'Black Lightning' Composer Kurt Farquhar on the Music of That Intense Traffic Stop
Black Lightning's season finale was tonight, and even though the episode was largely focused on [...]
Black Lightning's season finale was tonight, and even though the episode was largely focused on bringing resolution to Black Lightning's battle with Martin Proctor and the ASA it also tied back to the series premiere by touching on the subject of police violence.
Spoilers for tonight's season finale of Black Lightning below.
In tonight's episode viewers saw a flashback of young Jefferson Pierce around the time his father was murdered. In the sequence, the citizens of Freeland are rioting after the police shot and killed an unarmed young black man. Jefferson himself nearly befalls the same fate when he is chased by police, but Jefferson's powers manifest for the first time and he is able to save himself. The powerful scene has echoes of one of the opening scenes from the series' pilot episode -- a tense traffic stop in which Jefferson is pulled over, manhandled by the police, and dragged out of his car without explanation. Showrunner Salim Akil previously explained that the tense traffic stop was inspired by his own life, and now, series composer Kurt Farquhar reveals that he brought his own, real-life experience to the music of that scene as well.
In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Farquhar spoke about how the show's approach to somber real-life issues includes its approach to music for those scenes and explained that was especially the case in that traffic stop scene.
"As an African-American composer, I probably approach [the music] a little differently," Farquhar explained. "The whole car scene, I've pulled over and spread out spread-eagle on the ground myself, the day after coming home from my second anniversary. I just got off a plan from Bora-Bora. I drive my car over to the studio to check in. I'm leaving. Ten minutes later I was on the ground on La Brea with guns all up on me. So, you have some emotional well to draw from. I knew that with all the great direction from Salim Akil... this is a scene he wrote because it's something that was real for him, so he had that to draw from. And it had to be very intense."
To capture the tension for the scene, Farquhar said that he considered that the music needed hold the tension and the feeling that, in the moment, you don't want to move because anything could happen. It was that feeling and that sense that they tried to create musically for the scene.
"The sense that you don't wanna move," he said. "Nobody wants to do anything, you don't wanna twitch a finger because something could happen. So, you have to be that in the music. You have to know that you can't be moving and getting all artistic with the music here. You just have to hold this tension and watch it build until it releases, and don't move a muscle. Something could go wrong. That sense of that feeling is very, very important because it's real. This totally keeps you in the reality of it."
Black Lightning has been renewed for a second season. ComicBook.com will provide you with any updates on the season two premiere as they come about.
