Black Lightning‘s Painkiller Backdoor Pilot Was a Much-Needed Jolt to the System

Thoughthe CW’sBlack Lightningmay be ending , the unreciprocated question about characters like Khalil ( Jordan Calloway ) have plough out to be the web ’s secret weapon in fleshing out a novel ball of arecently unified Earth Prime . While series sometimes wish to be demure when they ’re working backdoor pilots for spinoffsinto their mid - season arc - in - progress , last night ’s episode of Black Lightning , “ Painkiller , ” could reasonably be call “ The Khalil Show ” in the best possible sense of the phrase .

As a love - stake - turned - scoundrel - turned - rack - antihero , Khalil was an interesting selection out of Black Lightning ’s well large shape of supporting part to become the whiz of a solo series base on a superhero family show . Removed from the immediate area of the Pierce family , the CW ’s Khalil could well become a character with piffling active connection to a pre - existing berth within the Arrowverse , but “ Painkiller ” very smartly adjust the stage by wed Khalil ’s hereafter to an unexpected somebody from his past .

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Khalil trying to reason with Anissa.

Khalil trying to reason with Anissa.Screenshot: The CW

The episode spread with Khalil reminisce about the events that brought him to the Akashic Valley , a shine urban center of Ne and spectacular camera angles somewhere close , but not too close , to Freeland , where Anissa Pierce and Grace Choi just so come about to be venture for their honeymoon . Khalil and Anissa ’s relatively ground nature were always something that work , but stood out in Black Lightning ’s four - time of year metahuman phratry dramatic play that ’s journeyed into the upper limit of the atmosphere and across proportion . “Painkiller ” pulls both fictitious character in a unexampled management that does n’t change them so much as it explores new aspects of their force and identity in a novel setting .

For the newlyweds , Akashic Valley ’s an escape from the wars at home base that kept them from being able to progress a living together . For Khalil , it became a place where he could reinvent himself and carry on working to incur an inner peace capable of neutralizing Painkiller , a separate , homicidal identity that lives inside his idea . After arriving at a futuristic hotel in a driverless railroad car — the bulk of which is created using the modern combining weight of CGI plucked from Janet Jackson ’s “ Does n’t Really Matter ” music television — Anissa and Grace channelize out for a night on the town that end with the brace being separated , ambushed , and captured by two dissimilar radical of people .

After Grace is nobble by someone working for a mysterious young group of villains while in the toilet by herself , it ’s Khalil who confronts Anissa , and few word need to be exchanged before the two authorize hoi polloi come to blows . Durable and strong as Anissa ’s metagene make her , she still has no defensive measure for Khalil ’s Painkiller toxin , which he can now objectionably manage with much more dominance than in former appearances by simply making cutis - t0 - skin contact with someone . Even though Khalil does n’t want to harm Anissa — who he fuck through her younger sister , Jennifer ( they used to date)—Painkiller does , and in moment where the two identities are at odds with one another , “ Painkiller ” relocation inside their mind - space in order of magnitude to show you their confrontations firsthand .

Akashic Valley

Akashic ValleyScreenshot: The CW

Between its nigh - future metropolis that ’s apparently full of malevolent criminal and its focal point on a gentleman’s gentleman fighting against the programing that turned him into a superpowered killer , this episode carry more than a passing resemblance toThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier , peculiarly with Khalil and Painkiller ’s picture . Khalil ’s finish is n’t to kill Anissa as he take hold of her and permit his poison knock her out , but the tale allow it unreadable just what his prominent motivations for intervening in her life are . However , it is revealed , in the little time that Khalil ’s been living in Akashic Valley , he ’s found the mean to build a embellish out vigilante pad where he surveils the urban center while with the help of Philky ( Insecure ’s Alexander Hodge ) , a go back alcohol-dependent and technical school expert , and Cousin Donald ( former Oakland Raiders free agent James Roch ) , a marine vet who now specializes in cure the wounded .

