Stargirl Season 2 Episode 1 ‘Summer School: Chapter One”
Director: Andi Armaganian
Spoilers follow:
Second seasons can be hit or miss, especially for superhero shows. The best of them (such as Arrow‘s) widen their scope to build something bigger and better than what came before while deepening their main stories but others (like Supergirl‘s and Black Lightning‘s) get overexcited about introducing new characters and concepts and lose focus on their leads. Fortunately, based on its Season 2 premiere Stargirl seems to have found the right balance. The show is still powered by a warm family core and it progresses the stories of Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) and company in logical and affecting ways while also continuing to expand its unique version of the DC universe and trying out some new stylistic touches.
The season premiere opens with a flashback to decades ago in Melody Hills, Indiana, when a young girl named Susie is pouting after her mother forbids her from going to a neighbor’s birthday party after she threw a tantrum for not receiving a doll she wanted. A strange young boy named Bruce appears and convinces Susie to go the party anyway, after which she nearly gets hit by a truck while crossing the street. Bruce then encourages Susie to take one of the neighbor’s gifts but when she opens it she finds a hideously deformed doll with glowing red eyes. Bruce’s eyes glow similarly and half his face takes on a purple color as he holds up the black diamond housing Eclipso that Cindy Burman/Shiv (Meg DeLacy) found at ISA headquarters at the end of last season. The diamond emits a purple light and when Susie’s mother goes across the street looking for her she screams at what she sees, presumably her daughter’s body, as the camera pans back to her mailbox, marked with the last name McNider, that of the original Doctor Mid-Nite and creator of Beth’s (Anjelika Washington) goggles who was also the inspiration of the goggle’s Chuck AI that befriended Beth. McNider isn’t a JSA character I expected to make a comeback other than a possible return by Chuck so this is definitely an interesting twist that sets up an intimate scale to the upcoming conflict with Eclipso. Even more surprising is the tone of the sequence, which plays out very much like something out of a horror movie (a good, classically suspenseful one too). The series’ creators have teased a darker tone for the second season and while I hope they don’t overdo it with this and cost Stargirl its family friendly charm it’s an appropriate and effective way to convey the kind of threat Eclipso, who can influence people to act on their dark impulses, poses. It’s a striking sequence to open the season with and an encouraging sign that Stargirl is still successfully seeking to expand its storytelling and stylistic capabilities.
The opening is the most intense part of the episode by far, as the rest is very much a slow burn, more focused on establishing the season’s character arcs than on superhero spectacle. Courtney and company only appear in costume in one scene, at the end of a nightly patrol she insisted on in which they only encounter a raccoon eating out of the garbage. With the ISA defeated there isn’t much need for superheroes in Blue Valley at the current moment but while her friends are happy to take a break Courtney can’t accept this. In addition to combing the town every night she pours over JSA files looking for potential threats, leading to name drops of various DC Comics villains and the heroes who stopped them (including Flash and Green Lantern, more on them both later) as Pat (Luke Wilson) urges her to dial it down a notch. Her obsession with being Stargirl has caused Courtney to neglect her civilian life, particularly school, where she fails two classes, forcing her to go to summer school (the subtitle of Season 2). This is a refreshing return to the show’s focus on small-scale family issues after the grander events of the end of Season 1 and is a solid reminder of why Stargirl is a unique and enjoyable entry in the superhero TV canon. Courtney’s struggle to balance the two halves of her life is very relatable, especially for young people, as it’s pretty common for them to become obsessed with one activity or area of life while maturing and looking for a sense of belonging. The show is also smart to root this in its established history, as Courtney explains to Pat that she still feels a need to prove herself worthy as Stargirl after finding out that Sylvester Pemberton/Starman (Joel McHale) wasn’t really her father and the storyline results in a lot of strong scenes between the two of them and Barbara (Amy Smart), with all three actors continuing to do great work.
My biggest problem with the show at the end of last season was the use, or rather misuse, of the other JSA kids following their introductions but the premiere makes some considerable strides in rectifying that by giving all three of them interesting new storylines. Yolanda/Wildcat (Yvette Monreal) is wracked with guilt over executing Brainwave, crying in a confessional she’s apparently been going to regularly but unable to admit what she did to her priest. As she runs out of the church there’s a frightening flashback to the event through a dark lens, and while this could just be a visual depiction of her guilt, her reaction to it suggests otherwise, possibly indicating that she is being effected by an outside force, likely Eclipso. Rick/Hourman (Cameron Gellman) walks through the woods following large footprints before leaving a large amount of takeout in a clearing. We can assume he’s tracking Solomon Grundy and him showing kindness to the creature by leaving food for it is an interesting way to continue developing their dynamic after Rick held back from killing Grundy in revenge for his parents last year. But more interesting is the confrontation he has with a teacher after she accuses him of cheating to get a perfect test score. Rick comes dangerously close to revealing his secret identity when he blurts out that he saved everyone in Blue Valley but they all still treat him with suspicion and a lack of respect. Beth continues to feel ignored by her emotionally distant parents. Her folks actually have a more legitimate reason for being distracted than they usually do as Beth finds divorce papers in their belongings but that’s still no excuse for how they continue to ignore her. When Chuck briefly reactivates before shutting off again she pleads with him not to leave her too. I still think elements of Beth’s story come across as strange (I really hope they have her grow away from Chuck rather than just fixing him and going back to her having a computer as a best friend) but keeping it centered as it is on her loneliness and the divorce reveal make her role more relatable to regular teen issues than Rick or Yolanda’s, although it’s Yvette Monreal who turns in the strongest performance out of the three actors this week and despite their flaws the scenes with all three characters are encouraging signs that they’re going to be used for more than action scenes and the occasional joke this year.
