*This review contains minor spoilers*
Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
“Black Lighting” season two is a mixed bag. While the family aspect grounds the show and helps you care about the heroes, the more traditional superhero stuff falls flat due to a lack of direction.
The plot is just all over the place. While Tobias is once again the big bad, so much of what he’s doing feels like it’s not really tied to what’s going on with the Pierce family. They do want to stop him, but it rarely feels like it’s ever a priority. And, he keeps his master plan too close to the vest too long for the audience to understand how much of a threat he poses. Even when his plan is revealed, it quickly collapses, and feels like he never really thought things out. We also get strange story arcs like the race war between the blacks in the woods and the super-powered whites controlled by a bigoted metahuman. It feels almost like a different show for a few episodes, and then it’s all forgotten. Let alone it’s never explained how there’s so many other metahumans out there. Everyone we’ve seen before now was tied to the ASA/Greenlight experiments. The season finale also falls flat overall. It’s supposed to be kind of epic, but they show too little of the riots and the power outages to drive home the chaos. The supervillain throw down is mediocre, and Tobias is too easily taken out. At least the cliffhanger shows some potential.
What makes this season work is the family dynamic. This isn’t a bunch of strangers that came together to fight crime. This is a family using their abilities to make their neighborhood a better place. The Pierce’s are so well written and well-acted. There are too many strong moments between these characters to mention. But scenes like Painkiller’s death, Lynn’s anguish while worrying if Jenn was dead or alive feel so real. As do all the lighthearted moments. And so many scenes are enhanced by the show’s fantastic soundtrack. It really sets the mood so well.
Another small issue is that the focus on the ASA and Black Lighting’s lair come at the expense of not showing major locations in Freeland like Garfield High. It causes Highland to feel a little less like a living, breathing city. There’s also way too many incidents of characters either dying and coming back to life, or thought to be dead and turn up alive and well. This is fine occasionally, but it’s too common here, barely explained, and rarely adds much too the story.
Despite having all the tools needed for a strong second season, “Black Lightning” struggles with too many strange detours and odd character choices. The increasing scope of the story is too often undercut by reducing Freeland to just a few main sets. But the character moments are strong, and watching the heroes’ journey from the perspective of a black family with amazing gifts grounds all the craziness.
** out of *****