not an old man or a teenage version of herself. I like Chantal Thuy as Grace, but she's been given little to do. The emotional wreck look isn't good on her. Why can't we have two strong lesbians in a relationship?
Lynn continues to be cold and unlikable, and only looks good when compared to Jeff. I can buy Jeff as a pacifist and/or naïve, which is the heart of his disagreement with Bill, but Lynn is just going whatever way the creative team pushes her. She's training the Green Light metas to fight for the ASA. But she's also guilt-stricken 14 kids died on her watch, which is why she's so determined to save Khalil. But she's popping Green Light like Tic Tacs. And she's walked out on Jeff, and has pretty much abandoned Jennifer and Anissa. Even giving her a brown-nosing assistant (Brandon Hirsch) doesn't help her. Lynn is still a ball of conflicting characterizations.
Overall, "Henderson's Opus" was an okay episode. It kept all of the balls in the air, and built up the big mid-season pre-Crisis conflict: Black Lightning versus Painkiller. Tobias is still locked up in The Pit, plotting something. He wanted the files on the Green Light kids, and I wouldn't mind seeing Tobias commanding an army of young super-powered teenagers.
Overall, Black Lightning still lacks a major Big Bad. Painkiller is okay, but Tobias, and now Odell, are out of the picture. Odell wasn't the greatest Big Bad in the world, but his absence leaves the show without any major threat to pull everything together. And Black Lightning really needs that right now. The Insurgents aren't doing much, Black Lightning isn't doing much, the villains aren't doing much. The show needs to pick a direction that can bring everything into focus, and so far this season it hasn't found it.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Nov 26, 2019
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