Last year Black Lightning made it’s season debut on the CW. The show followed Jefferson Pierce, a retired hero, who is trying to make a difference as a principal at a high school. What makes the show unique is that it puts the hero in the middle of a black neighborhood dealing with black issues. And season 2 continues with that.
What I liked about the first episode of season 2 is that it continues what made the show great from Season 1. The actions at the end of Season 1 is now causing an effect that is affecting the citizens in the neighborhood. Now Jefferson Pierce, Black Lightning, is having to balance his responsibilities as a family man, hero, and principal.
The opening shot of Season 2 took real world black issues and framed it around the story. I really enjoyed how the show started off (trying to avoid any spoilers). It grounded the heroes and the villains, and showed how complex being a hero can become.
We also got to see the continued evolution of all the characters. Black Lightning, who I talked about earlier, tries to navigate being a black hero in this current landscape, while protecting his families. His daughters, Annissa and Jennifer, are dealing with their own evolution of who they are and their complex lives. Lynn Stewart, the ex-wife of Jefferson Pierce and the mother of Anissa and Jennifer, is having to handle her job in neuroscience, being a mother to her daughters (each going through their own forms of evolution), and repair the strained relationship with Jefferson Pierce (who’s relationship was strained because of him being Black Lightning).
I really love the pacing of the show, how they handle the character development, and how it is separate from the rest of the Arrow-verse. This allow the show to remain grounded, and deal with issues that effect their community, verses the “world”. Allowing them to be a show that both represent and speak to a community they resemble, and have the freedom to be a good show. I just hope they can avoid some of the same tropes that plague their current “Arrow-verse” shows.
