‘Black Lightning’: Questions Raised by “Black Jesus: The Book of Crucifixion”

Warning: spoilers ahead for tonight’s episode of Black Lightning, titled “Black Jesus: The Book of Crucifixion.”

Tonight’s episode of Black Lightning was an intense, dangerous “bottle episode”-style hour of television, that left a lot of questions to be answered in the two weeks the show has left.

The episode will have ramifications for the remainder of the series as it pertains to William Henderson’s relationship with his community and the police department he serves, as well as the complicated relationship between Jefferson Pierce and his vice principal/ASA snitch Kara Fowdy.

In that spirit, there are a few questions we were hoping to get answers to before next week, when Black Lightning returns on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT for what looks like the last big showdown between Black Lightning and Tobias Whale.

What’s next for Kara Fowdy?

When Kara Fowdy was introduced in the pilot, she seemed a fairly straightforward character: a good, smart assistant principal who could serve as a foil for Jefferson at work and a potential confidant and/or the third side of a love triangle with Jefferson and Lynn. 

Later, we got a sense that she had a bit of a dark side, when she lashed out at Jefferson for disrespecting her and seemed suspiciously unhappy about Jefferson’s attempts to reconcile with Lynn.

Then last week, it was revealed that Fowdy was working for the ASA and had been tasked with “taking down” Pierce, whom they suspected of being Black Lightning. At the time, she didn’t seem to believe her boss and friend was secretly a superhero, but she seemed willing — with reservations — to bring him down.

This episode saw her take the leap, but she never seemed completely comfortable with it, and once she saw [an illusory verison of] Black Lightning moving through the city at the same time Jefferson was in custody, her patience with being asked to screw over someone she knew to be a good person ran out.

So, once Jefferson is out, whats’ next for her? 

Since the ASA’s head Martin Proctor did not seem particularly interested in the truth, just in being a blunt instrument, it would not be a stretch to imagine that he will not be happy with Fowdy after he finds out she failed to keep Jefferson in custody. His frustration could theoretically be very bad for her health, and that combined with her loyalty to Jefferson could easily swing her, if not to the side of Black Lightning then at least to the side of someone like Gambi who could help her get away from the ASA.

Is this what brings Tobias back to Freeland?

During the news broadcasts in the episode, the scroll at the bottom of the screen was talking about a corruption scandal which has “ensnared several public officials.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Cayman, who was at the beck and call of Tobias Whale in the first few episodes of the series, was taken down.

It seems at least somewhat plausible that the connection between Tobias Whale, who will return to Freeland next week, and the events of this week will be significant.

Could Whale — who was himself a public official disgraced in a corruption scandal — somehow successfully argue that his warrants should be lifted because the corrupt cops with a history of planting evidence could not be relied upon to convict someone with an otherwise spotless record? 

How “real” will they be with Jefferson’s arrest?

During this week’s episode, some of the genuine challenges facing overpoliced black communities were used to illustrate the challenges facing Jefferson.

Besides the planted evidence and dirty cops, his reasonable objections were labeled “resisting” and he had to essentially kowtow to the officers lest he run the risk of being beaten or worse while in custody.

There are other factors outside of the police department, though, and one has to wonder whether some of those factors will play into future storylines for Jefferson.

When a prominent figure is arrested, especially for a crime that has to do with children, the assumption on the part of a large portion of the public is that the person is guilty. That Pierce was released becuase of mishandled evidence is another strike against him, since there are a fair number of people who side with the police in almost any given situation. 

All of this adds up to one thing: in the real world, just the arrest, even if he was never charged, woudl dog Jefferson for quite some time, and make his day-to-day life harder to live. It’s not yet clear whether that will be the case on the TV show, but given how showrunners Salim and Mara Brock Akil have dealt with similar issues in the past, don’t be surprised if it’s there. 

What’s next for Jefferson and Gambi?

“I want to find a new balance somehow,” Jefferson told Gambi.

That balance seems to hinge primarily on the idea of using Gambi’s skillset to keep his daughters safe, and finding some kind of peace with working alongside someone at least partially responsible for the death of his own father in the process.

It seems, from this week’s episode, that the Gambi/Black Lightning relationship will stay largely the same even as the Gambi/Jefferson relationship isn’t. That is something we have seen in shows like Arrow before (remember season 5’s Oliver/Felicity relationship?), but here there is less time to repair the rift before the end of the season.

Of course, a lot of fans have suspected, both based on the trajectory of the season and the history from the comics, that Gambi might end up giving his life to die a hero…!