After a brief trip to Akashic Valley last week for the Painkiller backdoor pilot, Black Lightning returns this week and brings the story back to Freeland, catching viewers up with the Pierce family. Last we saw the Pierces they were dealing with some huge changes. After a catastrophic encounter with the ionosphere, Jennifer Pierce literally came undone and had to be put back together on the genetic level resulting in a brand new look (the character was recast from China Anne McClain to Laura Kariuki). But that wasn’t the only challenge they faced. Tobias Whale (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III) continued his machinations for power in Freeland and to destroy Black Lightning.
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Need to get caught up on all the major details and stories from this week’s episode of Black Lightning? We have you covered. Here are all the major plot points for “The Book of Ruin: Chapter Three: Things Fall Apart”. Warning: Full spoilers ahead for the episode beyond this point. Read on only if you really want to know.
Crashing the party
Back from their honeymoon trip to Akashic Valley, Anissa and Grace go to visit the family to tell them about their marriage and find themselves confronted with a surprise party — it’s Anissa’s doing. However, the party is interrupted by the FBI banging on the door with a warrant to search the house. After a tense moment, Jefferson lets them in. The government claims he’s embezzling money from the high school. Lynn suspects it’s Tobias’ doing.
Imminent domain
Tobias isn’t just trying to get at Jefferson through criminal charges, either. At a coffee shop, the teacher from the fight club, Marcel, meets with Jefferson to show him a notice that the house is being taken by the city — Tobias and his developers are taking the whole neighborhood. He plans to build a hospital in the area, something that is a popular move among voters in Freeland.
JJ
Jen — now JJ — heads off to school. TC asks her how she’s feeling and they chat, but they also come across a student, Montel, trying to get clout online by making a big deal about the charges against Jefferson. He’s confronted by another student — Uriah. JJ ends up flirting with him. When Jefferson tries to fight for the house, Jen tells him to take the money and move on. During the conversation, she calls him Daddy, which takes him by surprise. Later at her lab, Lynn goes over some additional tests on JJ and discovers that there are, in fact, differences between Jen and JJ — JJ’s lab read as “unstable” but Lynn doesn’t say anything.
Ishmael
At Lynn’s clinic, Anissa runs into an old friend who is pregnant, but the baby tested positive with markers for cystic fibrosis. Another doctor says that they can fix it entirely, much to Anissa’s surprise. Turns out, it has something to do with their partnership with Montavista but it’s a secret — and the patients are referred to Monavista, something that seems to not set well with Anissa. Later, Blackbird and Wylde break into the clinic to get records on Kiki’s cystic fibrosis procedure and are confronted by Ishamel. He manages to knock Blackbird down, but after a protracted fight, it’s only when Wylde shifts into a tiger that the fight ends with Ishmael fleeing. Gambi later fills Anissa and Grace in on everything he’s found out about Ishmael.
A killer found
Tobias hosts a rally and says he thinks Jefferson has been arrested on embezzlement charges and uses that as an example of how far Freeland has fallen and how he is the solution to bring Freeland back up. He also trots out Marcel, playing up how he was a homeless teacher at Garfield but he’s now changed his life. Elsewhere, Tobias’ henchman confronts Baxter at Monovista, using his powers to assault the man with a golf club and then threaten to kill him with a bullet. Gambi watches through the security system. It confirms him as the mayor’s killer.
Null and void
Lynn pays Gambi a visit. She has a vial of Val’s powers that she needs to test, but can’t risk testing it on herself. Gambi agrees to let Lynn inject him to test them instead. However, after the injection, Gambi doesn’t really feel any different. Lynn thinks something is wrong. Later, at the Sanctum, TC is trying to track things with the money and embezzlement but when Gambi walks in, TC can no longer talk to the computers. When he walks away, he can. Lynn figures out that’s Val’s powers are nullification, making her the single greatest threat to the Pierce family.
Odds and ends
In his room, TC video chats with Philky about Khalil and Painkiller. TC fills in Khalil about what’s going on with Jefferson and Khalil offers to help deal with Tobias.
At Monavista, Lauren gets her energy device online. Gambi creates a diversion so that he can acquire promethium and narrowly avoids getting caught. He plans to use the promethium to fortify the Pierce family’s suits.
At school, the music program is cut and JJ suggests that they do a fundraiser to get the money to continue the program and suggests she has an idea how.
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