"The Book of Resistance: Chapter Four: Earth Crisis" – Black Lightning S03E09 Review

Well, that was a hot mess. A red-hot mess. *heh* But a mess, nonetheless.

If you ever read the original Crisis, "The Book of Resistance: Chapter Four: Earth Crisis" felt like one of those crossover stories from back in 1985-86 when the story didn't really have anything to do with the ongoing events of Crisis. But rather, the writers of the time used Crisis as an attempt shoehorn in... something for the main characters. Cripple them, introduce a minority to replace an old white guy (hi, Dr Midnight and Wildcat!), having them fight the Brujeria, or hang out on a beach sipping mai-tais. Whatever.

(And I'm waiting for Dr. Midnight to show up on Black Lightning. Heck, she beats Looker hands-down.)

That's what "The Book of Resistance: Chapter Four: Earth Crisis" is. Yes, it set the stage for Black Lightning joining the multiverse. But that was basically it as far as the whole Crisis shebang. Which maybe I'll review tomorrow night just past the midway point.

With the Crisis crossover, not much happened tonight. And it didn't make much sense as far as the rest of Crisis. For instance, we kept seeing chyrons about Earth-1 and Earth-2. But Earth-2 was wiped out several episodes ago in Arrow. And Earth-1 presumably doesn't have a Black Lightning and a Thunder and a Lightning. So why label these two alternate Earths as two of the relative biggies? Why not Earths-3 and -4? Or -19 and -20?

What did happen? There's red skies over Freeland, and last week's effort to get out a video of what's going on in Freeland failed. Instead, the ASA doctored the video to pass it off as a justified occupation. Which still doesn't make much sense to me. Is the media on the Black Lightning Earth so toothless they aren't the least bit curious about a hush-hush government agency quarantining an entire city?

Agent Odell (Bill Duke) is alive and well, and stuck in a hospital room. Where he Skypes with Jennifer at her home and tells her Jeff is acting against the ASA, and that soon she is going to have to choose a side. Credit to Bill Duke, the script here gives him a chance to cut loose with some real evil and he's up for the challenge.

Jennifer goes to Anissa's apartment and somehow ends up in her Lightning costume. But as Gambi will note later, not the one he made for her. So... what costume is Jennifer wearing? She finds herself in a black void with two versions of herself, one good (and in white) and one evil (in black). The chyrons refer to them as Gen and Jinn, respectively, but the closed-captioning calls both of them Jen.

Gen lives on Earth-1 and is a prisoner of the ASA. Jeff is the Secretary of Education, and supposedly toes the ASA line in Freeland. But when he goes too far out of line, Odell and his ASA goons show up and kill Jeff as Anissa and Gen look on. Throughout this, Lightning exists as a phantom no one can see or hear, but she can see everything that's going on.

The ASA keeps Gen in the Pit after she changed the Freeland water supply to cure any metas of the metagene. And... how? Anissa pays Gen a visit in her cell, and then Lynn pays Gen a visit. It's not clear if Gen works for the ASA, or if Odell is keeping her prisoner because he's pissed at her for "curing" the metas. Gen can let Lynn into her cell, so apparently she controls the electronic door. So is she a prisoner or not?

On Earth-2, Jinn stomps through Garfield and confronts Jeff, who is still a teacher. She gets all up in her face, and then tells him his way isn't working and he's a gutless coward so she has to clean up his mess. Jinn then wipes out all of the metas, and then she and Odell chuckle ominously. Then Jinn confronts Jeff, Anissa, and Lynn at home. They tell her to do what they say, and she kills them.

On Earth-Whatever, Lightning is phasing in and out of reality. Gambi deduces it's tied to the red skies and approaching anti-matter, and involves parallel worlds. Because Gambi is just that good. Meanwhile, Black Lightning and Inspector Bill are striking back at the ASA, so Odell plans to give his metas Green Light and turn them loose on Freeland to spread some chaos.

