Black Lightning S01 EP12 Review

It happened! Tobias Whale has finally returned to the show! Was it a great episode! How was the climax? Does it make things feel more urgent going into the final episode of the season after this episode? Well, lets discuss that!

At this point in the season, this episode finally started to pul together all the loose ends that have been hanging, and the start of that was the return of Tobias Whale. Turns out he is working for the ASA, but the little seeds of hints that he will try and take it over were great to make him less of a lap dog henchmen. I'm glad that he also mentioned his sister, as not mentioning her would be strange, though I did think it was a little weird that Tobias didn't mention her to Black Lightning at the end of the episode and took all his frustration out on a random henchmen in the beginning. With Tobias' return we also got the return of Khalil, which had bits of emotional weight such as when he went to visit Jennifer but otherwise he felt strange; he neglected going to see his mother and also never wrote her, was walking on the street very randomly where anyone could see him, and seemed very much like a brainwashed evil henchmen. In the beginning of the season it seemed as though Tobias would use Khalil's accident as a point through which to publicy thrash Black Lightning, but that happened without Khalil and it kind of feels like anyone could have been in Khalil's place since he is just a henchmen at this point. But there is still one more episode so that could change. Tobias' female henchmen Cyanide was back, and great to see in action again; watching her react to all her weapons being useless on Anissa was fun. The question that I had though, is if she is a robot? Probably not, but that cut on her arm looked really weird and not much like a real human arm on the inside, and if the cut was truly that deep, no way she was moving and fighting like she was after that.

Staging an attack on Garfield high school felt very right as a villainous plan, but one small question, what would Tobias, Khalil, and Cyanide do if the FBI had gotten there before Black Lightning? Not sure the three of them would have been able to deal with that, so good thing Black Lightning showed up before them. Jefferson's fight with Tobias and Khalil felt very intense, and having them kill him was very surprising and a shock to see, though of course he was brought back to life shortly afterwards. Jennifer finally got to use her powers for something too when she "jumpstarted" him back to life! I did find it odd that Jefferson freaked out so much about Jennifer potentially having a way to remove her powers, since she has told him repeatedly that she does not want powers, yet he thinks she should keep them regardless. Gives me X-men 3 vibes when Storm freaked out because Rogue wanted to get rid of her powers; not everyone wants powers.

Lala as well was back again, and seemingly under the command of Tobias with a codephrase that keeps him docile I'm guessing. Will they explain exactly how he came back to life though and getting Lawanda and Will as tattoos on his chest? Not sure anything Tobias did could have caused that, but hopefully they're building up to something with Tobias bringing Lala back. Just a sidenote, they haven't explained what the stuff is that Tobias takes that keeps him young, doesn't seem to be something from the ASA, so, what is it?

I am also sure that Anissa's girlfriend is completely gone from the show.

In the end, it was a delight getting Tobias Whale back for a major role in the episode, and it looks to be that he will play a major role in next week's season finale as well. Things are falling into place, with Lala and Khalil fully back on the scene, and Black Lightning's death was a good way to build the tension towards the end. Now all the show has to do is stick the landing and not leave any hanging questions from things they set up.