Red Stewart reviews the sixth episode of Black Lightning season 3…
Black Lightning thankfully continued its upward trend following the surprisingly enjoyable “Requiem for Tavon.” Like its predecessor, it fumbled when it came to some of the emotional beats, but was paced good enough, and with minimal plot intrusion, that I didn’t find myself hating it the way I did with some of the previous episodes.
That’s not to say I wasn’t worried about a sharp decline in quality again. Not only has a drop between weeks occurred before in seasons 1 and 2, but the way “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” opened up provided its own doubts. See, Anissa is actually being affected by the poison Khalil used on her previously, and so the intro depicts her recording a video message for her family in the event that she passes away.
It bothered me because do we honestly expect a show that didn’t even have the guts to keep Lala dead to kill off one of its main characters, especially one who represents a huge amount of diversity for this show’s target audience (LGBTQ African-American women)? If you do, I’ve got a boat to sell you.
Now, there will be people who will no doubt oppose this viewpoint, saying that it’s about the journey, not the end, and that having Anissa realistically deal with the prospect of dying adds to her character, and consequently justifies the amount of time spent focusing on this. I can see that POV, and if the show hadn’t already spent a lot of time throwing dumb subplots at viewers, I might have agreed. But considering what could have been done instead, I’m inclined to stand my ground here.
Regardless of what you might think of Anissa’s plotline, there’s no denying that actress Nafessa Williams does an excellent job portraying someone who is balancing a will of fire against the increasingly potential prospect of dying. And her story, though maybe having one too many scenes, does jumpstart another thread that is sure to have an impact down the line: Gambi discovering that Khalil may indeed be alive.
The other characters are mostly preoccupied with their daily shenanigans. Tavon’s death has evidently hit them all hard, but, outside of the wake, the writers don’t spend too much time on them grieving, and I was happy for this because we’ve seen enough mourning episodes in this series before. Jefferson, for example, begins vigilante attacks against the ASA, which attracts the attention of Agent Odell and nearly puts them at each other’s throats. Jennifer, on the other hand, is investigating Brandon, which leads to her discovering who he is and why he is doing what he was doing. I complimented the two’s chemistry before, and their relationship continues to be entertaining to watch. Even though I have a bad feeling that they’re going to pull some love triangle nonsense between them and Khalil down the line, we can at least enjoy the moment, right?
The real interesting tidbit, however, comes from Lynn’s storyline. Here, she continues her discussions with Tobias, who goads her into giving him information on the surviving podkids. Personally, I thought the writers could’ve done a better job depicting Lynn’s descent into subservience, as here it came off like she was too willing to satisfy Whale, despite the clear anger she had towards him in “Requiem for Tavon.” Maybe the Greenlight drug addiction is getting to her or maybe her fear for her family’s safety made her rethink things- nonetheless, it wasn’t explained at all. Part of the issue is I also found Christine Adams performance here to be a significant downgrade from prior appearances. I don’t know if something was going on or the direction was misguided, but here she was just not convincing as the strong woman from before.
In my previous review, I had complained about the lack of the Markovian presence. Here, we finally see some action on their part when a two-man team of theirs (one of which is a teleporting meta) initiate a plan to hack into the ASA’s servers and get intel from them. It’s nothing resembling a war crime, and it ends with an anticlimactic firefight between them and Odell’s counter-response team, with Odell having to be saved by Black Lightning. Hopefully, the follow-up episodes will build on this and depict the Markovians as actually having a concrete strategy with regards to what it is they are hoping to achieve by infiltrating Freeland.
Overall, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” did some decent things, and kept a good pace to avoid feeling rushed or dragged. The writers still have a ways to go before they can make this season compelling, but at least there is potential for a big turnaround.
Rating – 6/10
Red Stewart
Originally published November 24, 2019. Updated November 23, 2019.
