In his fight to protect his metropolis from those who wish to destroy it , Black Lightning has seen the dead rise from the tomb and watched in little terror as nigh everything about his life crumbled to spell . Through it all , though , Black Lightning ’s never managed to fall behind its sense of hope and optimism .
When you sit down to watch “ Shadow of Death : The Book of War , ” the final episode of Black Lightning ’s first season , it does n’t take long for it to become obvious that the show no longer feels the need to up its stakes . Though Black Lightning ’s always had its more fantastical narrative component ( see : Jeff ’s suit ) , the show ’s been grounded in a world much more similar to our own , which has hand it a unique form of gravitational force that set it aside from the CW ’s other superhero show . In many ways , “ The Book of War ” is a sober reflexion of the reality that Black Lightning ’s grappled with since the very first episode , and it forces its submarine sandwich to consider just how hard they ’re willing to fight to change them .
Jefferson ’s relationship with his father Alvin ( Keith Arthur Bolden ) is one of the most pregnant ingredient of Black Lightning ’s large tale that we have n’t really seen too much of over the course of the time of year , but “ The Book of War ” open with a powerful admonisher that Alvin ’s always been with his son in one way or another . Thirty long time before the events of the serial publication , a young Jeff witness the rally between his father and Gambi about the ASA ’s experiments on Freeland fry that would ultimately result in Jeff ’s power and Alvin ’s execution . At the time , Freeland was being rocked by daily riots and protests in the wake of the city ’s police police officer killing an unarmed black boy who was found to have been shoot in the back .
As is true of so many real , predominantly black cities and neighbourhood , Department of State - okay violence against Freeland ’s black biotic community is a tradition that stretch back ten and informs so much of Jeff ’s life . Jeff ’s powers , Gambi later explains to Anissa and Jennifer back at their safehouse , first manifested when a group of riot officer assail him as a modest boy , causing him to strike them with uncontrolled fit of electrical energy before panicking and accidentally running into an electrified fence that short-circuit and criticise him out .
In that moment , the matter that made Jeff dissimilar is what saved his life , but it also put him on a path lead to his death by Khalil ’s hand at Tobias ’ orders . Jennifer ’s newfound willingness to habituate her own metahuman powers in response to watching her forefather die is more than enough to revive him in last calendar week ’s “ The Book of Pain , ” but “ The Book of War ” does n’t directly bring Jeff back into the fray . Instead , Jeff ’s stuck in a place very similar to Black Panther ’s astral plane , where death is first and foremost an chance to commune with one ’s ascendent and experience a time and lieu of emotional or spiritual significance .
For Jeff , this imply return to his childhood and coming cheek to expression with Alvin in lodge for the two of them to talk about what their deaths mean for them , in person . Because Jeff never knew his founder as an grownup , their reunion has a distinguishable exercising weight to it that verbalize to a deep and heartrending designation between the two . Both Jeff and Alvin see themselves in one another as people who defend and perhaps miscarry to keep their families and city safe . Though Cress Williams has bear witness us Jeff ’s more emotionally bare-assed ego in other installment , the vulnerability he bring to his scene with Bolden is distinct and intense . Broken , Jeff apologise to Alvin for not trying to arrest Tobias from murdering him all those years ago while Alvin skin to win over his boy that none of what fall out was his break .
“ The Book of War ” gives us glimpses of the lesson Alvin tried to teach his son during their sentence together — to retrieve with his head rather than plug with his fist — and the elder Jeff admits to feeling guilt for having become a vigilante who uses violence to achieve his goal . But Alvin reminds Jeff that “ peace ai n’t always peaceful , son . ” The ideas Alvin oppose to instill in Jeff were a all-important part of groom him for the populace and Alvin make clear that even if Jeff is n’t survive the kind of life he intend for his son , the most authoritative matter is that he lives his life by any agency necessary , an mind that Black Lightning has return to time and time again .
What was really beautiful about Jeff and Alvin ’s scenes together was that , even though it ’s never explicitly said , the takeout from their conversation is that at the end of the Clarence Day , none of them was ever run to be able-bodied to “ save ” Freeland or their loved ones , because living is impermanent . Even if the world was rid of all of its evils , in time , we all have to die , and that ’s hunky-dory because the pointedness of living should n’t be to tirelessly rage against the inevitable . In raise his Word with a strong moral ambit and sentience of judgment , Alvin ensured that his fight to free Freeland would continue long after his decease , and the same is unfeigned of Jeff and his girl .
