For a recap of the last episode “Three Sevens: The Book of Thunder,” click here

This post contains Major Spoilers for episode 1×07 of Black Lightning, “Equinox: The Book of Fate.”

This week’s episode begins a little bit after we left off last week, with Anissa and Lynn dealing with Anissa’s injuries after she found out her dad is Black Lightning in the last episode. Lynn doesn’t approve of Anissa’s vigilantism and believes its going to ruin her life, like her fathers. Anissa believes that her and her father can take down the 100 as a team.

At Gambi’s, Jefferson is upset that Gambi was withholding information about Tobias being back in the city. Gambi believes he was protecting Jefferson from him-self, he thought if Jefferson knew, he was going to do something he would ultimately regret.

Meanwhile, Tobias and an unknown lackey fight in a cage. After Tobias knocks him out, the man get’s back up even stronger. Joey Toledo pulls a gun out to shoot him, but Tobias likes the man’s mettle and decides to finish him off himself. After knocking him out again, Joey Toledo goes through the man’s stuff only to find out he was on Green Light.

At the police precinct, Lynn (with Jefferson) describes the man who came after her to a sketch artist. The Inspector then questions Lynn on why Black Lightning would help her. The Inspector believes Lynn’s research on addiction was targeted by a third party but Lynn doesn’t believe there is any money in her research. Next, the Inspector questions Jefferson. Jefferson plays dumb about the whole thing, about the 100 going after his daughter and his ex-wife Lynn, but the Inspector tells him to just “watch his back.” Later, Lynn confirms the 2 men that broke into her lab with the sketch artist. Before leaving, Lynn informs Jefferson about the box Anissa brought to her right before the men broke in.

In a conversation with his sister, Tobias believes that Green Light is too addictive and volatile and that dead people don’t make him money. He wants to personally meet face-to-face with Lady Eve.

Lynn want’s to run test’s on Anissa using the technology that she’s been working on in her lab but Jefferson doesn’t think it’s safe to go back there, he suggests they go to Gambi’s. Jefferson decides that until they find the men that came after Lynn, they will “convince her (Anissa) that using her powers is putting her life in danger.” Lynn and Jefferson ponder if Jennifer will inherit abilities too and all Jefferson can do is sigh about that because he knows she’s too much, even without abilities.

At school, Jefferson get’s a call from the Inspector, asking him if he’s the guy with the “unique abilities.” The Inspector thinks there’s another meta-human like Black Lightning in Freeland as he heard from a witness from the confederate statue vandalism. Jefferson again plays dumb and say’s he doesn’t know anyone like that but ask’s if there is a way he could track Joey Toledo down for him. Jefferson then tells the Inspector he’s not after Toledo but Tobias Whale, however the Inspector doesn’t really believe him because he believes Whale is dead.

Anissa walks into Jefferson’s office to tell him she’s ready to hit the streets as a vigilante and Jeff does the best he can to try to dissuade her from the life, he tells her she can’t lose her head like she did at the confederate statue, and that she’s not ready, even know Anissa asks to be trained. Jefferson asks her about his father’s box Anissa gave to Lynn, Jefferson believes it was selfish to give it to her without telling her what it really was.

Gambi visit’s Lady Eve to talk about Tobias. Eve tells him he’s irreplaceable because he makes her a 300% profit, however Gambi argues that Tobias is getting too big for himself, he’s supposed to be underground but he’s making too much noise and even opening a night-club. Lady Eve offers Gambi to let him take down Joey Toledo, so it doesn’t throw off the whole balance of the eco-system.

At home at the Pierce residence, Jennifer notices that something is going on between her sister Anissa and her father Jefferson. Again, Jefferson tries to play dumb about the whole situation by telling her it’s just about a follow up exam Anissa wanted, but Jennifer is on to them.

