Black Lightning Review: The Book of Ruin: Chapter One (Season 4 Episode 5)

As tragedy strikes once again, The Pierce family launches themselves into The Blame Game. Who is to blame for Jen’s repeated trips into the ionosphere? Fingers are pointed everywhere, but they do little to solve the problem.

Black Lightning Season 4 Episode 5, “The Book of Ruin: Chapter One,” begins with the direct aftermath of Black Lightning Season 4 Episode 4, “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Four.” Jen has disintegrated into particles due to the raw energy of the ionosphere. Although her molecules are still intact, no one is quite sure how to put her back together.

This seems like an impossible task. How do you put someone back together piece by piece?

As each member of the family slowly realizes the possibility that Jen may never be fully put back together, they unload on to each other as a way to deal with their grief. I can’t say that I haven’t done the same thing in the past.

Although each family member has their accusations, Jefferson is the first to verbalize them. His first instinct is to jump on Lynn’s case.

Lynn, a loving and concerned mother, admits to her husband that she knew about the ionosphere but thought that Jen’s trips there had stopped. After all, Lynn gave Jen a stern talking to — doesn’t everyone respond well to lectures?

The truth is Lynn should have let Jefferson know. That way they could have faced the situation as a united front, and hopefully, convinced Jen of the inherent danger. This is exactly where Jefferson’s mind goes after Lynn’s confession, and his anger boils over to vicious words flowing from his mouth.

How could you do this? Why wouldn’t you do that? All reasonable questions to be honest. Unfortunately, there is no helpful answer that could be satisfactory. 

Anyssa: Honestly, I’m just going on faith.

The should of, could of, would of argument never helps anyone. It doesn’t change the current outcome, nor does it earn you any friends in the situation. Hurt feelings ensue, only making matters worse.

Of course, Lynn goes on the defense throwing his hurtful words back in his face. She feels at no point could she have come to her husband and spoken words of truth and rationale. He was too stuck in his world of grief and selfishness. 

She isn’t necessarily wrong here. Jefferson was too caught up in his feelings to deal with someone else’s troubled emotions. Honestly, it is a problem we all have, and adding additional pressure to the walls closing in on someone creates quite the pressure cooker. 

With an explosion of words and anger, the two walk away from each other but not before opening a can of guilt inside of each other. 

There they both sit, festering with grief and guilt knowing they could have handled things differently. It is something terrible to have to deal with as emotions continue to weigh heavily on each of their shoulders.

The display of violent words splashes onto everyone else in the room causing them to start their version of the Blame Game. 

Anyssa goes home to her new bride in the most horrible of moods. Who can blame her — she may never see her sister ever again. Grace immediately sees her wife in a state of turmoil and reaches out to help. 

This is when Anyssa lashes out for the first time.

While Grace was in a coma for multiple months, Anyssa learned to go it alone. She built a wall between herself and the world, letting nothing touch her as deep as Grace did.

Anyssa blames Grace’s coma for the need to build this wall. If Grace was there with her in her time of need, she never would have had to build it. 

Just because Grace is now awake, doesn’t mean that Anyssa is free from this barrier that she built. As we all know, these walls are difficult to tear down once set in place. It takes a lot of effort from ourselves and other people to find bricks loose enough to nudge out of the way. 

Fortunately, Anyssa verbalizes this quite quickly to Grace. Although a tiny fight starts, it is quickly snuffed out by honesty. They understand that being open and honest with each other about what they are going through can only make them stronger.

This is some strong relationship advice here — make sure you take note next time a conversation with a loved one gets heated.

The game doesn’t stop with blood or marital relationships either. TC joins in by looking to himself as a major cause of this tragedy. Like Lynn, TC knew of Jen’s repeated trip to the ionosphere, but worse, he knew exactly how dangerous it was. 

Repeatedly, TC warned Jen of the high energy spikes and the ramifications of putting herself in harm’s way. Instead of heeding TC’s words, Jen pushed him aside for being a mother hen. He realizes he could have gone behind her back and reached out to her loved ones instead of cowering to Jen’s hurtful words.

This is all hindsight to TC now, and it is destroying him from the inside. 

Honestly, this is the road I am most likely to take. In my mind, I am always the biggest problem. Sadly, this can become the biggest obstacle.

In this scenario, all roads lead back to the same person. It completely snowballs and eventually the person blames themselves for Eve taking a bite out of the apple in the Garden of Eden. Seriously, this is how deep the battle goes. 

The truth of the matter is, the Blame Game never helps anyone. We yell, make accusations, and hurt each other’s feelings, yet nothing gets resolved from it.

Instead, The Blame Game spins out of control affecting nearly every aspect of our lives but impacting relationships with the most damage. 

Luckily, The Pierce family sees this all before it is too late. They can see the millions of infected pieces and place them back together. It takes patience and honesty, but it is worth it. 

That is the beauty of the family dynamic. We get into a situation together, and we only have each other to get back out of it. That is why it is so important to rely on your family through the toughest of times. 

Family will always have your back if you always have theirs. This creates an endless cycle of love that never grows weary. Things may look bleak towards the end, but hope is waiting on the other side.

What did you think of this episode of Black Lightning? Is that really Jen coming out of the particle condenser? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Black Lightning airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.

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