Black Lightning: Rock Bottom

Black Lightning | Season 4 | Episode 9 : “Lyding“
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For a quick read, go to Review. For a complete summary, go to Recap.

KBear Recap [Read time: 5-7 min]

“In your dream, you try to fix your family, maybe your dream is the subconscious telling you your family doesn’t need fixing.” The Therapist

Lynn Pierce (Christine Adams) is in her lab when Jefferson/Black Lightning (Cress Williams), Anissa/Thunder (Nafessa Williams), and Jennifer “JJ”/Lightning (Laura Kariuki) comes in, Lynn tries to take away their meta powers to cure them, but she ends up killing them. The scene turns out to be a dream, her therapist (Bethann Hardison) tells her it might mean she should try to stop fixing them. Lightning meets up with Uriah (McKalin) to raise money for the Garfield High music program. The cops track their IG post. JJ gets a severe headache. Ishmael (Rico Bell) is in the shadows watching them.

<span style="color: #993300;">DC TV Black Lightning Statue</span> — DC TV Black Lightning Statue

Anissa is hitting the heavy bag at the Sanctum, Peter Gambi (James Remar) has developed new suits for the family. After she puts her new suit on, Gambi shoots at her. The bullets bounce off. She asks Gambi why he did that, he tells her the new suit has memory, it will maintain her density for a longer period, so she doesn’t have to hold her breath so often. Jefferson grounds Jennifer for her stunt. TC (Christopher Ammanuel) has dug up info on Ismael. He is a meta hunter who is trying to join the League of Assassins. Killing metas is his way in. Gambi tells them not to go out in their suits unless he or TC are doing overwatch. Jennifer doesn’t appear to take this threat seriously. Back at home Jennifer is making breakfast for Jefferson to apologize for being mad at him for being framed and making her life difficult. He still wants her to delete her IG page. She convinces him to let her deactivate it.

Lynn goes to her lab and punches in her access number in the keypad, but nothing happens. The security guard tells Lynn that her lab privileges have been taken from her. She is locked out and Agent Mason (Jamal Akakpo) took her files as evidence. Lynn tells Jefferson that Tobias Whale (Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III) has made it look like Jefferson used his embezzlement money to fund Lynn’s research. She’s mad at Jefferson for her problems. She just lost 26 years of research.

Khalil Payne/Painkiller (Jordan Calloway) shows up at a bar to talk to Tobias’s accountant Jessie Gentilucci (Kenneth Trujillo). A big fight breaks out between Khalil and Jessie’s guards, it’s a mismatch. Khalil and Painkiller tag team and easily dispatches them. Painkiller gets Jessie to tell him where the hidden ledger he keeps for Tobias is. After he tells him, Painkiller kills him, he opens the safe and takes the ledger, and the cash while he’s at it.

“It takes a special person to do something when everybody else is just standing by.” Uriah

Uriah is playing the piano; he thanks JJ for contacting Lightning. Black Lightning shows up at a basketball court to talk to Detective Hassan Shakur (Wallace Smith). He asks for space to take out Ishmael with no police interference. Shakur gives him 20 minutes. Jennifer is at her favorite spot with TC, smoking a joint. TC declines to join her. She gets a DM from Uriah for Lightning to meet him. TC tells her not to go, but of course JJ doesn’t listen to him. She’ll go out as JJ and change into her suit before she meets him. She probably should have listened to TC because it was the cops who sent the DM, and Chief Ana Lopez (Melissa De Sousa) is going to the meet to arrest Lightning herself.

