Black Lightning 1.8 Recap: Anissa Begins Her Training And Gambi Reveals His Secrets

Jefferson starts training his daughter in the ways of being superhero. Not only physically, but mentally, too. During their run in the training simulation, Anissa has to be more cognizant of actual threats. Case in point, she takes down a white man in a Confederate flag shirt. Hey may have questionable ideology, but he didn’t really pose any risk to people. After the death of Lady Eve last week, both the police and members of the community have started to turn against the vigilante. In order to continue his search deeper into the street drug, Green Light, Black Lightning has to clear his name first to alleviate some of the heat on him. As he searches for the true killers, he finds this a good opportunity to bring his new trainee into the field under his supervision.
[**Spoilers for 1.8 Ahead!]
Meanwhile, Gambi meets with his boss at the ASA, Martin Proctor. The two discuss how Black Lightning is now a threat to their whole operation when he murdered Lady Eve. She played the intricate role of liaising between the ASA and The 100. The secret organization are the ones responsible for creating Green Light and needed the gang to distribute the product. Now they need to take down the one responsible of killing one of their own. Gambi pleads with his superior that there is still so much more to learn about metahumans so they need to keep the superhero alive and study him more. Proctor ignores the request and places a large bounty on Black Lightning’s head.
The father/daughter duo’s first step was breaking into the coroner’s office. They examine Lady Eve’s body for clues of her assailants. Anissa discovers Eve’s wounds are inconsistent to a lightning strike. If she were really slain in this manner, she would have tree patterns in the skin.  However, the wounds look like they were caused by a high voltage flash weapon. In order to power such a portable firearm would require nuclear energy. The two decide to track those responsible through the radiation signature.
Following their lead, Black Lightning and the now dubbed, Thunder, travel to the outskirts of the city into the woods. As they search for the weapons, Anissa learns so much about her father. He didn’t immediately turn to a superhero lifestyle once he learned of his powers, but when he did, Gambi served as his mentor training him on the tactical side of things. They finally find the person responsible for Lady Eve’s murder, but unfortunately, he is dead as well. Buried alongside the voltage gun he used. As his alter ego, Jefferson calls Inspector Henderson and informs him of their coordinates in order to collect the evidence. Hopefully if the police perform tests with the weapon, they will find out Black Lightning was not responsible for Lady Eve’s death.
While the two wait for the authorities, they hear a shady individual approaching. The man is not a uniformed officer or forensics unit. Jefferson goes for a closer look as their visitor fiddles with the weapon. Feeling that something isn’t right, Anissa springs into action and shields her father while the weapon explodes. The man is vaporized and their only chance of vindicating Black Lightning, the gun, is destroyed. The elder Pierce doesn’t seem too worried though and is more impressed by his daughter’s instincts and the fact that he’s still alive.

Also during the episode, Lynn feels someone is sabotaging her research into the files Anissa gave her. There are too many coincidences that don’t add up. While cleaning up her lab, she realizes all Anissa’s files are missing. When she goes to pick up results from the sample she was given, there was a break in at the facility. Her sample was stolen and all the results were lost due to a corrupted file.  Luckily for her, there was still a hard copy of the data. As she analyzes the findings, she discovers that the sample was a vaccine. Not only that, but it contained the same active ingredients as Green Light.
Lynn visits Gambi to see if he can make any sense of her findings or point her in the direction of someone who can. When she mentions that the files and samples came from Alvin Pierce, her father-in-law, the tailor quickly shoots her down and tries to convince her to drop her investigation. She puts two and two together and realizes that the vaccine first came to Freeland around the same time Gambi arrived. Gambi tells her that he needs to have an honest talk with his protégé.
When Jefferson and Gambi finally meet, the mentor reveals all his secrets. His real name is Peter Esposito and he is a member of a secret government organization called the ASA. Freeland was a political powder keg and the ASA decided they needed to relieve some of the tension. The vaccines were supposed to make the users docile, but one of the unexpected side effects was the creation of metahumans. It was Gambi’s job to find and bring the enhanced people back to the ASA. When he learned that children were being hurt, he leaked the information to Alvin, a local journalist. His actions made him directly responsible for the death of Jefferson’s father.  Green Light is the new method of affecting the people of Freeland. Now, Gambi’s bosses want Black Lightning killed and he can no longer protect the Pierces. Jefferson is enraged when he finally here’s the truth and warns his now ex-friend to stay away from him and his family.
What a bomb to drop, but there was still more from this episode. LaLa is trying to transition back to the world of the living and he’s haunted by ghost of his last victim LaWanda. He doesn’t understand why he was brought back and turns to LaWanda for answers. Only he can see her though and his cronies begin to question their boss’ sanity.
It was only a matter of time before the youngest Pierce daughter received powers of her own.  Spurred by the fear of watching her friend fall from scaffolding, Jen exhibits electrical powers similar to her dad’s, but with red lightning instead. She singed up some campaign posters and burned her phone. She even has some control over her abilities and she was able to use them again. At the end of the episode, she approaches her sister and informs Anissa of her powers.
The master/pupil interactions between Anissa and Jefferson was fun to watch. Thunder still has so much to learn about being a superhero like learning to fine tune her powers and only use enough strength that is needed. Sometimes a task needs more finesse than sheer brute force. Also, she needs to gain a better understanding of her weaknesses. Does her invulnerability power also protect her from radiation and chemicals, or merely physical attacks?
It is not surprising that Jen obtained powers of her own and I’m sure it will complicate the Pierce family dynamic even more. Fortunately, Anissa can help guide her through this time since she is undergoing the same process. Furthermore, now that there is a bigger threat to Black Lightning, adding another enhanced hero to his side can help him overcome the ASA.
Finally, even though there was no action in this episode, it was still satisfying because a number of questions were answered. We now know about Gambi’s past and why he’s been so shady and hiding the complete truth from Jefferson all this time. It is also interesting to learn the motives of the ASA and how much they’ve been trying to manipulate and control the people of Freeland.  Vaccine or street drug, they all serve the same purpose, just with new packaging.
Black Lightning airs Tuesday nights at 9:00 pm on the CW.