TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Black Lightning Episode 3: Lawanda: The Book Of Burial

Black Lightning continues to walk the interesting line between superhero show, family drama, and political activist show. And interestingly enough, it works for the most part. “Lawanda: The Book Of Burial” took this notion into even deeper territory where a protest brought out the best and worst in some people, and revealed new players to the scene.

The biggest addition in this episode is Lady Eve, who is someone even Tobias Whale fears and respects. She’s a God-fearing woman, but one that isn’t afraid to put fear in the hearts of man. It’s going to be interesting to see how she plays into the rest of the season, especially her relationship with Tobias. Who, for the record, did come off a little better here as we got to see more of his personality come off via his conversations and monologues.

Then, there was the arrival of Reverend Holt, who used the death of Lowanda from last episode to galvanize the people and lead a protest against the 100. What made him interesting was that he believed Black Lightning’s return was a “sign from God”, and that they needed to believe in that sign to rise up. The conflict with Holt and Henderson was very heated, and very poignant. Henderson came off especially strong here, and proves that he is indeed one of the good ones, even if he doesn’t believe in Black Lightning being good for the community.

The attack on the protest was a bit short, but it was the lead-up and the follow through that mattered here. Seeing Gambi use his military background (and epic VR tech!) to help Jefferson plan out the defense of the protest was really cool. Gambi is a very smart man, clearly, and I look can’t wait to see him in action more. And I also look forward to seeing the reasoning behind deleting the file with Tobias Whale. Does he think Jefferson will go off the rails if he finds out he’s alive?

Meanwhile, back with the family, it was drama all over the place, and for different reasons. Anissa was dealing with the revelation of her powers in the only way she knows how, by testing them out and pushing her boundaries, but, that led to her being distant from her family. Jennifer meanwhile thought it was a good idea to say that “she was ready” to make love to her boyfriend…even telling them when it was going to happen.

That’s real life, my friends. And just as real was both Jefferson and Lynn failing to know what to say to her proclamation, and then Jefferson scaring Kalil straight. That’s good stuff.

Sadly, Anissa’s relationship issues wasn’t good, in fact, that felt just as forced as Kalil’s introduction in the last episode. After all, we saw Anissa with her girlfriend “together” in many scenes, which kind of showed that they were in a good place, right? Wrong! And true to CW form, a new girl was introduced in Grace (who I already like because she keeps a comic book in her pocket!), who will no doubt be Anissa’s next love interest, and thinks spiraled from there.

Also, Tobias his henchman to kill Black Lightning…and she missed. If she wasn’t a good shot, why did he have her take it?

Anyway, “Lowanda: The Book of Burial” was another solid episode of Black Lightning. And this type of quality could make it one of the best first seasons the CW/DC Comics shows have ever had.