Lynn is staying at Gambi’s when Anissa walks in. Lynn talks to her about the trials and tribulations she will have to go through and that she doesn’t want to see Anissa go through all that. Anissa puts the pieces together and realizes that the reason her parents broke up was because of her dad becoming Black Lightning. Anissa wants to give up her happiness so the people of Freeland can have theirs. Anissa finds out at the gazette that David Poe, the man responsible for giving her the box of files is dead.

At the fight club we saw at the beginning of the episode, Joey Toledo sits in the back room counting money before his security gets a red alert. Gambi walks in and fires two bullets into Joey Toledo’s chest and leaves a little box of magic albino dust on his chest as a message.

At Gambi’s, Lynn changes her tune about Anissa and her powers and now asks Jefferson to train her to protect her. Later, Anissa stops by again and finds out from Gambi that he’s making her a super-suit of her own.

Tobias finds out from his sister that Joey Toledo is dead and she gives him the little box of magic albino dust. At the crime scene, Black Lightning meets with the Inspector. Black Lightning believes Toledo was his only lead to Tobias but the Inspector found some parking tickets tied to Toledo’s girl-friend outside Tobias’ new nightclub that could help Black Lightning find Tobias.

Black Lightning goes to the jazz club not before having flashbacks of his dads murder by Tobias. Black Lightning enters the club and fights Tobias and his goons, injuring Tobias and his sister, but Tobias gets away. At the same time, Lady Eve is attacked at her funeral parlor and shot in the face with a lightning gun.

Anissa calls Grace Choi, who we haven’t heard from in a few weeks before her dad comes in for a quick chat. Jefferson starts off by saying he’s a hypocrite and he doesn’t know everything but he wants to train Anissa. Jefferson gets a call from the Inspector telling him he went too far this time, as we see a close up of Lady Eve’s fried face.

In the final scene we see a familiar face back from the dead, its LaLa! A resurrected LaLa then has a vision of LaWanda before she dissipates into a tattoo on his body. What an ending!

Thoughts:

Black Lightning continues to keep the stakes very high. With the deaths of Lady Eve and Joey Toledo, the big bad focus should remain on Tobias Whale for the rest of the season. With nobody pulling his strings anymore and the return of LaLa, things are about to get real interesting for Tobias and the city of Freeland.

Black Lightning has told a tight, cohesive story so far throughout the first 7 episodes allowing a few characters to shine every week while a few take a back seat. I try not to compare Black Lightning to the other DC Shows on the CW, but every week I hear this voice in the back of my head saying to myself, why can’t these other shows be more like Black Lightning? While its much easier to tell a story like Black Lightning in 13 episodes rather than the 22 or so episodes Arrow and the Flash have, I find myself lamenting over the character growth and openness of each individual character. Characters don’t make irrational choices for sake of plot and each episode is packed to the brim that makes you think Black Lightning can do in 1 episode what the others can in 3 or 4. With 13 episodes, Black Lightning is moving at a brisk pace.

While Jennifer’s powers may not manifest for at-least a little while, Jefferson’s reaction to Lynn’s question about her getting powers was priceless. He knows that when Jennifer gets powers she’s going to be difficult, all he could do was shake his head.

It took about 4-5 episodes for Anissa to really grow on me but her transition into a super-hero has been excellent. Although I’ve seen her suit in a few promo’s already, i’m really excited to see how it will translate on the show.

Did anyone else think that Gambi was supposed to be this connected to everything going on? I sure didn’t.

I hate to say that Lynn has been the “buzzkill” on this show so far but she kinda has been. Kudos to the writers for not dragging her stance on Anissa becoming a hero for the whole rest of the season, or even longer. The one thing I find refreshing in this show is how the parents are open to changing their opinions on things, they really talk things out. I get that it’s scary for a mother to allow her daughter to dress up as a super-hero, but she has the best person she could possibly look up to in her father. While it can be frustrating when characters change their tune, Lynn’s transition was much more believable.

Hopefully this episode marks the first of many show-downs between Black Lightning and Tobias Whale, I was not disappointed.