Maybe the following was obvious to everyone else, but it just occurred to me: Beth didn’t contact “Chuck”, the AI created by Charles McNider, she contacted Charles McNider. Which is why he didn’t know who she was, and why his dialogue seemed more like a confused recipient of a wrong number than a near-omniscient AI.
Yes, that is the same assumption I am making.
Google tells me the bacon version of this quote has been circulating on Instagram and Twitter since at least 2014. Courtney may have seen the bacon quote and never been aware of the napalm quote.
I noticed the torn clothes, too. I think somebody should’ve spotted that.
I’ve read the origin story reprint of Thunderbolt. His “call words”, or whatever you want to call them, used to be “Say you.” He was Bahdnisian, though. Johnny Thunder was kidnapped as a baby by Bahdnisians because he was born at the right moment to control the genie. (He was recovered and returned to his parents, later.)
I thought that the Shade wanted the Wizard’s wand. Should’ve figured it was Eclipso, because of the darkness theme. That said, I bet someone’s going to be the Wizard at some point. We never saw Icicle destroy it.
Speaking of Icicle, I’m betting that his parents are setting up his son to be the new one. (My husband theorized that maybe one of them used to be Icicle when younger.)
Which brings up another point: Cindy seemed genuinely sad that her stepmother was dead and not just because she’d be useful for chores, and was definitely angry about being controlled. Icicle’s son is a good person. Solomon Grundy may be somewhat mollified by Rick’s feeding him. OTOH, Eclipso, the Shade, Sportsmaster, Tigress, Artemis, and Fiddler’s son are straight-up villains. (Apparently, anyway.) Are we looking at a potential ISA Civil War?
Actually, I think it was “Cei-U”, which was the Thunderbolt’s True Name, but just happened to be phonetically identical the the American English phrase, “say you”. Much humor was had (for certain values of humor) in the Golden Age with Johnny Thunder accidentally summoning the Thunderbolt, as he was constantly telling people, “Say, you outta do X”, or suchlike.
Eclipso definitely; it’s a malevolent entity that apparently kills children. Sportsmaster and Tigress are psychopaths. Seems like Fiddler’s son may be as well, but we don’t really know that much about him.
On the other hand, they seem to be positioning the Shade as a sort of morally gray character. He’s a criminal, but he seems to view the rest of the ISA with distaste, and I think they’re being deliberately ambiguous as to whether he wants to control Eclipso, serve it, ally with it, or defeat it.
And I think they’re positioning Artemis, as with her comics and Young Justice animated series incarnations, as troubled but redeemable. I think she’s going to start as a “villain” seeking revenge for her parents, but I think she also genuinely believes they were set up - I think she genuinely doesn’t know they’re murderous psychopaths. I think she’s going to wind up being a “bad girl” ally or even member of the junior JSA.
If nothing else, the falling stop signs were a hoot.
S02E04 Summer School: Chapter Four
THE DEVIL IN THE SHADOWS - As Pat considers whether he should come clean to Courtney about Eclipso’s past, a surprise visit from Crock and Paula catches him and Barbara off guard. A tense run-in with The Shade provides Courtney with some valuable information. Finally, Cindy makes her move.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one. The small talk at Pat’s house with the Crock was fun as the mothers almost accidentally bond. Poor Mike just drops out of the story after his terrifying encounter with the psychos, though. Cindy will make her move on him any day now, I’ll bet.
I loved the old “House of Mystery” logo.
The Crocks’ visit to the Dugans was probably one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in the Arrowverse, Legends included. Psycho parents break out of prison so they can support their daughter at football tryouts. That’s perfectly reasonable, isn’t it?
When Courtney encountered the Shade in the bookstore, I thought it would play out like the standard hero vs villain dialogue, where neither want to fight just yet and ultimately nothing is really communicated. I didn’t expect the Shade to just come right out and tell Courtney his plan of destroying Eclipso.
Good call.
When he was telling her about his plan because Eclipso killed McNider’s daughter, I was thinking that that The Shade WAS McNider, but I guess not.
The Shadow world looked pretty cool.
When the Shade told Courtney he’d never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, I thought he was implying that McNider did, at least in his opinion. Maybe he thought it was self-defense, in other words. Now I think he was saying he just never killed McNider.
Is this the “secret” that Pat’s keeping from Courtney? That he never saw a body, or that he knew McNider was in the shadow world? Whatever the secret is, it will wind up blowing up in his face.
I think Eclipso killed somebody the Shade loved. I don’t see him as the “doing things out of boredom” type.
Another idea about the Shade: In the comics, Jenny’s brother was Obsidian. He had shadow powers, too. He may be inside the Shade’s shadow world. If not, I bet the Shade knows where he is.
Poor Mike just drops out of the story after his terrifying encounter with the psychos, though. Cindy will make her move on him any day now, I’ll bet.
Mike was up in his room, presumably, scared out of his mind and furious with himself for not having the Thunderbolt anymore. It’s become a point not of wanting to join the JSA, but of wanting to protect himself and his family. Cindy’s smart enough to see that.
I must have missed it but in the episode where Mike had Thunderbolt, he had the pen and then at the end of the episode Kareem had the pen and Thunderbolt.
How did the pen go from Mike to Kareem? I must have spaced out when that happened.
Mike said “I wish someone else had the pen” (paraphrased)
Ah ok, thanks.
Since the secret is about Eclispo, who can get into people’s heads and make them do “bad things”, I’m thinking Eclipso manipulated one or more members of the JSA (and maybe Pat!) into hurting innocent people. And/or they did something really terrible to defeat Eclipso (like, maybe it was possessing an innocent person, and the JSA intentionally killed its innocent host to defeat Eclipso). If Courtney and the rest of the JSA, Jr. find out the original JSA members weren’t the idealized heroes they think they were, it would change them forever. Which would certainly dovetail with discussing how Artemis finding out the truth about her parents changed her.
Speaking of which, Crocks > literally any other family on the show. “Crusher” and Paula seem to have a genuinely loving, mutually supportive marriage, with a lot of common interests (even if those interests include murder and mayhem…). I was expecting them to be overbearing parents who placed way too much pressure on Artemis to excel, and that’s why she’s got such anger issues, but they were actually great, supportive, loving parents, who took a genuine interest in their child’s life and in her interests.
Poor Mike…
Mike still had papers to deliver, plus it was collection day so you can be sure he wouldn’t miss that. But I agree that his parents are basically ignoring him at this point so Cindy, I’m sure, is going to exploit that.
Nitpick: House of Secrets. But, yeah, I liked seeing that as well. I was expecting a bit more of a payoff, though. Maybe it is just a random used book store, but Courtney’s interaction with the owner seemed like they were trying to set something up, and it is the House of Secrets…Maybe it’ll show up again later in the season, with some actual secrets.
Or, maybe, like the cinema marquees, it was just a throwaway Easter Egg, and the interaction with the owner was just to pad out the runtime of the episode.
S02E05 Summer School: Chapter Five
STORMY WEATHER OVER BLUE VALLEY - As Pat and Courtney clash over their next steps in their search for Eclipso, ominous weather conditions in Blue Valley hint that he may be near. Meanwhile, Cindy’s plan to recruit another student takes an unexpected turn, and Cameron opens up to Courtney.