Black Lightning 4×03 Review: The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Three

Black Lightning’s latest episode, “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Three”, features some major breakthroughs for the Pierce family.

After the events of “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Two”, the Pierce family finally takes some steps towards healing from the grief of the Markovian conflict and reuniting as a family in “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Three”. Jefferson’s (Cress Williams) refusal to wear the Black Lightning suit continues in this episode. He spends the episode dealing with nightmares of Tobias (Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III) taunting him, arguing with Lynn (Christine Adams), and helping out Marcel (Kedrick Brown), the teacher at his school who previously revealed that he had lost everything due to the war.

While it’s frustrating to see Jefferson continue to avoid the suit, it’s great to see him helping people again. Though Jefferson and Lynn’s argument wasn’t enjoyable, Jefferson was right to call Lynn out on her hypocrisy over the years. With the help of his and Lynn’s therapist (Bethann Hardison), Jefferson starts to deal with his grief and makes positive progress forward in attempting to reconcile with his family. There’s no doubt that something will finally convince him to return to the suit and Black Lightning’s return will hopefully be worth the wait.

Meanwhile, Lynn has a breakthrough of her own with the therapist. Recounting her previous arguments with Jefferson and her daughters, she compares it to her younger experiences with her brothers. She realizes that she has continually inserted herself in places where she doesn’t belong. This realization was a needed first step after Lynn’s conflicting issues with metahumans and her family’s superhero activities over the course of the show.

While Jefferson and Lynn end the episode hoping to reconcile, Tobias potentially puts their relationship in jeopardy once again by creating a misunderstanding between them. Hopefully, this misunderstanding will be fixed quickly, but there’s no doubt that the meeting and potentially Tobias’s tempting research and funding offer to Lynn will cause more drama for the Pierce family. Tobias is following through on his threats to Jefferson, and it will be satisfying to see the Pierce family finally stop him once and for all.

Elsewhere, Gambi (James Remar) starts testing out one of the anti-metahuman guns in his lab and finds that the gun burns a hole through Jefferson’s Black Lightning suit. The gun’s power is a danger for the Pierce family or the other metahumans of Freeland and it’s frightening to think about who, if anyone, will end up becoming a victim of the guns.

Jennifer (China Anne McClain) deals with the aftermath of last episode’s shooting, as reporter Rebecca Larsen (Amanda Baker) airs doctored footage of Lightning’s heroics, criticizing the property damage and giving her the nickname of ‘Lethal Lightning.’ Jennifer decides to take control of her own narrative with the help of TC (Christopher Ammanuel) by acquiring the unedited footage and creating her own verified Twitter account to show everyone what really happened.

The story line provides interesting commentary on how the media can create bias in how they present stories to the public. It’s empowering to see Jennifer set the record straight and her partnership with TC was fun to watch. TC was a great addition last season, as he fits in with the rest of the cast and has a very interesting and useful power, and his return is welcome. Jennifer has come a long way since the beginning of the show and her transition into embracing her powers and becoming Lightning has been thrilling to watch.

The biggest development of the episode is that Grace (Chantal Thuy) has finally awoken from her coma. Overjoyed and eager to pick up where they left off, Anissa (Nafessa Williams) convinces Grace to get married in the hospital. Grace agrees and newly ordained Darius (Todd Anthony) conducts the ceremony.

Grace awakening from her coma was long overdue and it’s great to see Anissa and Grace finally have their long-awaited wedding. However, Black Lightning’s pattern of not taking as much time to develop things with Anissa and Grace compared to other relationships and storylines continues. The episode has Grace awake in the first half of the episode, but the audience doesn’t get to see her process the fact that she has been in a coma for a year.

The next time the audience sees Grace, Anissa is convincing her to get married in her hospital bed and they then have a brief ceremony. More time could have been spent having Anissa help Grace readjust back to the world, and it’s frustrating that more time was spent on Jennifer and TC creating a Twitter account than there was on Grace coming out of a year-long coma.

As Anissa convinces Grace that they should get married, Grace brings up the fact that Anissa’s family isn’t there. Anissa insists that they don’t need to be there and Grace admits that a secret wedding is fine. Last season’s penultimate episode teased a wedding officiated by Gambi and surrounded by their friends and family, and this rushed hospital wedding is a downgrade. Despite that, Grace waking up is a huge relief and Anissa and Grace’s declarations of love to each other were really sweet. Now that Grace is awake, it will be amazing to see Anissa and Grace once again working as a team, both as a married couple and as superheroes.

One thing that has been missing from this season so far has been the lack of scenes of the Pierces as a family. This episode had a brief scene of Lynn, Anissa, and Jennifer watching TV together, complete with sisterly banter that has been sorely missed, but not much else. With all of the developments in this episode and with Black Lightning coming to its conclusion, there will hopefully be a resolution to their conflicts sooner rather than later and more great moments coming up with them working together as a team.

Author: Jessica Wolff

Jessica Wolff is a graduate of Drexel University with a BS in Film/Video. She has a passion for entertainment and representation in entertainment. She currently resides outside of Washington, DC.

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