Black Lightning season 4, episode 8 review: Things Fall Apart

Tobias Whale gives everyone a masterclass on how to be a villain while barely lifting a finger in this week’s installment of Black Lightning season 4. 

Previously on Black Lightning season 4, we saw what happened to Khalil after leaving the show in season 3. He’s still dealing with Painkiller in his mind, but he’s handling it well and it definitely helps that he has a couple of friends to assist him. It’s lucky that Khalil chose this particular place to set up his base. Otherwise Anissa and Grace would have been captured and possibly killed by Agent Odell’s daughter Maya.

The previous episode won’t have much ramifications on this one though as “Painkiller” was a backdoor pilot to another potential Arrowverse spin-off. What you need to know now is that Tobias Whale is running for mayor of Freeland. Now that is a campaign that is going to get people killed and make the Pierce family’s lives more difficult. Also, the Freeland police are armed with weapons that can take out metahumans and Police Chief Ana Lopez is ready to kill anyone who opposes the law.

Let’s see what happens next in the eighth episode of Black Lightning season 4, “The Book of Ruin: Chapter Three: Things Fall Apart”.

Jefferson hit hard in Black Lightning season 4

After their honeymoon, Anissa and Grace step into a house for a huge surprise. Everyone is happy, which of course means something bad is going to happen. And it does as their celebration is interrupted by the FBI knocking on the door. It seems that Tobias has orchestrated a frame job to make it look like Jefferson was embezzling money.

If there’s one way to do it, it’s destroy one of Jefferson’s loves. Being a pillar of the community and a role model is more important to him than being Black Lightning. So having that thrown into question and perhaps seeing others lose faith in him had to hurt Jefferson more than any physical pain he’s felt. He knows he didn’t do it, but the stain of allegation may never wash off – even if the truth comes out.

Tobias said he was going to ruin the Pierce family and he’s keeping that promise.

Jennifer is unlike herself

Tobias’ next move is to get rid of Jefferson’s father’s house. Jennifer comes home to hear her father upset and, after Jefferson tells her that he could possibly get money for it, she tells him that he should take the money. However, he explains that he wanted to pass his house onto his kids and they could pass it onto theirs. Jennifer then apologized and called Jefferson “daddy” – something she hasn’t called her father in years.

We all knew something strange was going on with Jennifer. Her personality may have come back, but it’s been coming clear that a lot more has changed. Remember, it was previously said that one more test had to be run on her, so it was easy to see that something else was coming. We were anticipating it and her comments here made things more clear.

Tobias with another dagger

Tobias continues to ride the wave of momentum he is on, proving why he is such a historic villain. Watching him speak to the people of Freeland about Jefferson embezzling and then bringing in his colleague to stand with him was a devious move.

As this is going on, TC is trying to figure out if Jefferson was framed. Just as he gets in, however, the system kicks him out. His powers are working and this is when they find out how. The powers Lynn injected Gambi with nullifies metahumans’ powers.

You have to give credit where it’s due. Jefferson can’t do anything right now. He can’t defend himself against the court of public opinion or beat up Tobias, and now he has someone who can get rid of a metahumans’ abilities to worry about. This was a masterstroke from Tobias Whale.

Black Lightning review

All in all, this was an okay episode. There were times when things seemed to move super slow. Then, we suddenly learn another part of Tobias’ plan. That said, seeing him be this great is enough to keep people going while seeing the Pierce family dealing with the aftermath of his actions adds to the emotional hit, especially with Jefferson. Cress Williams’ facial expressions were great throughout. He really showed the pain of what Jefferson was going through.

Another critique was the somewhat predictable nature of some story developments. We knew that Jennifer’s test results would come back off. As soon as Lynn found out, we could sense that she was going to hide the information from Jefferson. Of course, this is bound to create more conflict between the pair.

This wasn’t a bad episode, it just wasn’t great.

Lightning Round

• Nothing good will come out of the gene testing. It hits too close to home with Black people being experimented on.
• Watching Gambi work is amazing. The Pierce family would be lost without his help.
• Laura Kariuki does a good job as Jennifer. She has the voice patterns down. China Anne McClain is missed, but she’s doing well.
• Seeing some of the students turn on Jefferson hurt. After all he’s done for everyone, people were ready to give up on him.
• Tobias having a nullifier on his team is genius. Even if Black Lighting or anyone on his team comes after him, she negates their powers.
• Seeing Ishmael run after being mauled by Grace was hilarious. Unfortunately, he’ll come back better prepared.
• TC working with Khalil is a nice twist. If the Painkiller show gets picked up, TC would a good character to keep around.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Black Lightning season 4? Are you loving Tobias as much as this writer? Let us know in the comments below!