by Christian Holub | via Entertainment Weekly
A few weeks ago, we learned from Gambi that a government organization called the ASA had experimented on the citizens of Freeland, feeding them chemicals that were meant to keep them docile in the wake of ‘60s political uprisings but that actually ended up manifesting superpowers in a select few. Gambi was tasked with scouting for superpowered kids until he had a change of heart, raising and training Black Lightning as a form of redemption. This week on Black Lightning, we confirm that the ASA is still conducting superpowered experiments with Freeland kids (just as real-life government organizations are still pursuing black political activists with the same fervor they did in the ‘60s).
But that’s not all. In addition to kidnapping new kids for experimentation (as witnessed by our old friend Two-Bits), ASA has somehow kept all the people they experimented on last time. They’re keeping them in stasis pods of some kind, which Anissa Pierce discovers when she follows Gambi’s tip. On her own, Anissa is too overwhelmed to do anything, so she runs home and tells her father. Jefferson still bristles at any mention of Gambi but agrees to suit up and follow Anissa.
Naturally, the pods are gone by the time Black Lightning and Thunder return to the warehouse, but there are plenty of ASA henchmen lying in wait for them. The two superheroes show off their ever-improving teamwork skills, with Black Lightning forming a defensive lightning shield as his daughter attacks with a quake stomp. They make it out alive.
Speaking of people who made it out alive, this episode spends a surprising amount of time with the resurrected LaLa, who has taken over leadership of the One Hundred in light of Tobias’ absence. Death has made LaLa weirder, but no less violent. When One Hundred lackeys object to his plan of returning to selling coke and weed instead of the much more popular (but now defunct) Green Light, LaLa doesn’t hesitate to kill them and/or rip off their ears. Lawanda was the first of LaLa’s victims to come to him as a ghost, but now she’s been succeeded by Will, whom you may remember from way back in the first episode when he kidnapped Jennifer and Anissa before getting shot by LaLa. Lawanda manifested as a tattoo on the left side of LaLa’s chest, and now a ghost-tattoo of Will occupies the right side. Can’t wait to find out exactly what the hell is going on with this guy.
He’s not even the only mystery here. It looks like it’s going to take the Pierce family a while to figure out what’s going on with Jennifer. When provoked by Anissa, Jennifer proves that her powers are very similar to her father’s in the manifestation of external energy. But when Lynn looks at her under a microscope, she finds something alarming: Jennifer’s cells are pure energy. She’s a literal generator.
Click HERE to read the rest of the recap, “Sins of the Father: The Book of Redemption.”