BLACK LIGHTING "THE BOOK OF LITTLE BLACK LIES" REVIEW

Season 1 Episode 9:

Hey, everyone, we are back with a brand new of Black Lightning, directed by Tawnia McKiernan, and in this episode we see the manifestation of Jennifer his powers as well as Anissa getting her new suit, all the while the story of the missing kids in the eighties evolve. Spoilers ahead for this episode, let’s recap. 

In the episode, we focus on Jenifer discovering she has powers, which Anissa tells her, and she also tells Jenifer that their father is Black Lightning, leaving her to freak out. Meanwhile, Jefferson organizes with Inspector Henderson to search and find the weapons used to kill Lady Eve, which is all believed to be tied to Green Light.

Jefferson and Anissa use some different disguises to get a location on the green light lab from a Doctor. Meanwhile, Gambi does some investigating and finds that the missing kids that had abilities in the eighties are now kept in capsules. 

Anissa goes to visit Gambi, who tells her how he ultimately led to the death of her grandfather. Gambi tells Anissa that he cares about and her family as he hands her the new super suit. Suiting up, Jefferson and Anissa head out to the Green Light lab, where they disarm the mercenaries and goons who work there. Henderson comes in and apprehends the main doctor of Green Light. Jefferson destroys the lab and he and Anissa slow motion walk away.

Back home, Jennifer is grasping the idea that she has powers thanks to a talk she has with Jefferson.

This episode was an interesting episode mainly with the Jenifer story. I appreciate the idea that the character does not want anything to do with powers, it creates the idea of how much a burden people see powers as. I like how everyone in the Pierce family had to talk to Jennifer about her powers, it seemed like with every talk ping by a family member (which went from least powerful to most), Jenifer eased up to the idea that she does have powers. It almost felt like fighting your way up to the boss, in this instances, talking your way up to the boss. 

In the episode, we got a Vixen and Supergirl shoutout which was neat. There are a few clues which do point out to this show being on Earth-1, with both of those characters being widely known among Earth-1.

The Green Light side of the episode was awesome. In that end fight scene in the lab, was stylistically brilliant, from the lighting, coloring, and cinematography, it looked spectacular to the eye. We saw the debut of Anissa’s new costume, the new Thunder costume. We saw a preview image of the suit before episode one, and I personally wasn’t a fan of the way it looked. However, this episode, the suit looked awesome, better than the preview image. The colors worked well, and I was impressed by the way the suit looked. 

The cast of the episode was brilliant as always. Starring in the episode we had Cress Williams (Jefferson Pierce/ Black Lightning), Nafessa Williams (Anissa Pierce/ Thunder), China Ann McClain (Jenifer Pierce), Christine Adamas (Lynn Pierce), James Remar (Peter Gambi), and Damon Gupton (Inspector Henderson).

In conclusion, this episode of Black Lightning was exciting in the way it introduced Jenifer to the secret superhero side of her family, all the while showing off Anissa’s new suit in an awesome action scene created with brilliant film techniques. I will give this episode an 8.5 out of 10. Let me know your thoughts on the episode, by commenting below. You can click on the left for more Black Lightning, and on the right for more DCTV. As always thanks for reading, take care.