Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 9 Review: The Book of Little Black Lies
Paul Dailly
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Black Lightning is in a rut.
And no, I'm not talking about the superhero. I'm talking about the show.
On Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 9, Jennifer learned the truth about her family's superhero origins, and it resulted in one of the slowest outings of the show to date.
It was natural for Jennifer to feel betrayed when she learned the truth, but "The Book of Little Black Lies" proved that the youngster has very little in common with her older sister, Anissa.
If you watch Black Lightning online, you know that Anissa was quick off the mark to test the true extent of her powers.
Jennifer sulked her way through the hour, and ultimately admitted that she was not cut out for the life that awaited her.
She wanted to go to prom, graduate high school and grow into a young woman on her own terms.
While Jennifer has tried to act as though she is older than she is throughout Black Lightning Season 1, this storyline, in particular, has reiterated the fact that she is still a youngster.
I can't help but feel like Jennifer's powers should have come to the forefront considerably later in the show's run.
We've barely scratched the surface with Anissa's powers, and it all just feels a little too soon to have someone else learning that they have their own set of powers.
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Whatever happened to giving storylines time to breathe?
Black Lightning has been burning through the stories at a breakneck pace, and it already feels like it's coming back to bite the show in a big way.
Since Lady Eve and Tori met their maker on Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 7, the action has been all over the place.
It's almost as if the big bad that is Tobias has been forgotten. What became of his budding relationship with Khalil?
Are they still in cahoots, or is Khalil sticking to dragging those who help him on Instagram? It's hard to imagine Tobias sitting around waiting for another attack to happen.
He's going to be finding ways to take Black Lightning down, and it would give the series more substance to witness what's going on from the perspective of the villains as well as the heroes on a more regular basis.
Gambi is emerging as my favorite character of the entire series, and that's because his storyline has not been burned through in one fell swoop.
There's a lot of intrigue with Gambi because there's so much we've still to learn about him. Yes, we know he was the one who leaked the information to Jefferson's father, but we don't know much more aside from that.
It was nice that he reached out to Anissa to give her her first costume, but am I the only one who thought the costume was a tad ridiculous?
Maybe it would have been better to stick with the one she created with the store clerk.
I had a hard time agreeing with Lynn when she went off on with Anissa for revealing the truth to Jennifer.
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In Anissa's defense, she could see how much her sister was in pain because she had no idea what was happening to her.
She was confused and did not want to watch all of this eating away at her.
The more likely reason for Lynn's outburst is that she's gone from having one person in her life with powers to three.
That's three times the amount of worrying she's going to be doing when they're all inevitably working together on the streets of Freeland.
If she thought dealing with Jefferson all those years ago was tough, then I'm going to bet she's going to think it's all a little too much to handle now.
Lynn's extensive researching skills will likely come in handy to help the family down the line, but it's unclear whether she's going to want any part of it.
Henderson and Black Lightning's conversation was needed. Henderson dips in and out, but I liked that he recognized just how corrupted the law and the media are in the city.
It would be easy to have a dirty cop take him out and for the media to report that he was the one who was dirty. That made Jefferson realize Henderson was someone he could trust.
At the rate the show is burning through the storylines, Henderson will know the truth about Black Lightning's identity before Season 1 concludes.
"The Book of Little Black Lies" was another subpar episode of this CW drama. It started off so well, so it's a real shame to see the show already struggling to keep up the pace.
Okay, Black Lightning Fanatics!
What do you think of the series? Are you still enjoying it?
Hit the comments below.
Black Lightning continues Tuesdays on The CW.
Paul Dailly was an Associate Editor for TV Fanatic.Follow him on X.
