Red Stewart reviews the ninth episode of Black Lightning season 3…
“Earth Crisis” made for one of the more interesting viewing experiences I have ever had the opportunity to have. Typically, in the past, I have been caught up with The CW and its yearly tradition of doing massive crossovers between its ever-growing properties that make up the Arrowverse (and its consequent multiverse). With an increased workload that diminishes my free time, I have been unfortunately forced to push off each new season to an ever-growing backlog, leaving Black Lightning as the only show I consistently keep up with.
Because of this, I walked into “Earth Crisis” oblivious to what had been going on in the larger playing field. Of course, having read the comic series of the same name, I am aware of the general plot scheme of Crisis on Infinite Earths: the multiverse is collapsing at the hands of the Anti-Monitor, forcing heroes across multiple Earths to join together. While there was always a lot of speculation in the past regarding whether or not Black Lightning took place in the mainstream “Earth-1” Arrowverse, the Crisis event has officially confirmed that it is in its own plane of existence.
As a result, the writers made the wise decision to have all the characters unaware as to what’s going on, perhaps as a way of not alienating viewers who, like myself, have been unable (or unwilling) to see all the other set-ups. Why is the sky suddenly red and flashing with bright lightning? I don’t know, and neither does the cast, which theoretically makes for a fresh viewing.
Alas, problems still arise as the episode does directly deal with the concept of multiple dimensions, an idea that’s been well-established in The Flash but not even touched upon in Black Lightning. And combined with the other ludicrous fictitious elements that the series has introduced without fleshing out (metagenes, rejuvenation, magic, etc…) and you have a storyline that’s inherently muddy. I get that the writing team didn’t have much to work with- it’s not like you could’ve done several exposition narratives beforehand dealing with a character or multiple characters exploring the outer worlds (or maybe you could have considering the nonsensical plotlines we’ve been forced to sit through these past two seasons). But there were other solutions, like maybe have the Crisis take place over the course of two episodes or Jennifer undergo power surges beforehand in preparation for the crimson cosmic storm.
I’m just spitballing here, but I feel either proposal would have helped make the transition to “Earth Crisis” much more palatable. Instead, we have scenes of Gambi and Anissa spending time trying to explain their coincidentally accurate theories about what is going on with Jennifer’s body (reference not intended).
I apologize, I haven’t even gotten into that dilemma yet. You see, the Crisis is causing Jennifer to enter a metaphysical pocket area where she can interact with two other versions of herself from different Earths: Genn (Earth-1) and Jinn (Earth-2). The two are evidently intended to be the atypical shoulder angel and devil that we’ve seen in past entertainment media, with Genn being someone who was punished for doing something for the greater good and Jinn being someone who is thriving without a moral code (an amoral code as it is!).
It’s not a bad concept, but as you can imagine it’s hard to set-up the depth and harsh reality the two other Jennifer’s worlds entail in the frame of a single episode. We get a lot of blatant exposition without the structure necessary to make it feel authentic or at least attention-grabbing. Horrible events happen on the two other Earths, but they’re presented more as action beats than strong drama.
A big part of the failure also unfortunately rests on the cast- they just don’t performances that encapsulate the otherworldly personas these other versions of themselves present. Say what you want about The Flash, but whenever the actors have had to drop into a different take they give it their all (mostly anyway!), probably because most of them come from a theater background. The same can’t be said for Black Lightning’s people, which is a shame as these guys and gals have proven to be Thespians in past episodes.
Because Jennifer is the center of attention here, China Anne McClain in particular drops the ball. I won’t say hard, because it’s not like her performance (or the others for that matter) were atrocious in any way, but she was very lackluster. She doesn’t embody the immoral nature of Jinn well at all, nor does she convey the intense regret Genn feels. Considering how good she’s been in the past, this was definitely disappointing to view.
There’s not much more I can say without giving intense spoilers. The relationship between the three isn’t engaging, and I found it to be more of a slog. What’s ironically amusing is that this is the first Black Lightning episode in a while to not feature extensive B-plots. There’s a small bit wherein Odell initiates a counterattack against the resistance and Jefferson, but the effects of those scenes are kept off-screen to bring the focus on Jennifer (or prevent the shoot from going overbudget).
Either way, things were more boring than anything.
Rating – 5/10
Red Stewart
