Black Lightning - Equinox: The Book of Fate - Review

Well, that was not what I was expecting. I expected to spend the episode watching Anissa defy her parents by going into the field in an effort to prove to her father she could work with him. Instead, they remained faithful to the family dynamics.

Lynn’s first instinct was to try and talk her daughter out of taking the path she’s already started. For the audience, we all know that it was ultimately a waste of her breath.

Anissa realizes that Black Lightning was the reason her parents divorced. But even considering the personal cost of becoming a ‘masked hero’, Anissa is still willing to make the sacrifice.

I have frequent issues with Lynn’s attitude toward Jefferson being Black Lightning. I can understand her feelings from the point of view of having someone you love return home beaten, bruised or close to death.

I get asking him to stop when they were married and I can even understand making it a condition of getting back together, but sometimes it sounds as though she doesn’t see the big picture.

So, it was pleasant surprise that Lynn faced reality and adjusted her focus to increasing the odds of keeping her daughter safe.

To do that she decided to give her daughter all the tools she needs to be successful/survive the life she’s intending to lead. She asks Jefferson to train Anissa and asks Gambi to make her a suit.

Jefferson is still angry with Gambi. He feels betrayed because Gambi kept information about Tobias being alive from him. Gambi can only say that he’s done what he’s done to protect Jefferson from Jefferson.

Gambi desperately wants Jefferson to avoid killing Tobias because of what murder would do to Jefferson’s soul. I believe him, but is that all of it?

It seems that Gambi’s past involved killing people and it’s a past he regrets. So the advice he gives Jefferson is from experience, but there are the deals that Gambi made with Tobias and Lady Eve.

Is he protecting himself as much as Jefferson, or is the sole motivation behind those deals protecting Jefferson? I’m looking forward to finding out.

By the end of the episode, Jefferson learns that Gambi’s warnings about being responsible for someone’s death costing a piece of your sole are true. His attack on Tobias leads to the death of Tobias’ sister, Tori. And that death weighs on Jefferson.

When Jefferson talks to Anissa about training her, he warns her that they both will make mistakes, horrible mistakes, and agrees to teach Anissa what he knows.

The Pierces realize, pretty quickly, that the attack on Lynn was because of the box of data Anissa gave her to study.

Anissa tried to warn David Poe, the man who gave her the box of her grandfather’s research, only to find that he was already dead. But…what happened to the research?

There’s so much corruption in Freeland that my first thought was that someone on the crime scene investigation team has probably already passed it on to Lady Eve.

It feels like there are answers to the greater mystery in that box. It made me a little crazy that we don't know where it is. It needs to get back to Lynn.

I enjoyed the way they tied up the threads of the previous episode, but the new story threads introduced this episode left me gaping at my television in mild shock.

I guess the writers decided that while they were shaking up the status quo in the Pierce family, they might as well shake up the entire canvas.

First, Gambi, after trying to convince Lady Eve to take care of Tobias, (can you really blame her for refusing? A 300% profit is nothing to sneeze at. I’d put up with a lot in that situation too.) gets the green light to go after Joey Toldeo, he kills the man in cold blood (!) and leaves a box containing that powder, presumably made from an Albino's bones, on the body.

I honestly never expected Gambi to kill. I know he’s living in a precarious position trying to balance Jefferson, Lady Eve and Tobias on a pinhead, but I assumed part of the complications of his deals was driven by a desire not to do what he did in his previous life.

Tobias’ reaction isn’t what Lady Eve predicted. He’s not scared. He’s angry.

Second, Jefferson goes after Gambi fully intending to kill the man. The ensuing firefight leaves Tobias’ sister, Tori and Syonide, his hench-woman, dead.

Those weren’t the only shockers of the episode. They killed off Lady Eve, the woman we believe was their major villain, using weapons designed to frame Black Lightning. It doesn’t seem likely to me that those weapons belong to Tobias.

Lady Eve was a bad ass though. The extra guy hiding in the casket implied that whoever arranged that hit knows Lady Eve and figured she'd be able to handle the guys coming at her through the front door.

It seems to me there is another player out there. The implication has been that Tobias was behind the Green Light, but his reaction to his sparing partner being on wouldn't make sense if he was.

I would have expected more of a ‘he should know better than to use his product’ reaction. Instead he seemed to detest Green Light because he couldn’t make any profit on a drug that kills so many users.

Is this new villain behind the missing kids and experiments that Jefferson’s father was looking into?

Oh, and dare I forget, Lala! Is that what Lady Eve has really been doing in her mortuary? I thought for a moment that LaWanda had also returned from the dead, but instead she's some type of ghostly brand Lala will have to wear. Hopefully she'll pop out now and then to torture him.

Questions and more questions and I am more excited about what comes next on this show. I'm actually annoyed that we won't get the standard 22 episodes this season.

They changed the music up for this episode. It really worked for me with the exception of the song playing over the first three scenes.

I usually don’t think about the soundtrack of an episode. But, while I liked the contrasting rhythms in music with the content of those scenes. I think it would have worked better for me if they’d picked a song with no vocal.

That's a minor nitpick though. I really enjoyed the episode.

What did you think about the episode? Any guesses about the unseen villain? Were you expecting Lady Eve to be killed so soon?