I could not remember from where I found out about this new TV series from DC comics, but last week when I binge watch the 13th season of Supernatural series, I saw a brief promotion of it and I immediately remind myself to watch this one asap. So 3-4 days ago I started to watch it and just completed it last night. Well what was the series all about? Let us find out, shall we?
Brief Story Line
Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams - Hart of Dixie TV series) was the Garfield high school principal in Freeland city. He had two daughters of Anissa (Nafessa Williams - True to the Game etc) the eldest who worked as part time teacher at Garfield and also a medical student, and Jennifer (China Anne McClain - Grown Ups, A.N.T. Farm TV series etc) a high school student. Jefferson was divorced from Lynn (Christine Adams - Submerged, Terra Nova TV series etc) due to his dangerous side activities as the superhero Black Lightning who protected Freeland from criminals.
After 9 years of "retirement" as Black Lightning, Jefferson was having a calm life and trying to amend his relationship with Lynn. But when a gang called The 100 was flooding the city with dangerous drugs, Jefferson felt that he needed to return and protect his school, family and city. With the help from his rather mysterious friend Peter Gambi (James Remar - 48 Hrs., Dexter TV series etc), he put on his new suit that would help enhance his power. Though his decision of coming back did not go well with police inspector Henderson (Damon Gupton - Whiplash, Deadline TV series etc) who felt Black Lightning was just a vigilante and disrupt police works.
Meanwhile, the man behind the 100 was a supposedly already dead former politician Tobias Whale (Marvin "Krondon" Jones III) with his trusted confidante Lala (William Catlett) and his right hand woman Syonide (Charlbi Dean). These would be the main villains of Black Lightning in the first season.
End of Brief Story Line
Now this series was pretty entertaining to my opinion. I watched this with not so much expectation as I was not familiar with the character, not to mention that the earlier African American superhero which I have reviewed earlier was not too satisfying. But this one apparently was pretty exciting. The story pace was very fast and with only 13 episodes of the first season, the story felt to be developed a lot. The character developments were quite advanced and the series regulars were given a balanced screen time. Even the supporting characters were also quite interesting like Gregg Henry as Martin Proctor, or Jill Scott as Lady Eve. Though Lala's development felt too weird, but apparently it was some kind of re-creation of a DC character.
As I said above, this superhero was from DC comics and therefore it was no coincidence that the characters referred to in the series was Supergirl or Vixen. From what I read in internet, this character was created by Tony Isabella who happened to also create a Marvel character named Black Goliath (which at the time of my writing this, would appear in the upcoming movie Ant-man and the Wasp). The series was executive produced by few people, including Greg Berlanti, the man behind all those DC series of Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow & Supergirl (which quite frequently crossed over in the same universe called Arrowverse). But this one apparently did not share the same universe (yet). So we won't see any of those characters in this series.
What I liked about this series was the characterization of Black Lightning by Cress Williams which I think was very convincing as school principal who was forced to put on his suits again. And I also loved the chemistry of the Pierce family. Somehow they looked very believable as a real loving family. Plus Nafessa Williams' character was also a very unique & interesting. The topics/issues were quite up to date for the current situation (series was shown from January to April 2018) with emphasis on the challenges faced by the African Americans. And of course there were plenty of action. I can say that the series was quite balanced between the drama, the characters development and the action scenes. Special effects were pretty good. The suits/costumes were nice (but not the first "costume" worn by the superhero Thunder which obviously was a pain to see).
One more thing that I loved about this series was the supervillain in the form of Tobias Whale. I was very surprised to see the acting of rapper Krondon as he was really convincing as super villain. I actually loved it when a super villain was very ruthless and so difficult to beat by our superhero so that it felt interesting and intriguing of how the story would developed. There was also a recurring role by Jordan Calloway as Khalil Payne who would have more significant roles in future. The one thing that I thought could be better was the wig worn by the characters here. They did not seem to fit properly on the heads of 2 characters. And since the main plot was about superhero who came out of retirement, we should not expect this to be an origin superhero story. Though there was a brief back story about young Jefferson which probably would be more elaborated in second season.
Overall, this is an enjoyable and entertaining African American superhero series to my personal opinion. You can definitely give this one a try and hopefully you would enjoy it as much as I did.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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