'Black Lightning' Season 3 Episode 2: Agent Odell makes Khalil Payne A.S.A's newest weapon and conducts a sickening test to prove his skills
‘Black Lightning’ Season 3’s first episode introduced us to a very different Freeland from the one we remember, with the A.S.A having quarantined the city using the threat of Markovian invasion as an excuse to declare martial law and detaining people on the mere suspicion that they might be metahumans. Jefferson Pierce / Black Lightning (Cress Williams) and Dr. Lynn Stewart (Christine Adams) are basically living as prisoners in the custody of the A.S.A’s Agent Odell (Bill Duke) while their daughters Anissa Pierce (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer Pierce (China Anne McClain), who is still reeling from the death of her boyfriend Khalil Payne / Painkiller (Jordan Calloway), are working with Peter Gambi (James Remar) to try and sabotage the A.S.A’s plans, with Anissa having adopted the new identity Blackbird in order to fight the A.S.A without endangering the rest of the family.
(Spoilers ahead for 'Black Lightning' Season 3 Episode 2)
The last episode also established the A.S.A’s real mission in Freeland: to round up all metahumans, turn them into weapons for the government, and erase all evidence of their existence. In Episode 2, we see the true colors of the A.S.A brought out in the form of a resurrected and brainwashed Painkiller who has basically been turned into Agent Odell's personal super-soldier/assassin. What's worse, his first mission is actually to murder his own mother, a task which he completes using a brand-new ability to kill with a touch.
What makes this act even more sickening is the fact that the mission was essentially a test run for the new mind-control chip that Odell had installed in Khalil’s brain. By completing his mission, Painkiller proved that the chips work so that now Odell can use them to bring other Freeland citizens, human and metahuman alike, under his sway.
Agent Odell keeps proving that he is willing to go to any lengths to fulfill his mission in Freeland. Hopefully, once Jennifer finds out that her boyfriend is back from the dead, she might be able to find a way to snap him out of his programming so they can team up and take the vile A.S.A down for good.
The cast for ‘Black Lightning’ Season 3 includes Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce / Black Lightning, Christine Adams as Lynn Stewart, Nafessa Williams as Anissa Pierce / Thunder, China Anne McClain as Jennifer Pierce / Lightning, Marvin Jones III as Tobias Whale, Damon Gupton as Inspector William Henderson, Jordan Calloway as Khalil Payne / Painkiller, William Catlett as Lala / the Tattooed Man, and James Remar as Peter Gambi.
‘Black Lightning’ Season 3 Episode 3 will air on The CW on October 21.