The era of the televised black superhero television series has come to an end, or at least for now, it has with the series finale of the CW's Black Lightning. After four seasons, the Pierce family is saying goodbye, and with news of the Painkiller series not being picked up this will perhaps be the last time we see the full cast together. Complete series finales are always a hit and miss, and unfortunately, the Black Lightning finale was a miss. For every the Wire and Golden Girls, there’s a Lost or Game of Thrones and the CW show follows the latter. There’s a lot to look into when considering what lead to the ending of the series. If not the leaving and recasting of a day one series regular, and a loyal fan base, the only thing that could have derailed the momentum of the show is the CW network itself, and its lack of interest.
Black Lightning premiered at a time when the Black male superhero was in high demand. The character Black Panther stole the show in Captain America Civil War and was on the way to having the highest-grossing film for marvel at the time, and Luke Cage was receiving rave reviews for its debut season on Netflix. Even minor characters were being featured in shows such as Runaways, the Flash, and Arrow. Black superheroes were everywhere once, but despite the critical reception at the time black superheroes are now scarce when it comes to television. Luke Cage was canceled after two seasons, and the world suffered the loss of Chadwick Boseman changing the entire direction of the Black Panther Franchise. Even minor black superheroes such as Kid Flash, and Vixen, from Flash and Arrow, have been shelved, and with the cancellation of Black Lightning, Batwoman is officially the only series airing featuring a predominant black superhero. (More on the future of the black female superheroes to come.)
The network seems to have lost faith in the future of the series, and black male superheroes altogether. While the series attempts to tie all threads together nicely, the finale suffers from having too much too soon. As Charles Pullium-Moore pointed out in his piece the hour alone isn’t enough time to service and send off each character successfully, and many major points feel packed and rushed to fit into the finale. And while the finale attempts to plant seeds of the future, news of the Pain Killer series not being picked up diminishes any hope of seeing the heroes in the future.
With this said, Black Lightning definitely deserves its flowers. The series set a precedent for incorporating real-life issues into its storylines, beyond the go-to trauma story of near-death encounters between police and African American characters. Throughout the seasons the series touched on gentrification, the school to prison pipeline, illegal health experimentations, inner-city gang violence helping to keep the series grounded in a sense of reality missing from most of its CW peers. The villains were just as captivating as the series heroes, and no hero was above being believably flawed. And while the show originally played into the trend of capitalizing off the popularity of the black superhero the series was also the first series to showcase black female superheroes predominately. Unfortunately, for all the good the series has presented the finale definitely tarnishes its legacy.
What do you think? Are you glad the series has ended?
