The new season premieres Tuesday night, airing right before Superman & Lois. I have heard some rumors that they may be some multiversal shenanigans in the coming season, making this show an official part of the Arrowverse.
S02E01 Summer School: Chapter One
SCHOOL’S OUT - With summer break around the corner, Pat suggests the family take a vacation after seeing that Courtney has been spending too much time focused on being Stargirl and not enough time on her schoolwork. Meanwhile, as Beth attempts to reconnect with Chuck, she stumbles upon a major secret her parents have been keeping from her. Elsewhere, Yolanda continues to be haunted by Brainwave’s death, and Rick secretly tracks Solomon Grundy after suspecting he may still be in the area.
For such a good opener it was kind of a dud episode. Not a lot happened.
Green Lantern’s daughter shows up which is cool. Star Man seems to be back which is cool. A reborn ISA, which is cool. Ok, I guess stuff did happen. At least to set up for future stuff.
What’s with the purple crystal though? What is that supposed to be besides 'EVIL"?
I think the episode tried to do too much with the loose threads from last season, advancing most things by just a little bit resulting in the impression that almost nothing happened. Better that they concentrated on one plot thread. Since the series is called Stargirl, it should have mostly been about Courtney. Reserve the rest of the JSA for future episodes. Things really picked up once Green Lantern’s daughter showed up. Unfortunately that’s when the episode ended.
The purple crystal is Eclipso. Cindy Burman picked him up at the end of last season. I’m sure we’ll see what his deal is in the near future.
The staff is quite a convincing special effect. A large part of it is because the actress holds a lighted stick on set. The light cast by staff also reflects off Courtney and the rest of the room. Unfortunately, the lantern does no such thing. It glows green but doesn’t actually cast any green light on its surroundings.
After some Googling, Dr. Mid-Nite was Charles McNider. McNider was the name on the mailbox in the episode prologue, where the little girl lived. So apparently Eclipso killed Chuck’s daughter.
I enjoyed the episode It was nice to not have some world-shattering issues. Failing classes. Parent issues. All very nice and not pouty-pouty boo-boo lip drama.
I love how they’re rolling in existing JLA history into the modern version.
And I think he’d freak out more if his giant robot was being touched…
Possibly, but based on her study habits (non-existent when it comes to the subjects she’s taking in high school) I find it entirely plausible that she failed the classes legitimately.
Maybe, but if it’s some sort of scheme, I think that’s just dramatically bad. It’s much more interesting if Courtney is legitimately having difficulty balancing superheroing and teenagering, and the whole first act was largely about that. It was even explicitly called out in the dialogue between her and Pat that she was up until 4 am studying the JSA files, and just waved off preparing for her history exam.
I think likely daughter. The mom said her dad “was on call” - Dr. Mid-Nite was actually a doctor, and not many other professions would be “on-call”. Not to mention, being “on-call” would be a pretty good cover story for super-heroing.
And before that, he was an occult detective, who both debunked fake supernatural occurrences and dealt with genuine supernatural mysteries. And since the movie is The Adventures of Mark Merlin, I suspect that’s the phase of his career the movie is about. Yet again, we see that the box office on Earth-2 is dominated by comic book movies, but not super-hero movies. We’ve seen weird war, western, political, and now occult detective movies featured. I’m betting we’re going to see Young Romance at some point. That’s just got to be in the background of a scene with Courtney and Cameron at some point.
I agree this episode managed to both seem a bit draggy and overly involved, but they’re setting up the plotlines for the coming season, so I was willing to bear with it.
I like that Wildcat II is still dealing with the trauma of killing Brainwave. In most shows, that one be a one-episode sub-plot, at most, and then never mentioned again.
Also, Rick Tyler is clearly tracking Solomon Grundy, who’s living in the woods. Did Rick leave the chicken out as a peace offering, or is he setting up a trap?
Initially I thought “trap” but Rick’s body language wasn’t particularly hostile, so I’m leaning towards peace at the moment. Interesting to see Rick feel under appreciated by the people he saved.
Eclipso may be a regular, but that doesn’t preclude Star Sapphire being there, too. Star Sapphire has a jewel that gives her her powers and is usually depicted at being purple in its modern incarnations.
AFAIK, Eclipso was transformed by anything that resembled an eclipse, and was more Jekyll and Hyde. He had a jewel, but that was black, not purple.
Eclipso, in more recent lore, is a disembodied malevolent spirit that is trapped in a dark gem, the Heart of Darkness. He attempts to corrupt anyone who encounters this gem, and possesses host bodies, to further his malevolence.
He and his victims are frequently portrayed holding the Heart of Darkness over their eye:
Which is what we see Cindy doing.
The color of the gem varies from purple to black, depending on the particular artist and colorist. Depicting black objects in a 2D format without making them look like featureless silhouettes is difficult, so dark purple is often used as a stand-in for narratively black objects.
On the other hand, we do now have a new Green Lantern, and Star Sapphire was one of his arch-enemies. On the gripping hand, she was an enemy of the modern, GL, Hal Joran, not the JSA original, Alan Scott.
I think the gem is very clearly the Heart of Darkness, and Cindy is clearly being influenced by Eclipso, who is either setting her up for outright possession, or is using her to acquire a new vessel (maybe Mike Dugan…).
It was nice to not have some world-shattering issues. Failing classes. Parent issues. All very nice and not pouty-pouty boo-boo lip drama.