Line #14 Recap/BlackLightning2018S3E9EarthCrisis


1	As the [[Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019 Crisis]] reaches Black Lightning's Earth, Jennifer sees how two other versions of herself dealt with the ASA.
2
3	!!Tropes
4	* AddledAddict: Lynn tries to cook some more Green Light due to going into withdrawal.
5	* AlternateSelf: Jennifer meets two other versions of herself from other Earths.
6	* ArrogantKungFuGuy: Jinn seems to be driven by the need to prove she's the best and most powerful meta, leading to her [[BoomerangBigot committing genocide against her own kind]] and, eventually, [[SelfMadeOrphan her own family]].
7	* BadassBoast: Jinn, when her mother demands she turn herself in to the authorities, points out that she ''is'' the legal representative of authority in the Freeland of this reality.
8	-->'''Jinn''': I ''am'' the authority.
9	* BadFuture: Both Earth One and Earth Two are this -- Gen's desire to be rid of her powers and Jinn's desire to develop them fully both end up with Freeland succumbing to the ASA's tyranny.
10	* BeamOWar: Jinn gets into one with her father, easily overpowering and killing him.
11	* ComingOutStory: Turns out Earth One Anissa still didn't have hers, as Jefferson is a conservative in this reality. She is dating Shaquandalyn here, the daughter of Lawanda.
12	* ConflictingLoyalty: Jennifer, at the beginning of the episode, is torn between her family and her services for Odell, especially with the latter [[WithUsOrAgainstUs giving her an ultimatum]].
13	* TheConstant: It turns out that no matter what choices Jen makes, her father will risk his life -- and in the other two Earths, eventually lose it -- to fight back against oppression. In Earth-2 the oppression just happens to come from Jinn herself.
14	* ContinuitySnarl: The episode sets up two versions of Jennifer; “Earth One” and “Earth Two”, who aren't likely to be from the same worlds that the other Arrowverse shows refer to by those designations (For starters, Earth-2 was erased at the end of “[[Recap/ArrowS8E1StarlingCity Starling City]]”). This is intentional, as the point of the episode was more to show a GoodAngelBadAngel situation and the choices Jennifer may make in the future, rather than setting up their multiverse placement -- naming these alternate earths something like "Earth 215" and "Earth 177777" wouldn't work well for telling the narrative in a simple way.
15	* CrossThrough: In the grand scheme of Crisis, Black Lightning's Earth was just one of the many in the process of getting erased, with Jefferson escaping the Anti-Monitor Wave to take part in the [[Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019 Crossover]].
16	* DarkIsEvil: Jinn is wearing a black costume and is definitely not a good person.
17	* ADayInTheLimelight: The episode focuses mostly on Jennifer, with the Anti-Matter messing with her powers.
18	* DimensionalTraveler: Jennifer becomes one of these as she absorbs antimatter energy.
19	* DoNotAdjustYourSet: How Odell contacts Jennifer.
20	* DownerEnding: Just when it seems that the others can get through to Jennifer and rescue her, the Anti-Monitor's Anti-Matter Wave arrives. Jefferson disappears before the wave hits, but Gambi, Lynn and Anissa are seen to dissolve with the rest of their Earth.
21	* EnergyAbsorption: It turns out Jennifer and both of her counterparts are able to do this with the antimatter storm, causing them to glitch between timelines.
22	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Major Sara Grey seems disturbed when Odell orders her to turn all the test subjects into the ASA's ChildSoldiers.
23	* EvilCounterpart: Jinn is definitely this to the main Jennifer.
24	* ExtremeDoormat: Jinn sneers at Gen for being this, although by the time the Crisis arrives her father's death has already given Gen serious second thoughts about her choices.
25	* GenreShift: For at least this episode, Black Lightning has a lot more elements more commonly found on [[Series/TheFlash2014 The Flash]] and [[Series/Supergirl2015 Supergirl]].
