Black Lightning season 3, episode 12 takes us deep behind Markovian lines and into the recesses of Khalil’s mind — and finally gets everyone on the same page.
Ah, there we go.
After a few shaky weeks where Black Lightning made me increasingly frustrated, the show righted itself in stellar fashion, giving me an episode where everyone finally talked to one another. This led to a lot of clarity in each of the characters’ respective storylines and at least addressed — if not resolved — a lot of conflicts and problems that have been left to fester during the season…exactly as I thought it would!
I still wish a few more scenes and reactions had been allowed to breathe, but on the whole, Black Lightning has come back around to being the superior DCCW show I’ve always known it to be all along.
Though this episode was largely what I’d refer to as a table-setting episode, the Black Lightning writers once again impressed by not having it feel like a table-setting episode. Yes, the big showdown and the majority of the major plot movement will come next week, but this episode did fantastic character work in addition to setting up some necessary plot elements.
This episode managed to add levity to Lynn’s tragic storyline, finally gave Grace something real to do in terms of a fight scene between her and Anissa, and made my heart ache and my eyes burn with unshed tears as it brought Khalil back from the dead for real this time.
All in all, a fantastic return to form for Black Lightning and one of my favorite recent episodes.
‘Black Lightning’ season 3, episode 12 review
This team up is what I have been waiting for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Or, rather, it will be the team-up I’ve been waiting for.
After spending a lot of time hearing about the threat of Markovians but mostly dealing with the immediate danger of ASA, the kidnapping of Lynn finally gives Black Lightning the character and narrative push forward that it needs.
Last week’s takedown of Odell and Lynn’s kidnapping by the Markovians finally moves the focus from the ASA to the Markovians, so that rather than constantly being told that the Markovians are a threat, Black Lightning can finally show us that they are.
Lynn’s kidnapping does two things for the show, both of which push the narrative and character arcs forward in meaningful ways.
First, it galvanizes the Pierce family and their adjacent heroes (Brandon, Grace and Gambi) into launching a full-scale rescue attempt into the heart of Markovia; secondly, it forces the Pierce family to finally talk to one another and include each other in their lives and their planning.
The kidnapping of Lynn forces Jefferson not only to come face-to-face with her addiction, but to tell Anissa about it. The show has put these two in conflict for far too long this season, so it’s great that we’ve gotten a string of great father-daughter moments in the last few episodes.
In this episode, Anissa rightly berates Jefferson not only for not telling her sooner, but for leaving Lynn behind in a moment of need to help The Resistance. I’m rather vindictive, so I would’ve pressed harder on that point if I were Anissa, but here she presses it, then steps back to comfort her father and tell him that they will tackle Lynn’s disease together as a family — as it always should have been.
It’s a soft, thoughtful moment that I’ve been desperately wanting with regards to Lynn’s addiction, and if it’s taken a while to get here, I’m still grateful we finally did.
Of course, as powerful as Anissa and Jefferson are together, they’d be woefully undermanned and out to sea in the foreign nation of Markovia — which means the ASA sees it as the perfect time to step in and suggest banding together.
They, of course, don’t care about Lynn as a person, but they don’t want her meta-stabilization cure to fall into the hands of their enemy.
While Jefferson is initially against teaming up, he relents when he listens to Anissa and realizes that they have no chance if it’s just the two of them.
Again, this is just another way to see that Jefferson is finally taking a step back and allowing Anissa to have a say. Even if we had to suffer through the same contrived argument time and again for three seasons, I’m glad we’re here now as well.
Jefferson agrees to working with the ASA — but only if everyone who is on the team gets scrubbed from the ASA system. Nice negotiating for team Black Lightning!
He initially tries — again — to keep Jen out of it, but he at least tells her the plan, which is certainly more than he’s done in the past. Of course, Jen immediately signs up for the team, bringing Brandon along with her because she knows he’ll have her back.
And while Jefferson had likewise hoped that Gambi would be the guy in the chair, they already have their guy in the chair with TC, and Gambi has quite a few tricks up his sleeve, one of which is that he can speak Markovian, so he’s tagging along, too.
Finally, Anissa tries to keep Grace on the sidelines, but after a really cool fight between the two that I’m sure was some weird form of foreplay (but hey, I’m not mad about it), she relents and likewise lets Grace join the superteam.
We haven’t seen too much of Black Lightning, Thunder and Lightning working together, so I’m already excited to see the chaos of them working together, and I’m even more excited to see Brandon (aka Geoforce), Grace and Gambi work in tandem with them. Those Markovians won’t know what hit them.
It wasn’t all fun, fighting and superteam recruiting in this week’s Black Lightning, though.
Jen and Khalil had this week’s emotional story arc, and boy was it heartbreaking, just as I thought it might be.
I’ve been hoping for a Jen and Khalil reunion since the very first episode, and now that we’re here, I can’t imagine a way it could’ve gone better — or worse.
Thanks to the powers of TC, Jen and he are able to interface with the chip in Khalil’s head and trap the Painkiller programming behind a literal firewall. I was really impressed with this set-up, and loved going inside Khalil’s brain and seeing the showdown between the Painkiller programming and who Khalil is as a person.
They’re able to break Khalil free from his own subconscious, and the episode nearly ends with him waking up out of his coma. However, now Khalil must reckon with everything he’s done as Painkiller — and he decides that he has to do it without Jen beside him.
So on the plus side, Khalil is now free from the control of the ASA and his alter-ego of Painkiller, thanks to the work of TC and Jen. On the negative side, Khalil came face-to-face with who he was as Painkiller and what he did, forced to contend with the fact that he’d not only hurt and murdered dozens of people indiscriminately — he’d also murdered his own mother.
It’s a tragic story for Khalil, though I hope not the end of it. This episode of Black Lightning ends with him walking away from Jen, TC, and Gambi in what I think is an absolutely necessary move but one that I hope isn’t forever.
Stray thoughts and lingering questions
- After spouting off some fluent Markovian, Gambi tells Jefferson that he has many stories. I would like to know these stories! Give me a web series, Black Lightning!.
- Learning that the ASA was the one responsible for getting her hooked onto Green Light spurred Lynn into action, but quitting cold turkey would have likely led to her death. Given this episode, I’m more hopeful that the show will treat her addiction gracefully. I’m finally looking forward to her storyline for the rest of the season, and I’m glad.
- All the props to Jordan Calloway, who had to play two roles opposite of one another in this episode. He’s absolutely menacing as Painkiller and completely heartbreaking as Khalil. Whew, the talent.
- I imagine that with Jen going to Markovia in the next episode, there won’t really be much time to get things right with Khalil. Still, I hope they get some time to speak and also that he does some bonding with TC while everyone is away. I feel like they could be friends.
- I didn’t even have the space to write too much about Dr. Jace and Lynn, but I just want you to know that I absolutely loved their interactions. Now that Dr. Jace doesn’t have any power, I find her rather amusing. The beginning scene with her plotting how to make friends with Lynn added some unexpected but much-needed levity to this episode.