Because of the sudden series of disorienting events , or perhaps because it resembles her father ’s own superhero hideout , Anissa is n’t immediately alarmed when she comes to in Painkiller ’s HQ and meets Donald the right way for the first metre . It ’s only the Painkiller toxicant ’s lingering force that keep her from charge Khalil once she realizes he ’s the one who brought her there , something that clearly pee-pee her suspect that he has something to do with Grace ’s disappearance . With Anissa still de-escalate , she ’s in no state to go looking for Grace , and after some prodding from his colleagues , Khalil maltreat up to go searching for the woman . It is n’t long before he ’s able-bodied to get over down a man from the bar ( Jef Holbrook ) who enter in the ambush that vanished the shapeshifting meta . Unlike Painkiller , who would have just as soon shoot down the adult male for not revealing Grace ’s whereabouts , Khalil has the mother wit to but rough him up before tagging his car , allowing Philky to get an idea of where Grace might be located .

“ Painkiller ” being a backdoor original highlight the handful of genre story elements it portion out with basically all of the CW ’s other amusing ledger show — like Khalil and Philky ’s hero / supporter dynamic , which the episode explicitly unpacks during a conversation about what responsibilities the two men have and what they owe to one another . Philky very much is the home base support Heron whose knowledge makes him formidable in the way Painkiller ’s powers do , but he ’s also quite denotative when he tell Khalil not to think of him as just another nameless , faceless Asian someone whose sole caper is to manage the technological aspects of other multitude ’s lives .

Donald talking to Anissa.

Donald talking to Anissa.Screenshot: The CW

As a whole , the episode is n’t as concerned in debase any of the tropes that progress the Arrowverse as much as it is inquire you to question them a bit and expect them to have more import . Much as Painkiller is an personal identity that split away from Khalil , the write up depicts the pair as two separate masses with feelings and motivations — it ’s what keeps the sequence from feeling like a raid into dissociative personal identity upset territory . Both Painkiller and Khalil understand that their psychological billet are a effect of the American Security Agency ’s nefarious experiment on them . No matter how much bad blood Khalil and Painkiller may find for one another , the ASA has always been their unfeigned and most dangerous enemy , and in case that was n’t abundantly clear , “ anodyne ” reminds you by introducing Maya Odell ( Sibongile Mlambo ) .

Like her beginner ( Black Lightning ’s Agent Odell , portrayed by Bill Duke ) , Maya immediately sees an chance when one of her goons inform her that one of their previous abductees also happens to be a meta . While this direction for the would - be Painkiller series ’ villains hoop very familiar , it makes good sense that the ASA ( or at least someone with penny-pinching ties to the shamed organization ) would n’t have given up prove to weaponize metahumans .

When Philky ’s counsel and Khalil ’s tracker lead him to one of the Maya ’s facilities , he break a group of young citizenry in a surreal state who are all wearing headdress connect to laptop . Back at HQ , Philky derive that Maya ’s experimentation had fundamentally partitioned off part of their brains to harness their processing power into a techno - organic botnet . Fiddly as the fictional scientific discipline is , to Khalil , the brain technical school means there ’s a potential way to free himself of Painkiller ’s front , and you could see how this world of superscience could become the thing that fix the Painkiller series .

Maya keeping abreast of the situation in Akashic Valley.

Maya keeping abreast of the situation in Akashic Valley.Screenshot: The CW

After stocking up on weapons , Khalil and co. set their sights on Maya ’s safehouses where they surmise Grace is being apply , and while Khalil is able to find and free her , it ’s an fundamental interaction between him and Painkiller that really strike in the episode ’s final scenes . As Khalil star down a group of Maya ’s thugs who to the full stand for to kill him , he steps into his mindspace again to have an significant , tear - secondment ( to the outside world ) conversation with his more deadly self about how they need one another to subsist . Distracting as the representative modulation used to differentiate Painkiller ’s sound is , Calloway ’s earnestness as the character keeps him from feeling too hackneyed , and it does n’t get in the way of how important the new kinship he ’s trying to forge with Khalil is .

In the ending , both Grace and Khalil are able-bodied to make it out of Maya ’s safehouse , which she promptly blows up the agency shady criminals are wo nt to do when they get excited at the musical theme of fighting new curse . As “ analgesic ” draws to a stopping point , it ’s fairly clear what kind of show Painkiller will be if it ends up conk out to series . What ’s less certain is what ’s in store for Anissa and Grace as they depart Akashic Valley to deliver to Freeland , where their acquirement are potential to come in handy as the serial publication reaches its finis .

The biggest takeout from “ Painkiller ” is that there ’s still a whole wide mankind out there for all of these characters to go around and stake in , and it ’s more than possible that we might see more of them going forward .

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