Black Lightning #1.1 "The Resurrection" Series Premiere

[KSiteTV]

Count down to tonight's Black Lightning series premiere and talk about it LIVE as it airs!

All kinds of related content can be found here: http://blacklightningtv.com

[darkphoenix21]

Jefferson was a bada$$, he’s pissed now, but... what are they trying to say that in the first 20 minutes of this show he’s had 3 run ins with the police?

[darkphoenix21]

Any chance Gambi is actually Lord Rayden in disguise?

[Superman's Princess]

I wonder what the older daughter knows about her father.

[KSiteTV]

So, what did everyone think?

[Superman's Princess]

So, what did everyone think?

I'm still undecided, but will be watching next week.

Whatever the older daughter knows she's going to need to be told the full story now that she seems to be developing powers of her own and I hope that leads into backstory about how Black Lightning got his.

[Aurora Moon]

It was a fairly okay ep, it reminded me of the TV series Luke Cage a lot. Not that's a bad thing of course.

The only downside is, I still can't get over how bad/cheesy that super-suit looks. I really hope they'll improve on it down the road.

[darkphoenix21]

I’m not sure yet about this show. I hope they don’t go too heavy on the gang violence angle. I don’t need it to be as dark as Arrow or as light as Flash/Supergirl/LOT.

The only downside is, I still can't get over how bad/cheesy that super-suit looks. I really hope they'll improve on it down the road.

Yeah, I’m still not a fan of the neon.

[vantheman77]

Great start to the series. The most urban street out of all Berlanti's DCU shows. It's best be left stand-alone and not be part of the Arrowverse.

[AsteroidMike]

For a series premiere this was a real enjoyable, opener and a bit realistic, showing things like how teens are essentially stupid and lie to their parents. Admittedly I don't know much about Black Lightning apart from some basic info, unlike the Flash or Green Arrow so I'd need to dig into some reading on him.

The only downside is, I still can't get over how bad/cheesy that super-suit looks. I really hope they'll improve on it down the road.

Yep, I liked his original/actual suit they showed in a brief clip earlier in the episode, that looked much better. My only real complaint about the episode.

[DJ Doena]

I did enjoy it overall. I didn't even know it had Mayor Lavon Hayes in it.

But just like with the Supergirl pilot it felt a bit too over-the-head. I'm not American, I don't live in America. But when he drove home with his Volvo at regular speed and was stopped by the police. Firstly because it seemed so random because from what we saw it was unlikely could even see that the driver was black until they had stopped the car. Then these two officers saw the girls in the car. And still they pulled him out. It doesn't even work as a pure harassment scene because they immediately let him go when the asian women did not identify him. As I said it just felt so random just to show "how badly black people are treated".

[Austin 3:16]

Loved it. I was cheering Jefferson aka Black Lightning on when he was kicking serious butt. The scene where he was torturing the one who took his daughters and he said something like it was a nice car. That was a great scene. Reminded me of season one Arrow. I had to laugh when he said the "It was" when he mentioned he liked the car. Cress Williams was perfectly cast as Black Lightning. He mixes humor and drama so well.

Someone asked me how I would describe the show. I would say Arrow Season One. Very dark but very fun and we got to really know the lead character and why he does what he does. Good storytelling and I'm looking forward to episode two.

[Who]

Enjoying it so far. Like how the dad is the superhero in this one opposed to Joe in the Flash or Quentin in Arrow who are the unpowered heroes.

[Aurora Moon]

I did enjoy it overall. I didn't even know it had Mayor Lavon Hayes in it.

But just like with the Supergirl pilot it felt a bit too over-the-head. I'm not American, I don't live in America. But when he drove home with his Volvo at regular speed and was stopped by the police. Firstly because it seemed so random because from what we saw it was unlikely could even see that the driver was black until they had stopped the car. Then these two officers saw the girls in the car. And still they pulled him out. It doesn't even work as a pure harassment scene because they immediately let him go when the asian women did not identify him. As I said it just felt so random just to show "how badly black people are treated".

The racial issues in America is already to the point where everything's over the top already. In America we already have this major issue where the police overreact to every perceived threat... they'll even shoot a tiny purse dog and then say they "feared for their life". In fact there was already an incident like that a while back, where a cop tried to shoot a Pomeranian dog and ended up accidentally shooting somebody instead. There's hundreds and hundreds of stories like this if you know where to look.

The cops tend to harass everyone, but black people get the worst of it because of things like black sterotypes, etc.

But I do agree that it seems to suffer a little from Supergirl's season 1 brand of preachiness and being up in your face about it. It's likely that anybody who's watching black lighting is already aware of those issues if they've been paying attention to international news or American news in general. So they could do well to tone it down just a tad.

But at the same time it did help highlight why Black Lighting was needed again.

[DJ Doena]

I do believe you that something like this happens in RL every day. But in this specific plot scenario? I mean there was apparantly a robbery. The cop had the witness in his car. How does “let me stop this random family car with two young female passengers” in any way help him solve this crime? This wasn’t a random stop and frisk, were the cop could be a bigot after his heart’s contempt. In this case they were actually looking for someone specific. That’s what irritated me about this plot point.