If it was n’t for Jennifer , Jeff would have died and/or lost his powers and Black Lightning would have to become a show about Thunder and the Outsiders or something , because no one seems to have ever think that it might be a adept idea to keep a super defibrillator around in case the electric superhero got got . Trapped in a warehouse with Anissa , Gambi , Lynn , and Jeff , Jean truly has the coolest - looking panic blast of all sentence , recharge Jeff ’s abilities , and finds the boldness to nuke a few ASA federal agent who storm their positioning . With all the pits breaking loose , all of Team Black Lightning gets in on the action and wreaks havoc on the unwitting ASA that makes the fault of coming after the Pierces again under Proctor ’s order .
It ’s the ASA that suffers the most casualties this episode , but the most interesting attack on them actually come from Tobias by way of Lala , who last learns just how it is that he ’s back from the utter and why the spirit of LaWanda White has been haunting him . The ghosts , Tobias explains , are the result of an data-based procedure he make up for that ’s seemingly apply him control over Lala , a human relationship that he really has over all of his companion . Khalil ’s newfound super - durability , mobility , and biochemical toxin ? gift from Tobias . Syonide ’s subdermal mesh armor ? Gifts from Tobias . As much of a slightly behind - the - ball malefactor as Tobias might have appeared to be early in the season , “ The Book of War ” paints him as a mightiness histrion who , given the right built in bed , could actually become a top banana — something he get by using Lala to turn in a bomb to the ASA that ’s in his body while he ’s alive .
We do n’t see Lala explode , but it ’s knotty to imagine that he ’d survive that kind of intestinal distress . RIP , Lala . As the ASA ’s secret tyke - experiment operation crumbles around Proctor , he does what all villains do and attempt to cut his losses with the four last pods with viable metahuman experiments trapped within . Thanks to the magic of speedy ( and confutable ) television expounding , however , Proctor ’s relief valve is cut short by the whole Pierce household , who take their turns getting their licks in before Gambi just shoots the anti-Semite government agent point blank . It ’s a simple , almost funny way to see such an oversized adversary go , but again , this is Black Lightning , where masses buy the farm all the time . monitor should have known well than the leave the house without a watertight vest .
The closing import of “ The Book of War ” are exactly what you ’d expect from a CW cape drama — a upbeat shot of the Pierce family reunite and a glance at Tobias ’ next wicked scheme — but it ’s actually one of the citizens on the newsworthiness whose lines have the most impact . With the ASA ’s experiments on black children exposed , the world is outraged to learn that the government would ever have excuse the organization ’s action , but it ’s Darius ’ father whose embittered words on a local newscast that have stuck with me :
“ The government activity put crack cocaine in the ghetto , they gave diacetylmorphine to the ashen folks in the rural area , then they came back and put Green Light in Freeland . And I get laid because my boy got caught up in bring that Green Light . They ’re go to put something else somewhere else . This is their M.O. Ai n’t nothing fresh . ”
The horror invest by the ASA are heighten and stylized for television , but only by so much . While metahumans may not walk amongst us , black mass are all too conversant with the long and violent histories this country and others have handle us as kine , attribute , and the unwitting test subjects for dangerous , illegal experiment . That sort of institutionalized dehumanisation still haunts and actively harms us today , but the tonality to fighting it is to agitate and remember that none of this is fresh . It ’s part of a painful bequest that must constantly be revisit and unpacked so as to exemplify the ways in which the impacts of quondam , generational traumas are still being feel today .
Darius ’ father , like the Pierce kin , love that the scrap is n’t over and as consuming as the odds may seem , they ’ve all got one another to help keep the trust and moving fore . Also , to aid bodyslam racist into the ground .
Assorted Musings:
So Khalil ’s codename is “ Painkiller . ” adept for him . Now all he needs is a better wig and costume and he ’s all set .
I ’m curious as to who the four metahumans still survive in the containment unit are , and who Lynn knows with the capableness of keeping them in stasis .
Lynn and Gambi ’s lying in wait in the safehouse was excellent .
Jennifer wrecking Proctor was absolutely mythologic . Superheroic hair flip need to become a matter .
Gambi shooting Proctor was amusing . When will the white - on - whitened furiousness death ?
allow ’s all just listen to the O’Jays ’ “ Stairway to Heaven ” on repetition until Black Lightning ’s return for time of year two .
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