'Black Lightning' Recap - ‘And Then the Devil Brought the Plague: The Book of Green Light’2/14/2018 Written by John Edward BetancourtTHIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...While it’s been quite the fascinating ride thus far when it comes the CW’s brand-new superhero show, Black Lightning, I think we are all fully aware of the fact that eventually, the social commentary and superhero deconstruction present in this saga would have to take a back seat to more traditional comic book moments and well, that finally came to fruition last night. Because ‘And Then the Devil Brought the Plague: The Book of Green Light’ was an episode that set its more cerebral study of our world and the superhero genre to the side for a moment to provide us with a story that felt incredibly familiar. It accomplished this by first adding a touch of mystery into the plot by way of Anissa and the research she was now conducting on her own time when it came to her newfound powers. As it turns out, her homework paid off in spades since she came to uncover what appears to be a strange conspiracy involving missing children with enhanced abilities and her refusal to back down in learning more about this story leads her to follow her grandfather’s research on the matter and well, it would seem her persistence is already paying off since she discovered a strange powder in her grandfather’s storage locker and really, what’s more traditional in a superhero story than a grand mystery to solve? But the show wasn’t quite done with exploring the usual superhero tropes, because we were also privy to our villain’s origin story last night, since we not only learned that Tobias is seemingly immortal thanks to a serum, but that his evil is in essence derived from the most common of places; a horrible childhood. It turns out that Tobias and his sister grew up in a broken home, with a man that was happy to abuse them verbally and physically as often as possible, shattering Tobias’ psyche through and through and laying the foundation for a life of crime and corruption of the soul and well, if there was ever any question as to how twisted Mister Whale can be, all of that was put to rest when Tobias visited his former guardian in order to snap his back so that he could suffer a long and painful death and well, that was the most sobering and powerful moment of the night for certain. Yet of all of the superhero tropes out there that the series has yet to explore, there is the old standby of watching the hero push themselves to the limit with disastrous results and that’s precisely where we found Jefferson last night. Because a fault in his suit was impacting his health with headaches and blackouts and while Gambi was able to find a solution, Jefferson refused to let him take the time to fix the suit so that he could go after one of Tobias’ top lieutenants right away and unfortunately for Jefferson, his desire to capture that man and prove that his arch nemesis is alive and well, went south when the suit malfunctioned yet again, leaving our hero writhing in agony in both the physical and emotional sense since the bad guy…got away. Also, speaking of Gambi. I’m glad this episode took the time to more or less answer a burning question as to where exactly his loyalties lie since it is strongly implied in this tale that he brokered a deal with Tobias and Lady Eve in order to pull Jefferson away from his dangerous duties as a hero and well, it’s a shame that said deal is collapsing since clearly, Tobias and Jefferson are once again on a deadly collision course. Either way, I really enjoyed this episode, simply because it’s wonderful to see that this series can either be the smartest superhero show on television, or it can serve up a thrilling traditional storyline and well, my hope at this point is that all of these elements come together in the following weeks to provide us once again with something powerful that we’ve never seen before when it comes to the superhero genre. Until next time.
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