The Black Lightning cast made a brief appearance at San Diego Comic-Con even though they’ve only read the script for the first episode and filmed 15 minutes worth of footage for a special CW presentation and trailer. However, the little footage there is does contain some powerful moments, China Ann McClain (who plays Black Lightning’s daughter, Lightning) told Player.One.
“There’s actually a scene that we shot just for the presentation where we are driving coming home and our father gets pulled over by the cops and taken out of the car and slammed up against the car in the pouring rain. Didn’t do anything,” she said.
While we don’t yet know if this will be included in the first episode, the themes of police brutality and systemic racism will be explored in the series. For McClain’s character, and her older sister, Thunder, played by Nafessa Williams, the audience will get to see how it feels for children to witness their father or mother wrongfully targeted because of racial bias.
“At this age we can really only watch because it happens to our parents. We’re like, ‘This is wrong,’ but we don't know what to do and we are just so helpless. We deal with some very real stuff on his show, some very real issues,” she said. “That’s another part that I think is going to resonate with not just African Americans but everybody.”
While characters in TV shows like The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl certainly face hardship, McClain believes there is a more realistic tone about Black Lightning that CW’s other shows don’t have.
“This show is darker than a lot of the CW shows, which I like. It makes it feel like you could walk outside your house and see Black Lightning walking on the street, which is great, because he’s really really relatable. I love that,” she said.
The fact Black Lightning isn’t shy to have scenes like driving while black isn’t surprising considering showrunner and co-creator Salim Akil told Player.One he plans to be fearless in his approach.
“There's no filter and I’m not afraid to talk about things we need to talk about and that’s what will set the show apart,” he said in a previous interview.
For more on McClain’s character, check out our interview with the women of Black Lightning. The series premieres on The CW in 2018.
Black Lightning was created by Tony Isabella with Trevor Von Eeden.
