'Black Lightning' Recap: 'The Book of Revelations'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK... 

​While Black Lightning has done a phenomenal job from day one of turning the superhero genre upside down with its stellar deconstruction of said genre, all while providing us with a tale that is powerful and relevant to the times, the series has yet to accomplish one key thing when it comes to its inaugural season; the ever important big reveal when it comes to the grand mysteries it has been building up all year long. After all, we know little of Gambi’s past or what game he’s playing behind the scenes, but last night…all of that changed since ‘The Book of Revelations’ lived up to its namesake by delivering answers at last.
 
But, before we get too deep into all of those goodies, let’s take a moment to discuss the wonder of Jefferson and Anissa’s storyline in this episode. Because in this particular tale, Jefferson took the time to teach Anissa everything she needs to know about becoming a superhero and this was just downright amazing. Sure, we’ve seen superhero training segments before in shows such as this, but none were as intimate as this one. This segment of the story was all about a father teaching his daughter to be a better person and the wonderful acting present here gave this whole storyline a genuine feel and it was just magnificent to see these two bond as they worked to prove that Black Lightning had zero involvement in Lady’s Eve’s death.
 
However, that’s about the only real positive note that I could find in this episode simply because, the grand reveal when it comes to all things Gambi, while stunning and fascinating, was also sobering to say the least. Because in this tale we learned that Gambi works for a government organization known as the ASA, and well, they’ve apparently seen enough when it comes to Black Lightning, to the point where his boss makes a personal visit to Freeland to have a chilling discussion with Gambi, wherein phrases like ‘experiment’ were thrown around before he flat out declared that he was going to hunt down Freeland’s champion and put him down to end what he deemed to be pure chaos.
 
That revelation led to an important decision for Gambi, in that, it was time to come clean about everything and in another jaw dropping moment, he revealed the truth to dear Jefferson, since we learned that Gambi’s actual name is Peter Esposito, and he came to Freeland to administer a vaccine that promoted passive nature in human beings as part of a grand experiment sanctioned by the ASA. But the side effect to this vaccine turned out be Meta Humans and well, his guilt over all of this led to him leaking this information to Alvin Pierce and we know how that story ends. But, what made this segment of the story so fascinating, is the sheer fact that now we know everything ‘shady’ that Gambi/Esposito has done behind the scenes by way of deal making has always been designed to atone for his sins because it’s clear he is genuinely remorseful for everything that’s happened in this town.
 
But alas, while a sense of fulfillment over the truth being revealed should have accompanied this episode, all that remains is a sense of sadness. For Peter’s relationship with Jefferson may be broken forever, and a dark cloud now hangs over Freeland for certain and while that would have been enough to carry this episode, there are still some lingering surprises from this one that will need to be dealt with in the next couple of weeks; the fact that Jennifer has powers as well and how the heck Latavius came back from the dead. But in the meantime, we can celebrate another solid episode of this magnificent show, and I love that it gave us so many answers to this season’s lingering questions and I’m quite curious to see what comes next for Jefferson and Peter. Until next time.

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