Speaking of action, while “Summer School: Chapter One” is generally light on that front it ends with a great superhero fight. Late at night Courtney hears a commotion and finds a young woman, who we’ll come to know as Jennie-Lynn Hayden, also called Jade (Ysa Penarejo), who broke into the house and is in the process of stealing Green Lantern’s lantern, already armed with the power ring associated with it. The two girls immediately set out blasting and swinging away at each other and the ensuing action should put to rest the concerns some viewers had going into the second season that Stargirl‘s budget, and therefore visual effects, would be hindered by it now being a solely CW show, and the sequence is a great reminder of just how good this show’s action is. I always like when Courtney has the staff pause in mid-air to clothesline someone and there’s a move where she vaults and flips up the staff to get a better stance that’s just awesome. But the star of this sequence is Jade and the lantern. It’s been ten years since a Green Lantern was depicted in live-action, in the awful Ryan Reynolds solo film and I think any DC fan will get the same thrill I did seeing someone hurling energy blasts out of a power ring again. Jade also uses the Lantern itself as a weapon which is a creative choice that I really liked. After being knocked down by a powerful ring blast Courtney asks Jade who she is and she replies that she’s Green Lantern’s daughter, seemingly confirming her comics-accurate ties to Golden Age JSA Lantern Alan Scott. When Pat, Barbara, and Mike come down to see what all the commotion is both girls stand down, indicating that Jade isn’t really some ruthless villain in this incarnation, which is good, and Courtney awkwardly admits that she thinks there’s been a misunderstanding, with Pat replying that she’s having a lot of those today. As I mentioned, Stargirl has to be careful about just how many more superheroes and villains it adds to its already large ensemble but in addition to being a treat for fans due to her ties to the GL mythology Jade seems like a logical addition with an easy tie-in to Courtney’s story. Jade is, after all, essentially what Courtney thought she was last year, the biological daughter of a major JSA hero and I expect the young Lantern’s arrival will shake her self-esteem, which the show has already reminded us is still fragile as it relates to her connections, or lack thereof to Starman and her father.
Following up on his shocking appearance in last year’s finale Starman himself is shown at a diner where he asks his waitress to tell him about her ex-husband. When she asks which one he replies the one who likes stripes, suggesting that this is Pat’s ex-wife, and presumably Mike’s (Trae Romano) mom. I’m still not sure what bringing Starman back (if it really is even him) does for the show but I’m very interested to find out and tying that storyline in with Pat and Mike’s family history, which until now has been explored only in very vague terms, is a welcome surprise. Lastly, Cindy, still in possession of the black diamond, returns to the underground ISA headquarters and begins looking through a file titled “Injustice Unlimited”, featuring photos of Cameron (Hunter Sansone), Artemis (Stella Smith), and The Fiddler’s son Isaac (Max Frantz) before adding one of Mike, and stating that she plans to go recruiting. Turning the ISA’s kids into a second version of the team always seemed like where the show was going but the initial shock that comes from the suggestion that Mike could be on the roster is a welcome swerve, even if it’s not quite as surprising as it seems when you think about it. The Whitmore-Dugans never adequately addressed Mike’s feelings of exclusion and loneliness last year and it’s easy to see why he may start feeling dejected again now that the initial high of discovering the JSA has worn off, as his sister and father get to run around being superheroes while he’s stuck on a paper route. Add in the corrupting power of Eclipso, which will surely grow to be more than Cindy can handle, and the greatest threat to Stargirl’s family may come from within.
Stargirl definitely has a lot going on right out of the gate in Season 2 (the premiere is so packed there isn’t even time to follow up on the tease of The Shade from the finale, though he’s definitely coming, set to be played by Jonathan Cake). The show is charging full speed ahead with expanding the world of its Earth 2 universe and while I’m definitely still concerned that things could spin out of control so far the show is smartly rooting all of its world-building in character and that and the tense, gradual approach to the plot suggest that the second season will be just as enjoyable and satisfying as the first. Perhaps even more so.
Notes:
- About the Flash stuff, actor John Wesley Shipp, who played Silver Age Flash Barry Allen in the short-lived 1990s Flash TV show before returning on the ongoing Arrowverse one, in which he has played his version of Barry and several other characters, including Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick, will be appearing on this season of Stargirl. He will appear as Jay in flashbacks depicting the original JSA in the season’s ninth episode. It’s not yet known if this is the same Jay he plays on The Flash or a doppelgänger exclusive to Earth 2, but either way it suggests Stargirl will become more closely connected to The CW’s other DC series going forward.
- Speaking of connections to other shows, Stargirl executive producer and general DC TV mastermind Greg Berlanti is making a Green Lantern series for HBO Max that will feature several different Lanterns throughout history, with a storyline featuring Alan Scott, played by Jeremy Irvine, taking place in the 1940s. I doubt this will be connected to what Stargirl is doing with Jade given the differences in production for streaming and broadcast series so don’t expect Irvine to turn up, but stranger things have happened.
- A rare example of Stargirl cheating on its character work comes when Courtney refers to Yolanda as her best friend. The show has done virtually nothing to establish that kind of relationship between the two of them. The only difference between Courtney’s dynamic with Yolanda and her ones with Rick and Beth is that Yolanda was recruited into the JSA first.
