I’m
getting through the Arrowverse by degrees. Supergirl
was the first I started watching and it remains first in my heart, as evidenced
by the copious posts I’ve written about it. I looped back around to The Flash after I saw the crossover
episode in Supergirl’s first season,
and although I haven’t backtracked to Arrow
or Legends of Tomorrow yet, I have
some crossover familiarity with both and expect to get around to them at some
point. However, starting with Black
Lightning, I have followed the
newer Arrowverse shows from their beginnings, which means less to play catch-up
with eventually. Thought it was high time I started posting some write-ups
about them.
Nowadays,
Jefferson Pierce is a high school principal and pillar of his community, but
when he was younger, he was Black Lightning, a metahuman superhero with
electricity-based powers who kept the streets of the city safe. It was a hard
life that wound up interfering with his marriage, and Jefferson gave it up. But
as gangs take a firmer hold of Freeland, a new drug that brings on metahuman
powers floods the streets, and an old enemy reemerges, Jefferson contemplates
taking up the mantle a second time.
I’ve said
before that, while I like genre-based allegories for marginalized identities,
shows sometimes use those metaphors to tell stories about oppression while
ignoring actual marginalized people. The way around that, naturally, is to find
a show that incorporates both, and Black
Lightning does that with aplomb. Metahumans are mistreated and profiled,
but the mostly-Black citizens of Freeland are also subject to systemic
oppression in ways that both are and aren’t related to the comic-book goings-on
within the show. Seriously, if the Flash had any idea how Black metahumans in
Freeland are exploited, I think his head might explode.
Social
commentary aside, Black Lightning
brings with it all the hallmarks of a good superhero show: cool action
sequences, high-stakes drama, sacrifice, and plenty of interpersonal narrative
content. I like the twist that Jefferson is a former superhero who’s getting
back in the saddle – it offers a different take than the origin stories we
usually get out of the gate, in both TV and movies. We explore Jefferson’s
origins and backstory, but we also get the additional complications of
Jefferson being in a different place in his life now, at a different stage than
most superhero protagonists.
At its
heart, the show is about, not just Jefferson, but the whole Pierce family. I
love his daughters, Anissa and Jennifer, and his ex-wife Lynn adds interesting
angles to the proceedings. All the actors portraying the Pierce clan do a great
job. Cress Williams brings a gravitas to Jefferson, Nafessa Williams and China
Anne McClain both turn in excellent work as we follow Anissa and Jennifer on
their respective journeys, and Christine Adams (who I’ll always remember as
Simone on Pushing Daisies) threads a
tricky needle in her role as Lynn. I also want to give a shoutout to Marvin
‘Krondon’ Jones III, who plays baddie Tobias Whale. While a staggering number
of shows cast ablebodied actors to play characters with disabilities, Black Lightning stepped up and found an
actor with albinism for the part – good on them.
Warnings
Comic-book
violence, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug references, and
strong thematic elements.
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