Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Cress Williams, China Anne McClain, Nafessa Williams

Release Date: October 27, 2020

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 7/10

 

Synopsis:

Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is a man of many faces. A former Olympic athlete, respected educator and father of two, he’s also Black Lightning, superpowered protector of Freeland. But Jefferson is not alone. His oldest daughter, Anissa (Nafessa Williams), is a med student, part-time teacher and social activist. She is also the Super Hero known as Thunder, possessing invulnerability and super strength for as long as she can hold her breath. Jefferson’s youngest daughter, Jennifer (China Anne McClain), is a fiery teen who inherited her father’s athletic gifts but not his desire to be an athlete. Jennifer also inherited his powers. Her body generates pure electrical energy, and she possesses the potential to be more powerful than Anissa or Jefferson. Lynn (Christine Adams), Jefferson’s ex-wife, is fast becoming an expert in metahuman medicine. Together, the Pierce family fights the gang known as the One Hundred for the soul of Freeland.

Newcomers to ‘Black Lightning’ are strongly encouraged to consider starting at the beginning due to the show’s serialized nature and various continuing story elements within. You can find our review of the first season’s Blu-ray release below!

Black Lightning: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray Review)

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The second season of ‘Black Lightning’ rejoins our hero Jefferson Pierce who has now fully returned to the heroic role of Black Lightning in order to help protect his hometown, and has begun to realize that his job as school principal has also been negatively affected by his extracurricular activities. Assisted by his eldest daughter Anissa who thanks to her own powers and the guidance of her father has taken on the mantle of Thunder, they work together to combat the dangerous villain Tobias and other forces of evil trying to cause unease in Freeland. Meanwhile, the youngest daughter Jennifer begins to see her own newfound powers come to fruition, resulting in plenty of fresh troubles for her own school and home life. Now, as the villains known as ‘The 100’ begin to wreak fresh havoc throughout the town, the Pierce family will have to find a way to work as one and fight back united if they hope to keep the peace.

Season two of ‘Black Lightning’ delivers an exciting, heartfelt and more intense season for the DC comics series that begins to dive much deeper into the world of this family as Jefferson and his (ex) wife are forced to come to terms with the realization that both of their daughters appear to have inherited his power and the difficult decisions that come with it. While the oldest daughter has begun to follow her father’s example, the pair working together with the ever helpful Gambi as superheroes protecting the city, the youngest finds the wealth of her power threatening and must find a way to control it while also forced to deal with some personal issues that could change everything if she chooses unwisely. It all really allows for an in depth look at the uncertainties and threats that each faces and it wisely takes time to explore the personal struggles that each of these characters must confront while they deal with these uncertain events and times in their own unique way, often causing clashes with their loved ones as a result.

The series once again proves that it has a talent for taking some important and timely issues and merging them with more standard superhero comic fare in order to make the series feel surprisingly realistic in a world filled with powerful beings; something that’s not always the easiest task to pull off. It may have its occasional hiccups and sometimes seems to become overwhelmed with the social commentary a tad more than might be necessary, yet it always comes through as a whole with a powerful, thrilling and heartfelt resolve that never forgets or disregards its focus on family and love. Anyone that might have enjoyed the first season of ‘Black Lightning’ but never found the time to check out season 2 and 3 are definitely encouraged to do so whenever it’s convenient. There’s a pretty good chance that you’ll be thrilled you did.

Overall, the sophomore season of ‘Black Lightning’ is another fun, action-packed and exciting season of the DC series that doesn’t waste any time upping the stakes, while always keeping a focus on the family and the struggles they face while trying to do the right thing and not use their power for the wrong reasons. Dedicated fans of the series that picked up the Blu-ray release of Season 1 years back and have been anxiously hoping to see the second and third season arrive on Blu-ray should be quite pleased with Warner Archive’s 3-disc Blu-ray release of ‘Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season’. While the release may not have a lot to offer in the way of extras, the impressive high definition video and audio presentations on all sixteen episodes (spread between three discs for optimum quality) will still surely make it worth a purchase for all of the fans who want to physically own the second season in high definition.

VIDEO:

The Warner Archive Blu-ray release of ‘Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the sophomore season’s episodes. The video presentations look magnificent altogether and provide sharp, smooth and richly detailed presentations on every episode that don’t suffer from any notable faults or issues along the way. Spread between three discs for the best possible quality, they hold up impressively even during the numerous darkly lit and fast moving sequences throughout, never causing anything onscreen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, these are fantastic high definition video presentations that shouldn’t have any trouble whatsoever pleasing the fans who had been hoping to see season two of the series arrive on Blu-ray.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 16 Season Two episodes. These multichannel soundtracks are a real treat and deliver crisp, clean and consistently hard hitting audio presentations on each episode. They repeatedly take advantage of all five available channels in order to send characters, action and nature effects, along with bits of crowd chatter, music and a whole lot more consistently zipping throughout the various speakers, while never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, these are wonderful 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that never disappoint and contribute plenty of extra fun to the viewing experience every step of the way.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Warner Archive Blu-ray release of ‘Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season’ includes a couple of brief extras in the way of the Behind the Scenes Featurette ‘Whale of a Villain’ (running approximately7 minutes in length) and a ‘Black Lightning: Come Visit Georgia PSA’ (running approximately 7 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 7/10

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‘Black Lightning: The Complete Second Season’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray & DVD from DC Comics & Warner Archive Collection

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