TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Black Lightning Season 4 Episode 10: Revelations

The march to the end continues and things definitely heated up with “Revelations” as many pieces to Tobias’ plan fell into place and the Pierce’s were left holding the pieces of the lives they USED to have.

If you recall, Tobias used the nullifying power from his assistant mixed with the emitter to nullify all the metas in Freeland, leaving everyone in the Black Lightning family in compromising positions. Naturally, they all made it out mostly unscathed, but now they suddenly had to deal with everything without their powers and that led to some questions both fair…and forced.

For example, Jennifer feeling completely lost without her powers is understandable given her transformation. Grace not wanting her powers back because of all it did to her is also fair. Jeff hating the “powerless” feeling because he can’t protect anyone is also fair. But…

…these three characters then went to extremes to deal with their “pain”. Jennifer going back to the Ionosphere was insane, just as much as electrocuting herself. By all rights, that shouldn’t have worked because of the nullifying field that is still in effect. And if it wasn’t for TC talking her down she would’ve disintegrated again, and that made it all the more eye-rolling. Her talk about needing her powers to stay sane was the path to go but Jennifer has been reckless for far to long to make it sympathizable anymore.

Meanwhile, Grace wanting Anissa to consider life without powers was an interesting one, and Anissa fighting back by noting that Grace has always known her as a meta was great. BUT, then Grace tried to make it seem like everything ‘would be fine’ without powers and that Freeland can “take care of itself” without the Pierce’s saving it. In what universe is she living? Because not only does she KNOW that’s not true, she knows that the city right now is under siege from Tobias and yet the city is supposed to “take care of itself”? Huh???

Finally, Jeff came off as bitter and petty in the worst ways via how Lynn got out of jail. First and foremost, calling in an old friend who just so happens to be her ex??? REALLY? You couldn’t just have him be an old college friend? That would’ve made it so much easier to swallow. But then having Jeff become angry that it was this “old flame” saving Lynn instead of him was just sad. Having him wish he could done what the lawyer did would’ve been fine. But this definitely wasn’t the way to play it.

Just as curious was the arrival of “The Board”, a group that Tobias Whale is seemingly in league with…for reasons we don’t know about. Given that we’re heading into the final episodes it seems odd we’re just NOW hearing about all of this, and we still don’t know anything outside of them being powerful and wanting Tobias to be mayor and such. But to what end? Hopefully an info dump isn’t on the way.

And as for the Painkiller stuff, that better pay off soon because it’s honestly getting a bit annoying seeing him just go from spot to spot and doing his “split personality” act and killing bad guys. There’s needed, and then there’s gratuitous.

Look, griping aside, “Revelations” wasn’t all bad. It had a lot going for it, including scenes I didn’t mention like Gambi coming clean to his own old flame. But like in all good stories there needs to be reasons and balance to new developments and this wasn’t handled with the right amount of reason and balance in my opinion.