Black Lightning

I suppose that the best part of Black Lightening is that, from time to time, it throws some serious 1970s Funk at you, and that is honestly about the coolest thing that you can do with a show...or movie...or just in general. And it beats the heck out of modern music. However, more so than any of the other Super Hero shows on the CW, it suffers HEAVILY under the mark of the CW. Just when you think it's going to take a good turn, the CW teenage focused melodrama is injected into it and takes the wind out of it's sails. It would be forgivable if it happened once, but it seems to get neutered by the CW every time it takes what promises to be heading into a good direction. It could have dealt with race relations in an entertaining and dramatic manner...but then it turns into a CW manner and it turns into a melodrama. It could have dealt with death is an entertaining, gripping, and dramatic way...and then abruptly turns to CW melodrama. And those are just a couple of examples. it all adds up...and even though I can honestly say that it does deserve more than 1 star...the CW robbed it of it's potential too many times to sit down and watch. Its like the CW is yelling "STOP! you're about to get gripping and realistic, remember your audience is a high school clique!" I gave up. I can't watch it any longer...but I do believe that, if any other network (with the exception of Netflix) were to have picked this up, the show could have been very good.

Late to the party but flipping through the book of *"It Had So Much Potential";* a body of failed files thicker than a chinese phonebook at the CW. And because it is the CW, I see this series and can't help but turn my makeshift title into an epitaph. I mean it's the CW... where else was this show going to go but into the Entertainment Murder Files?\*\* I mean identity politics was pounding the heck out of the CW's cavities long before Hollywood began to blantantly shoving virtue signaling and race swapping into the American viewing audience's faces. The saddest part was the show actually had good writing up to the end of the third season. Marvin Jones III brought phenomenal menace and gravitas to playing his character Tobias Whale the series' corporate level underworld boss-villain; talent rarely seen in network television. Cress Williams was good casting as the lead hero role, Black Lightning. The show gave the character a good self-contained dynamic as an ex-Olympic athlete turned high school principal, Jefferson Pierce. The same acolade is applicable when speaking to intergrating his superhero life and his civillian life. James Remar was an excellent "Guy in the Chair" serving as Jefferson and Black Lightning's pseudo father figure and "Alfred." And like Alfred, Remar's character had his own shady past & dealings, some of which were responsible for creating Black Lightning and his generation of metas, humans given super-powers through scientic means. Another interesting character was Jefferson's life long childhood friend turned police detective, Bill Henderson played by actor Damon Gupton. He brought just the right amount of soul as a best friend, and professionalism as a comrade in fighting crime to the role and series required. Christine Adams played Jefferson's scientist ex-wife who gets mixed up in criminal dealings once Tobias Whale buys her lab's parent company. I loved her casting, as Adams was of a surprisingly equal and pleasantly shaped height to Williams. Her dynamic was especially surprising as the show did not make her a typically bitter, overweight, nor estranged Ex. She was pleasant, educated, fit, and feminine. And as quiet as it is kept, *I LOVED the fact* that Adams *wore HER NATURAL HAIR* *throughout the entire series!* Jordan Calloway's character, Khalil Payne, was one of the few characters in the show that had a (mostly) positive development arc. In fact, after parting ways with the younger daughter to Pierce family as her boyfriend, his character was well on it's way to becoming a successful spin-off series but the Establishment/Producers wanted the focus to remain...female centric. And as a casualty to this (asinine) decision - one of MANY - Calloway's character was intergrated back into the Black Lightning storyline. Calloway had developed quite the athletic ability during the series' run which resulted in some good fight scenes and equally impressive stunts by Calloway. This is why I was very surprised he did not show up in other superhero movies; especially *Black Panther*. *SPOILERS AHEAD...* : If you don't want spoilers, skip ahead to "Last Word." The last season was struggle to get through as it could basically be summed up in "the girl-lesbian-superhero power hour!" This ill-placed focus was centered, as mentioned before, around the very bland lesbian superhero character of Black Lightning's oldest daughter, Anissa aka Thunder aka Blackbird (ughk & eyeroll) played by Nefessa Williams. I couldn't tell much about how the series ended other than it took the rarely treaded route of decency by tying all the loose ends and closures. Black Lightning and Whale finished up. Khalil got revenge on Whale's corporate Cleaner who made him kill his mom, played by the famed Bill Duke. The last of the show declared Blackbird would be taking over the Black Lightnging crimefighting role as he announced his retirement. He would instead train her and her sister in thier coming careers as a crimefighters. THANK GOD that series NEVER HAPPNED. By the end of Black Lightning the Thunder/Blackbird character could be summed up with, "I'm better than you! And you don't know anything even though you have years of experience as a card-carrying member of the Justice League, the creme de la creme of Superhero acknowlegement. Now excuse me while I tongue-kiss my extremely mentally traumatized Asian mutant girlfriend whom we are not sure is either a bug, lizard, or animal." Many complained about the show ending while others kept getting renewed. But I say it was a good call to cancel. Better to kill it while it still had some dignity left. As par for the course, the CW ratings weren't so kind to the other series that continued to get renewed. At the time, the catastrophy that is SJW-ism and the Woke conception were being identified openly. It was no longer just a very intense angered bewilderment among the fanbases as to what the studio producers were doing. LAST WORD: If you're going to watch this series it's not bad, but you WILL have to prepare mentally. It will go over issues faced in the black community; issues of drugs, predjudice, and violence. And Jefferson's troubles of holding a school together admist all these things as a school principal in the american education system. The series IMO did well up to the fourth season, and then it becomes a "Choose-Your-Favorite episode" cherry-picking event. But for what it was, it was decent. And for the CW that's saying something! It is nowhere near *Supergirl*, *the Flash*, or *Legends of Tomorrow* types of terrible. For this series, the pros outweight the considerable cons, but you be the judge. Good luck in your viewing! -- Bob --