Black Lightning Season 4 Review

Overview

To give my overview for the final season of Black Lightning, we first need to go all the way back to season 3. Season 3 of Black Lightning was slow, with so many boring episodes until the back half of the season when the series started to pick up in terms of action, story, and just overall quality.

The first half of season 3 was slow, I pretty much hated it, it wasn’t until I watched the last few episodes where I got insanely excited for the upcoming final season of the show, fast forward over the break and we got hardly any promotional material for the season. I felt underwhelmed.

The premiere of season 4 started and while I did hate some things about it, it felt like the show was going all out for its final season with its story, action, characters, and quality, while the first episode of the season had its issues, I did finally get excited about it.

Throughout the season the show had its great moments and great action but all the way through had one major annoyance to the episodes, the character of Lynn, I thought her story arc and just the general writing for this character was beyond bad, whereas every other character including the likes of Grace had decent writing.

The story was great, it had stuff that it built up over the course of the show’s lifespan, Jefferson vs Tobias, the long-awaited showdown, while we had stuff for it leading up to the final episode, it was slow, I won’t lie, but in the end, it paid off in full.

My next issue was China Anne McClain leaving the final season early in the season and being recast with someone else for the remainder of the season and returning in the final episode. I fully believe this took away from the character of Jennifer.

Characters

Throughout the season, the show debuted characters who had ties to other major characters in the DC Comics lore, which was a welcomed edition but not all the characters were great, Tobias’s righthand man was underwhelming and hardly gave me any excitement at all.

The Pierce family were all wrote great apart from Lynn as I mentioned earlier, Jefferson had a slightly slow start for him in the season but once again, in the long run, that part paid off amazing and really well, We finally saw his story come to a close after many years of that issue holding him back.

One surprising character who stood out and was perfect in pretty much every single scene he was in was Khalil played by Jordan Calloway, I thought his character arc and the story surrounding him and his relationship with Painkiller was absolutely great and I really wished that they greenlit the Painkiller spin-off series.

Standout Character

Jefferson Pierce was the standout character of the entire season, while Khalil was a close second, I can not ignore seeing Jefferson’s story finally be closed.

Favourite Episode

Season 4 Episode 7 titled “Painkiller”, this episode was the backdoor pilot for the spin-off show starring Jordan Calloway as Khalil. This was the only episode in the season which received a 10/10 rating.

Worst Episode

Season 4 Episode 3 titled “Despite All My Rage…”, while I can remember many of the episodes, I remember this one the least.

Episodes & Their Ratings

Episode 1: The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter One – 7.3
Episode 2: The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Two – 7.3
Episode 3: The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Three – 6.1
Episode 4: The Book of Reconstruction: A Light in the Darkness – 7.3
Episode 5: The Book of Ruin Picking up the Pieces – 6.8
Episode 6: The Book of Ruin: Theseus’s Ship – 7.4
Episode 7: Painkiller – 10
Episode 8: The Book of Ruin: Chapter Three Things Fall Apart – 6.9
Episode 9: The Book of Ruin; Chapter Four – Lyding – 8.5
Episode 10: The Book of Reunification Chapter One: Revelations – 7.6
Episode: 11: The Book of Reunification: Chapter Two: Trial and Errors – 7.5
Episode: 12: The Book of Resurrection: Chapter One: Crossroads – 8.8
Episode: 13: The Book of Resurrection: Chapter Two: Closure – 8.5

Average rating – 7.7/10

Our Overall Rating 7.6/10

With a few major letdowns in terms of characters, the final season of Black Lightning closed the very long chapter of the story of Black Lightning. While the action, Story, and Antagonist were all great and fairly entertaining, a couple of characters let the overall season down. I would like to see Jefferson Pierce played by Cress Williams appear in other Arrowverse shows but that’s about it from the cast of Black Lightning.