Well, this episode was a step in the right direction. It wasn't the right direction: it was just them turning the train around rather than heading back the way they came. But that's something. Credit presumably to newcomer producers Rob Hardy (also directing) and James Spies, and story editors Keli Goff and Lamont Magee. "Prodigal Son" felt like they had watched the first season and were trying to emulate it.
Granted, there was still some carryover from the previous ten episodes. We had more of Perenna, who puts the magical negro in "Magical Negro ". She's helping a black secondary protagonist, and she was presumably created by black production members rather than white. But Perenna bugs me. She has no character, she has no origin, we've never found out how Jeff and/or Lynn knew to call her in. Perenna just ... shows up and starts giving Jennifer a combination of life lessons and how-to-control-your-superpowers teaching.
But "Prodigal Son" mostly felt like a wrap-up of some of the dangling plot lines from the first ten episodes of season 2. It gave Khalil a decent exit from the show, assuming he's gone for good. It's a superhero show, so never count a character dead and gone until they incinerate the body and scattered the ashes. And maybe not even then.
We got Grace reintroduced (again) without the Anissa-Grace angst we had before. We got Jace back in the mix, even if I had to switch tracks in my mind between the sympathetic foreign-accented Jace in Young Justice, and the cold-as-ice brunette American in Black Lightning. We also got Inspector Bill (Damon Rupton) in fine form, reacting to Jeff's sanctum the way I always thought Jim Gordon would react if he found out Batman was Bruce Wayne and was taken to the Bat Cave. It basically boiled down to "You got all this tech and you give me a cheap-ass phone. Where's some food?"
Tobias still had a racist comment or two, but even he had a moment or two with Cutter and Todd. He treats Todd nominally like a human being, and actually kinda/sorta apologizes to Cutter for breaking up with her.
So how does this all come together? We get a long scene of Reverend Holt (Clifton Powell) preaching to his congregation about how they can't depend on anyone and have to take back their freedom for themselves. The opening segment helps to capture some of the community Black Lightning has been missing since they cut Jeff off from Garfield and focused on one night or two of Jeff & Co. first dealing with East Freeland and then searching for the missing Jennifer + Khalil. The whole "We must take our freedom back!" is a bit undermined when Cutter poisons Holt and he collapses. But, baby steps.
Khalil is taken to the hospital where he spends most of his time face-down. Lynn wants to do some ASA experimenting on Khalil, and the resident doctor Conley (Catherine Dyer) is all, "That didn't go too well with the last batch of pod kids you got killed, did it?" But Lynn throws her ASA weight around, and … fails to do anything, even getting Khalil into suspended animation. Even if they can't give him anesthesia because of *techno babble*, can't they knock him over the head with a ball peen hammer? Or have Jeff or Jennifer shock him unconscious?
In the end, they can't do anything for Khalil. Jennifer somehow pulls him into her mental safe space and they go to a prom together and exchange their vows of love before he flat lines.
Jennifer loses control of her powers and Perenna shows up to teach her how to meditate and find her inner stillness and all that good stuff.
Jeff finally turns to Bill for help and vice versa. After Jeff apologizes to Bill (finally!), he takes Bill to the sanctum where we have Bill making the aforementioned comments and learning Peter is alive.
The rest of the episode deals with Tobias. He discovers Jace is alive because Todd (RJ Cyler) is watching ... some kind of surveillance footage from the ASA lab. We find out Jace is using the same anti-aging serum Tobias uses, and Tobias was a test subject for her early attempts to perfect the serum. Todd breaks Jace out of ASA custody ... somehow. He deactivates her ankle bracelet and uses a miniature hologram projector to make it look like she's still in the cell.
And then ... walks out with her past the guard. The guard looks at her, shrugs, and goes back to what I assume is Minesweeper on his computer. Apparently Todd bribed him, but what system relies on one schmuck security guard and a faked system outage (see photo, left, with "System Out" on the screen) to sneak out a prisoner. Redundancy, thy name is redundancy. :)
Jace knows where the Masters of Disaster are, and leads Tobias to the clinic basement where they're stashed. Along the way, Tobias racially insults a Negro or two, waterboards a lieutenant to death for failing to do whatever he was supposed to do, gets into a pissing contest with Bill when Peter sends Bill to electronically scout out Tobias' office, but still manages to tone it down a bit more than the preceding episodes.
Grace comes by the hospital because ... somehow she's heard the Pierces are there with Khalil. She shares takeout with Anissa, sympathizes with her about having to be at the hospital while a loved one dies, and seems to be okay with Anissa despite how they broke up.
We end the episode with Khalil dead, Holt out of the picture for the time being, Tobias allying with Jace and finding the Masters of Disaster, and Jeff & Co. no closer to finding Tobias than usual. Jeff promises Khalil he'll make Tobias suffer but not promising he'll kill him. So really, not much happened.
Still, we got a bit of the "community" of Freeland with the opening church scene. I can't say I'm sorry to see Holt (temporarily?) go, but he was at least a part of the community image.. Now if they'd show Garfield again. Ditto with the ASA. I don't miss Agent Odell and the usual secret-government-ops shenanigans. But at least it helps ground the show, instead of it being the Pierce Family and Tobias Hour.
The action in this episode was non-existent, so if you tuned in looking for action, you'll be disappointed. I wonder if they're saving the SFX budget and choreography for a big Black Lightning, Thunder, and Lightning vs. the Masters of Disaster showdown.
No sign of the teleporter guy.
So overall, "Prodigal Son" represented a changing of the guard, a bit of reversion to season one, and a dumping of some of the season two clutter they've picked up. Whether it'll represent an actual change, or it's a one-off, we'll see.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Jan 29, 2019
No comments yet. Be the first!