Black Lightning

Previously on Black Lightning...

Look who's almost the king of Freeland now.

Something's wrong. I don't feel my powers.

TC, something's wrong!

-What the hell happened to our powers?

He used me to harness Val's nullifying powers.

Locating and shutting down that emitter

is our only hope of you getting your powers back.

I need more firepower.

Meta-boosters, my friend.

Designed to grant specified power

to whomever you choose.

Tobias has stolen meta-genes from pregnant women,

and he's using your R&D department to do it.

How can I help?

Well, Looker's a meta. She got this silver thing in her blood that she can

put into other people and make them do whatever she wants.

Tobias must have paid her to make people set you up.

Let me take care of this for you.

-What did you do to me? -Killed you.

We need her alive to take down Tobias.

You're going to admit to everything you did for him.

And you'll get the rest of the anti-venom.

Ishmael, I have some loose ends I need to tie up.

Uriah. Oh, my God.

So, you're Lightning, huh?

Don't cry.

Go.

Light up the world.

Come in.

Hey.

Was just, uh... checkin' to see if you need anything.

I'm not goin' to school today.

Yeah, me neither.

Too soon.

I understand.

You know...

I had my doubts about therapy, but it helped me and your mother.

So do you wanna talk about it?

Uriah's dead. It's my fault.

There's nothing to talk about.

No, Uriah's death is not your fault.

Tobias knew that I was Lightning and Jennifer Pierce.

He promised me that anytime I go out as Lightning,

someone I love would die.

He made good on his promise.

I'd finally found my rhythm of being Lightning and JJ,

and now, I'll never be Lightning again.

Okay, I know it's difficult--

You don't understand.

Thanks to Tobias, no one but me has their powers.

He could have anyone killed. Anissa, Mom, even you.

Yeah, we don't have our powers,

but we're still a family.

And we will protect each other like we always have.

But in the meantime,

Freeland needs Lightning, more than ever.

I can't watch anyone else die because of me.

It hurts too much.

You know, I never told you

or your sister

the details about my father's murder.

He was about to expose Tobias for the criminal that he is.

But Tobias had other plans.

So he cornered my father at our old house

and he... beat him to death.

While I hid under the bed...

and watched.

You were there the whole time?

Then I locked eyes with my father.

There were no words.

...huh, Uncle Tom?

But I understood.

It's time for you to eat your damn words.

If I made a sound, Tobias would kill me, too.

So, I watched my father die...

while I cowered under the bed.

You can't save everyone, Jen.

And yes...

Yes, it hurts.

But over time, the pain dulls.

But the most important thing is, you have to find a way to use it.

Now, until Gambi finds the emitter that's nullifying our powers,

the only thing that's standing between the people of Freeland

and Tobias...

is Lightning.

Being a superhero sucks.

Yeah.

Yeah, it does.

Just like old times.

Yeah. Secrets and all.

Is there something you wanna talk about, Lauren?

I'm risking everything to help you.

If Monovista knew I was hacking into their server,

I'd be looking at a serious prison sentence.

The least you could do is explain how promethium

and my emitter are connected to the stolen meta-gene.

I mean, come on, Peter. You know I can keep a secret.

If it were up to me, I would read you in,

but it's not my secret to tell.

Grace, honey, wake up, come on.

-Hey. -Hey.

I'm in.

I've hacked into Monovista's hidden servers.

Okay, so did you find where Monovista's

manufacturing its meta-gene harvester?

Because, guys, I'm not allowin' this corporation

to steal anymore meta-genes from unborn babies.

The Monovista servers were cleaned.

But I hacked into the CEO's personal files instead.

The meta-gene harvesting project is called "Event Horizons."

And only one harvester was manufactured.

And after you acquired these harvested genes,

all information associated with Event Horizons

was transferred to this building.

Okay, so, does that include the harvester and the schematics?

Nuking the building won't help if they can just build a new one.

Not only does it contain the schematics,

but also every meta-gene Monovista's stolen.

Hmm. Two birds, one stone.

Well, Anissa, we're just, uh, normal people.

-Are you sure we can do this alone? -Come on, we've seen worse.

Now, if we just blew these load-bearin' walls,

the whole building, it'll fall, right?

That building is owned by a shell corporation

with ties to Tobias Whale.

And the harvester schematics are protected by their local network.

Meaning that we'll have to have boots on the ground

to gain access and expunge any pertinent files.

All right, so, I think destroyin' the harvester,

the building, is all a piece of cake.

The servers are another story.

I think I might be able to help with that.

Uncle Gambi. So, you sayin'

we throwin' that brick into the servers?

In a manner of speaking.

This is my personal Pandora's Box.

I've been collecting the most harmful computer viruses since the '80s.

I think we can find something that'll do the job.

Alvin Pierce's house is yours once Jefferson signs over the deed.

I can read, thank you.

Just the call I've been expecting.

I've succeeded in my mayoral election.

You're all welcome to congratulate me now.

Your seat on the Shadow Board was contingent upon securing the election

and establishing control of the meta presence in Freeland.

And yet, we have confirmed reports that Lightning remains active.

An oversight I'll soon correct.

The Shadow Board does not tolerate failure.

Your seat has been rescinded.

Effective immediately.

Hmm.

Am I supposed to be impressed?

No.

But they sure are about to be.

My assassin was rendered invisible through a meta-power chromatophores.

A power I granted,

and much like the good Lord,

a power I can also take away.

That's right. I now control who has meta powers and who doesn't.

Freeland is just the beginning.

Star City,

Metropolis,

anywhere a meta-freak dares to stand in my way

will meet the same fate as this pixelated pissant.

Now, it's past time you all bow down

and pledge your loyalty to me.

Or...

All hail the king.

What's next, Your Majesty?

Red, don't get cute.

The endgame's upon us.

And while I admit to no uncertain joy toyin' with my prey,

the time has come to finally rid the world of Jefferson Pierce.

Well, I've duplicated your ankle monitor's signal

-and placed it on a feedback loop...

...that shows you're obeying your house arrest.

Thank God for small mercies.

Any news on the emitter's location?

I'm loathe to say it, but my family needs its powers back.

Since the emitter's powered by promethium,

it shares an identical radiation signature with the massive deposit of promethium

that I discovered beneath Freeland.

There's no way to differentiate one from the other.

It's perfect camouflage.

Promethium is one of Earth's rarest elements.

I don't understand how Freeland suddenly acquired so much of it.

My working theory

is that when Gravedigger used Lightning to take down the ASA's energy shield,

the resulting power surge irradiated the bedrock of Freeland.

Transmuting the minerals into promethium.

And Monovista swooped in to strip-mine it.

It powers their DEGs, the emitter,

and who knows what else?

I have an idea on how we can track the emitter.

Right now, Tobias is using it to blanket Freeland with Val's nullifying powers,

but what if we expand our parameters

to focus on Val's meta-genic power signature

bypassing the camouflage that's creating the deposits?

That tracks.