26	* GoodCounterpart: Gen is set up as this to Jen, being dressed in all white (which turns out to be a prison uniform from the Pit) and being defined by the choice to fully renounce the power Jen remains so tempted by. It turns out her choices weren't necessarily as good as they seemed.
27	* HappyEndingOverride: Turns out the ASA intercepted the feed of the footage from last episode and instead of reporting on the truth, the media portrays the Resistance as nutty anti-vaxxers fighting the government's attempts to contain an epidemic.
28	* IAmTheNoun: When her family demands Jinn to turn herself in to the authorities, she retorts that she ''is'' the authority.
29	* IDidWhatIHadToDo:
30	** Odell is still unapologetic about everything.
31	** Jinn also justifies her deeds like this.
32	* IJustWantToBeNormal: This is Gen's primary motivation, leading to her causing a mass-depowering event in Freeland and accepting a PowerNullifier herself in hopes of ending the war and letting her family live a normal life.
33	* IJustWantToBeSpecial: This is Jinn's primary motivation, leading to her accepting Odell's offer to train her in using her powers until she becomes TheDragon for him and the ASA.
34	* IntangibleTimeTravel: Jennifer is able to see what happened in the past few days in each of her counterparts' lives but only as an invisible, intangible ghost. She tearfully tries and fails to save her father's life, twice.
35	* InternalReveal: Jefferson learns about Khalil's "survival".
36	* IronicEcho: Jinn repeats her fathers school motto in a mocking way when she kills him.
37	* ItsAllMyFault: Gen blames herself for what happened to her father, due to curing everybody's metagene.
38	* KickTheDog: On Earth One, not only does Odell tortured and kill Reverend Holt after he reveals Jefferson's help in the UndergroundRailroad, he also forces himself into the Pierce's home and executed Jefferson right in front of his daughters. ''On Christmas!''
39	* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Since Pariah never arrived to give them a heads-up, no one in Freeland knows about the cause of the Red Skies.
40	* MassSuperEmpoweringEvent: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. Gen tampered with the water supply of Earth One's Freeland so that all metahumans in the city would lose their powers.
41	* MeaningfulName: Jinn's name is an appropriate one given her relationship to Odell -- she plays the role of the [[OurGeniesAreDifferent dangerous, amoral being]] Odell has made a [[DealWithTheDevil Faustian pact]] with for power, neither one of them caring a bit for the other beyond using each other for what they need.
42	* MirrorMatch: The main Jennifer gets into a fight with Jinn after seeing what she has done.
43	* MyNaymeIs: The alternate versions of Jennifer are differentiated from her by the spelling of their names: her Earth One counterpart is "Gen" and her Earth Two counterpart is "Jinn". The former seems like she may just be named "Gennifer" rather than "Jennifer"; the latter, judging by the rage she exhibits when her father calls her "Jennifer", picked "Jinn" as a supervillain alias (see MeaningfulName).
44	* NeverTrustATrailer: The preview of this episode made it seem Jefferson was dealing with his daughters from alternate Earths.
45	* NotWearingTights: Only our Jennifer is in the "Lightning" superhero outfit. Gen has given up the superhero life and is in an ASA prison uniform; Jinn ditched her father's superheroic style for a supervillainous look.
46	* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Gambi's TechnoBabble has him theorise from a fairly short examination of Jennifer's condition that she may be phasing uncontrollably into other dimensions (which the others scoff at initially), and explains that the red skies are interfering with her powers, and that the sky is giving off anti-matter. How he has a machine to detect this is a bit baffling and never adequetly explained, and because of this, he figures out the multiverse faster than even the world's greatest geniuses on the Arrowverse's Earth-1 were able to. Justified to some extent, as we do need a MrExposition for TheMultiverse concept just so Jefferson doesn't go into the Crisis totally unprepared. In-universe WildMassGuessing ensues that the ASA is involved in changing the skies, or being in even more branches of clandestine super-science that the cast were previously unaware of, of which Gambi shoots down as, being a former ASA Agent, he knows what the ASA does, and weather manipulation just isn't one of those things (The ASA are also as confused as everyone else is when it comes to the skiy being red).
