Black Lightning

I loved seeing that bit of badassery from the Pierce family

Jefferson: "I swear to god, if somebody pulls a gun on me one more time..."

Minus the gun flip-out, that overbearing father confrontation with his son is eerily life-like.

edited 16th Jan '18 6:51:08 PM by XMenMutant22

Tobias and his gang are just weird enough for a comic book show.

And Jefferson is not about the 'killing is always wrong' the life.

Tobias, you know damn well that he can't take care of the problem.

Gotta get me a harpoon gun.

Just starting this now. Interested to see how it goes.

Edit: Yeah, beating up those cops might come back to bite him. We'll see.

edited 16th Jan '18 9:22:47 PM by HandsomeRob

And we're done.

This is a guy you don't want to piss off, that much is for sure.

Well damn, I really liked this premiere. This reminds me a lot of Luke Cage, the good parts of it. I love how educated and well dressed Jefferson is, and how much he kicks ass. Not sure how I feel about the suit, looks too bulky, but oh well. I'm very excited to see how this show progresses.

Definitely liking this show. We'll have to see if it holds up. I'm not fond of the darker tone, but I feel like it has a better start than Arrow did. Even the Expo Dump of how that crime boss killed his father was handled pretty well, considering.

There was a lot of exposition in this one for sure, which makes sense given the fact that he's not a new superhero, in universe. I think they did a decent job with it.

Also, Tobias' henchwoman is named Syonide (the guy has the less out there but still storybook name of Joey Toeldo). EDIT-these are actual DC characters. I love comics.

His whole shtick so far (vague aquatic theme, rare physical condition, ruthless crime boss) is right out of old school pulp stories. He could just as easily be somebody out of a Dick Tracy story, or The Shadow.

Which is awesome.

edited 17th Jan '18 1:51:10 AM by ArthurEld

If he doesn't do an opening narration I'm going to be disappointed.

His daughter did one this episode, so they can repeat that every episode if they have nothing better to use.

Do we know if this show is set on Earth-1 like most of the other Arrowverse shows? They made a reference to other heroes, but not enough detail to know which Earth.

I saw someone in this thread mention that this isn't set in the Arrowverse so...

For the mini crossover episode this season, because you know it's gonna happen at some point in the future, I hope Oliver is the one to team up with Jefferson on his earth earth instead of Barry. Oliver would have more in common with Jefferson since they're both vigilantes trying to make their city place in the long run, while Barry Allen isn't as concerned about trying to clean up the crime in Central City.

edited 18th Jan '18 1:48:48 AM by clockworkboy

I just realised the fridge brilliance of the line, "with thunder and lightning as his witnesses".

Also, who gets named Latavius and chooses to go by "Lala"?

And why didn't Lala just hand the girls back to Pierce. He obviously didn't have a grudge with the Pierce family.

Because he knew those two girls absolutely will file charges? The older sister is a paragon, and the youngest has more moxie than is good for her, so he cant count on them letting it slide.

Not that his actual course of action was any better. Very no-win situation.

Okay that makes sense.

Also did he not recognise Jennifer when he saw her at the club? He didn't seem to worried about blowback when he tried to have her pimped out.

edited 18th Jan '18 6:21:04 AM by windleopard

They very specifically said this wasn’t in the Arrowverse, to avoid the baggage of that shared universe and because the timelines wouldn’t gel (as most metahumans didn’t emerge until the particle accelerator, while BL has been retired for some time).

Didn't Legends have metas that existed prior to the Particle Accelerator explosion?

Edit: Okay I missed "most".

edited 18th Jan '18 7:46:22 AM by Cross

Also, Legends established that the Justice Society was a secret government organization, since superheroes didn't become known to the public till the start of Arrow. That doesn't gel with Black Lightning having been a well known superhero more than nine years ago.

I'd still say I like the "classic" costume better. not too fond of the current's bulk and lightning design.

Still, I like the Pierces family dynamic. Kinda leery at Tobias Whale. I'm no expert on black issues but I'll keep an eye out.

edited 18th Jan '18 10:37:59 AM by RAlexa21th

I wonder if Black Lighting is set on Earth 38 or maybe Earth 3?

http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/black-lightning-premiere-ratings-cw-1202666907/

The premiere ratings is promising.

Just watched the premiere this evening. It was pretty excellent, and I like how well it introduced so many new characters with opposing priorities without making them feel one-note or overly complicated. Only quibble is that it's sometimes unclear how deadly Black Lightning's electricity is meant to be. I'm surprised the kidnapper guy wasn't dead from being levitated with lightning before he got thrown down into a car.

I'm guessing we're dealing with Comic Book Lightning here, which usually equates to "exactly as deadly as the writer wants it to be for the purposes of this scene."

Though as we saw with Jefferson using that one guy as a human shield, he's not exactly averse to dropping a few bodies if it should come to that.