Cress Williams Hopes For A Lightning “Origin Story” in Season 2
Production is underway for the second season of The CW‘s Black Lightning, in which Cress Williams stars as a superhero who comes out of retirement to fight threats in his community, only to discover that he has passed his super-powers along to his daughters.
The family dynamic is a big part of what differentiates Black Lightning from the other superhero shows dotting the TV landscape, and Williams told ComicBook.com during a recent interview that he hopes to build on the “happily ever after” the Pierce family got at the end of season one rather than being dragged back into conflict right away with his ex-wife and daughters.
“I’m not sure” what the family dynamic will be like this season, Williams admitted. “I hope — like our husband-wife dynamic — I hope it’s good for a while. We ended with us all being one big happy family, and the cat’s out of the bag with us all having powers. I think we’ll be good for a little bit, but of course that doesn’t make good drama so I think there’ll be a wrinkle in there somewhere.”
Williams talked more about the family saying, “What’s really great is that Jennifer’s character has not embraced her powers. Anissa embraced them and thinks they’re the answer to everything. I think we’re going to see a flip side to that — that they aren’t the answer to everything, and there’s some consequences. And we’re going to get a chance to really I hope develop an origin story with Jennifer’s powers. She can’t control them, she doesn’t want them, so we’re going to walk through that differently.”
Jennifer coming to grips with her super-powered life is what Cress Williams is looking forward at season 2.
“I think that because the whole family now knows the secret, it will be even a stronger family unit,” Williams said. “But because of that it causes Tobias to have to raise his game. You’re stronger together than you are separate. You saw a tease in the finale that [Tobias] has got that briefcase, and so I think he’s going to raise the bar with more meta-villains. There’s going to be probably three people fighting crime, so it can’t be just guys with guns, so I think it’s going to be more. Now that we have established the world and the characters and we’ve introduced them to who Black Lightning is, we get to raise the bar.”
New episodes of Black Lightning returns to The CW in October, airing at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the network following episodes of The Flash.
Do you think Season 2 will be a success? Will Jennifer fully embrace her powers and become a full-fledge superhero? Let me know on Twitter and Instagram @BlueJayHJB and follow SEVnetwork on Instagram @sevnetwork