47	* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Jennifer has a low opinion of both of her doubles, especially Jinn.
48	* ParentalAbandonment: Earth One Lynn barely visited Gen in the Pit before the death of Jefferson.
49	* PetTheDog: Earth One Odell's twisted way of saying sorry for murdering Gen's father is allowing her family to still visit her in the Pit.
50	* PlaceBeyondTime: The strange void Jennifer and her alternative selves meet in appears to be this. As while their respective Earths are destroyed at different times, they are only able to go to the void once the anti-matter storm has arrived on their Earths. This would also explain why it appears their Earths are destroyed simultaneously; since each version of Jennifer only has the time frame of when the storm hits their Earth until it inevitably destroys it.
51	* PowerHigh: Jefferson warns Jinn her power has become like a drug to her and destroyed her judgment. She responds by [[NotHelpingYourCase killing him just to prove she can]].
52	* PowerIncontinence: Absorbing the antimatter energy causes Jennifer to uncontrollably phase through dimensions, and apparently keeps her and her counterparts from using her powers in the VoidBetweenTheWorlds, forcing her and Jinn to fight hand to hand.
53	* PowerNullifier: Gen is forced to wear one after curing the metahumans in Freeland. Notably it suppresses her normal powers but can't stop her from phasing out of her prison cell to the VoidBetweenTheWorlds once she starts absorbing antimatter.
54	* RaceAgainstTheClock: The episode has a timer at the bottom whenever Jen switches from Earth 1 and Earth 2. The timer indicates the hours left until the Anti-matter wave hits.
55	* RayOfHopeEnding: At the end, the universe is consumed by antimatter, but Jefferson being teleported away gives hope that he and the other heroes in the Crisis can reverse the damage to some extent.
56	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
57	** Jinn and her family dish it out against each other, with Jinn eventually killing them all.
58	** Jennifer, after witnessing both Gen's and Jinn's fates, is adamant on not repeating either's mistakes and calls them out on it.
59	* RedSkiesCrossover: Other than the skies literally turning red and Jennifer seeing the alternate Earths, this episode doesn't tie in very closely to the Crisis, until the ending where Jefferson gets warped away and all three Earths get erased.
60	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: In our own Earth, Anissa confronts Jefferson about how his resistance to the ASA has escalated into full-blown war and they can no longer be concerned with collateral damage if they're going to survive.
61	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Gen directly compares her own tampering with the Freeland water supply to the lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan.
62	* SacrificialLion: Both of the {{Bad Future}}s Jen sees involve her father's tragic death -- one at the hands of Odell's thugs, one at the hands of her own AlternateSelf.
63	* SelfMadeOrphan: Jinn wound up killing her whole family.
64	* ShaggyDogStory: Jen's arc in this episode seems like this for now, since she barely has time to have her epiphany before all three versions of her are destroyed by antimatter.
65	* ShootTheDog: Anissa is still advocating for putting Khalil down, as there is nothing left of his old personality.
66	* ShutUpKirk: Jinn doesn't care for Jennifer calling her out even one bit.
67	* TheSocialDarwinist: Jinn insults her family as worthless, as Jefferson needs a suit for his powers, Anissa needs to hold her breath and her mother doesn't even have any powers at all.
68	* TakeAThirdOption: Jennifer realizes the lesson of her two counterparts is that both her IJustWantToBeNormal and her IJustWantToBeSpecial desires are selfish and narcissistic, and to take her father's lesson not to obsess over how her powers affect her own life but to think about the responsibility they give her to protect others.
69	* VisionsOfAnotherSelf: Because of her powers and the antimatter, Jennifer gets to interact with her alternate versions and witnesses events of their lives; Gen (Earth One) and Jinn (Earth Two).
70	* WasItReallyWorthIt: Gen asks Lynn this in regards to curing the metagene, as it got her father killed and herself imprisoned. Surprisingly, she answers yes.

Context Recap / BlackLightning2018S3E9EarthCrisis