We never find out how this works out, because Lightning meets back up with Gen and Jinn in the black void. She lectures Jinn about how Jeff is doing the right thing. The two of them get into a cat-fight, but a wave of antimatter wipes out Jinn and Gen.

In the real world, everyone is at Anissa's apartment with Lightning. Lightning turns into a blob of energy, Black Lightning is teleported away, and Lynn, Anissa, and Gambi are wiped out in a wave of antimatter. Which if nothing else, suggests the whole Crisis is going to be undone at the end. At least on Supergirl they evacuated a few billion people. Either Black Lightning is going to continue with no one but Jeff and Jennifer, or they'll either do something timey-wimey or Book of Destiny-ish and recreate the multiverse (see tonight's Batwoman for gaslighting of that), or they'll go with the Crisis maxi-series and reconstruct all the Earths into one Earth, and the Pierces and Gambi (and Bill, and Khalil, and Tobias, and Odell) will all be fine and have no memory of what happened.

"Timey-wimey" was how they did it in the Crisis maxi-series too. Somehow. Although it didn't make a lick of sense. The Spectre arm-wrestles the Anti-Monitor at the Dawn of Time, and somehow that changes the timeline so there was only one Earth but 90% of whatever else happened over millions of years remains unchanged. And the Ten-Eyed Man died. *sob* If you want to try and make sense out of it, pick up the Crisis trade paperback at your local library. The more you know.

The episode did give China Anne McClain a chance to do something on the show other than make goo-goo eyes at Brandon. Lynn remains unlikable, and Jeff remains ineffectual. Anissa, Gambi, and Bill didn't get a chance to do much. Khalil gets a few mentions, but he doesn't show. And there's no sign of Tobias. We get Major Grey but not Tobias? The heck??

Be warned "Chapter Four: Earth Crisis" has pretty much nothing to do with the Crisis on the five other CWverse superhero shows. Not that it bills itself as such, but it's still rather odd given that Black Lightning is going to be part of the Crisis event. My hopes of Lightning and Thunder fighting with the other heroes, and Tobias teaming up with Lex and the Anti-Monitor, are shattered. *more sobbing*

"Chapter Four" is enough a part of Crisis it's as open-ended as the rest of the episodes so far that are part of the crossover. Black Lightning is gone, his earth and his family are wiped out. The CW must have a lot of faith viewers are watching the entire CWVerse: what happened tonight makes no sense if you weren't aware of the Crisis on the other shows. The open-endedness means "Chapter Four" ends on a cliffhanger or two. But there's no hope of resolving it within Black Lightning. You'll have to watch the other shows (and wait until January for the conclusion on Arrow and DC's Legends of Tomorrow) to figure out how they bring Earth-BL and the Pierces back. And however they do it, they'll have to put everything back to "normal" with the ASA occupation of Freeland.

The whole science-fiction angle of Crisis is toned down a bit for "Chapter Four". Which makes sense, because Black Lightning isn't as wholeheartedly science-fictiony as the other CW shows. Black Lightning isn't fighting aliens and time travelers and demons. But it still sticks out like a sore thumb. I can appreciate the creative team wanting to make Black Lightning a part of the CWVerse. And Crisis is such a major event it's hard to imagine Earth-BL not being part of the Multiverse. The first episode on Supergirl tied together Smallville, and the Superman movies, and the Tim Burton Batman movies, and the Titans TV show, and the 60s Batman show, and maybe even the newest incarnation of The Tick. I'm sure the host of the trivia night contest was named Arthur, right?

So the creative team couldn't not leave Black Lightning out. But it seems hard to keep him involved with the other CWVerse heroes. It's already kind of odd when Flash doesn't speed over to Star City and help Arrow out on weekends. Why can't he speed over to Freeland clean up the ASA in a spare few seconds?

So we'll have to see how it goes. Will the creative team merge the Earths? Will Black Lightning just become another hero lost in the shuffle? Will Thunder & Lightning ever get to meet Supergirl and Batwoman? We'll see.

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