‘Black Lightning’ Cast Responds To That Shocking Arrest

Tonight on Black Lightning, an unexpected arrest happened that likely changed the course of the rest of the season.

Spoilers ahead for “The Book of Consequences: Master Lowry.”

In the final moments of the episode, Deputy Chief Bill Henderson made an arrest that nobody expected — and it’s one that will have reverberations through his relationships with various characters, especially Jefferson “Black Lightning” Pierce, whose identity he recently learned.

That arrest wasn’t Pierce, though, but Tobias Whale, who killed Pierce’s father, and who was fingered by an anonymous source.

There are two likely candidates: Khalil/Painkiller, who seems to be fighting his conscience while working for Tobias…or Tobias himself who, having cleaned up a number of loose ends and stolen evidence in last week’s episode, likely feels he is unlikely to be convicted for the years-old crime.

“I remember playing that scene the moment where he comes up and says, ‘We got Tobias,’” series star Cress Williams said. “And it’s just a flood of emotion. There’s this sense of relief, which is probably the most obvious thing. But on a very flip side of that there’s, ‘okay, what now?’ When you’re defined by this for so long, what now? And then on top of that there’s [the fact that the police] did it, but I wanted to do it. Jefferson wanted that satisfaction. It’s a whole myriad of emotions just in that moment. And as the series progresses it’s, like anything, not going to be that simplistic. It moves us down a whole other path. It’s just a flood. Even playing that scene it was just a flood of all these different things that didn’t quite make sense because you’re just trying to piece it together. A lot of times when you want something so badly that you’re focused on it and then you actually get it, did you get it in the way that you wanted? Does it come in that package? Is it actually what you really wanted? You anticipate what it’s going to feel like and it doesn’t quite. Because it doesn’t bring my father back, which I think an audience can see that and go, ‘Yeah, this is not.’ So there’s fulfillment but there’s also a great hole still there.”

Relief figured into the reaction that Damon Gupton said Henderson felt in the moment, too.

“Gotta be an incredible sense of relief for him. I feel like Henderson, now that he’s deputy chief, he’s running things. Also personally, they’re talking about Jefferson’s dad, too. I think there’s that connection to it.”

In spite of Henderson and Jefferson Pierce maybe not being in the best place, Gupton knows the arrest is personal for Henderson, and says he ad-libbed the addition of Tobias being arrested “for the murder of Alvin Pierce.” This is a man who is wanted for a slew of crimes, but to Henderson, that is the one that needs to be tied up the most.

Black Lightning airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, after episodes of The Flash on The CW.