Anissa is at the hospital. Dr. Darius Morgan (Todd Anthony) looks spooked, he investigated the info on the cystic fibrosis treatment like Anissa asked him too, he found out it’s a scam. He’s locked out of the system, but he’s going to download the info he has onto a thumb drive. He wants Anissa to meet him at his place. He plans on leaving town. Black Lightning grabs a Kobra Cartel member and taunts Ishmael via a security camera to meet him. Bates (Paden Fallis) delivers the emitter to Tobias. Val Seong (Helen Joo Lee) walks in and tells Tobias, “Dr. Stewart successfully harvested my powers into the vials. The nullifier boosters are authentic.” Since they’ve gotten what they wanted from Lynn, Tobias plans on using her to hurt Jefferson. He wants Jefferson to feel the loss of his sister. [Who he blames for killing her; Jefferson didn’t kill Tori.] Ishmael shows up and he and Black Lightning fight. Lightning shows up to meet Uriah, but she’s greeted by Chief Lopez and her officers. They begin shooting, Lightning creates and electric shield but because her power is erratic, she gets hit. She is still able to escape.

“I want that neon, candy-coated Captain Save-A-Hoe to feel exactly what I felt when he took my sister.” Tobias Whale

Lynn is at home alone; Agent Mason shows up to arrest her for violating civil rights. She is taken to the police station to be processed. They take Lynn’s mugshot and send her to lock up to strip search her. The female officer (Marcenae Lynette) is coldly cruel, Lynn is devasted, the process is dehumanizing. Tobias is in a room talking to the stain glass picture of Tori. His little speech is deranged. He laughs maniacally as he turns on the emitter. Anissa goes to Dr. Morgan’s place to meet him. She enters his apartment and finds him dead. Anissa runs out to the street and a car speeds towards her. She tries to use her power to stop the car, but she finds out her powers aren’t working. Jefferson is fighting Ishmael but suddenly can’t hit him with any lightning. He contacts Gambi who calls for TC to help find an escape route, but TC realizes his power is gone too. Ishmael plunges a sword towards him. Jennifer is flying towards the ionosphere and finds herself plunging back to the earth. It doesn’t look good for the Pierce’s.

KBear Review [Read time: 1-3 minutes]

Lynn has a dream about curing her family of their meta powers and ends up killing them. Lightning meets up with Uriah to do an IG post to raise money for Garfield High’s music program. Freeland PD monitors the post and sends JJ a DM from Uriah’s account to meet him. It’s a trap and JJ barely escapes. She’s having problems with her powers; it might have something to do with her genetic makeup not being stable. Gambi is making new suits for the gang. Since Ishmael is after them, he advises them not to go out in their suits unless he or TC is doing overwatch. Lynn loses her lab privileges, she’s locked out of her lab, and the FBI has seized her research. They think that Jefferson funded her research with his ill-gotten loot. The FBI later arrests her for violating civil rights. Jefferson challenges Ishmael to a fight. It doesn’t go like he planned. Anissa goes to Dr. Morgan’s apartment to get the info he downloaded on Monovista’s cystic fibrosis scam. She finds his corpse and runs out into the streets where a car is heading straight for her. JJ is flying and plummets towards the ground. Tobias has the emitter, and using Val’s nullifying meta gene, he nullifies everyone’s powers.

All seems lost for the Pierce family. Lynn is arrested and dehumanized by the legal system. Christina Adams did a fantastic job during her processing scene. She displayed all the fear, pain and humiliation of being stripped of your dignity. It was hard to watch, and knowing this is a common place occurrence for so many people is infuriating. Even to the end, Black Lightning loves to tackle the harsh reality of being black in America. I will always love the show for that. The rest of the family faces eminent death. It looks like Tobias Whale has finally won. The only reason I know this isn’t it for the Pierce family is because there are four more episodes. The only bright spot in the episode was Khalil wiping out the accountant’s men. For a homicidal maniac, Painkiller is a lot of fun. The action was better this episode with the Painkiller fight, and Black Lightning v. Ishmael. Chief Lopez really hates Lightning, she speaks for a lot of adults who find teenagers annoying. JJ was especially annoying this episode, so I feel you Chief.

The music was good as usual, but the song that played during Lynn’s booking, Make It Home was especially impactful.

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