Well, don’t forget we have Comic Book Physics at work here. So until you see the body (preferably dismembered, with the head in a trash compacter), the character can always pop up again…
Henry: “Whoa, it was so cool the way my mind made this like force bubble that kept me safe under the debris… it just took until S2ep4 for me to dig myself out. Anybody got a sandwich or something?”
which was?
That Courtney’s dad is alive - something that Barbara apparently never told Courtney or Pat.
I’m not sure she actually knew that. The email she sent opens with “Sam, if this is you please contact me.” She’s at the very least unsure if the recipient is actually the man she knew as Sam. It’s quite possible she didn’t actually know if he was alive or dead.
At this point, the show is being annoyingly coy about Courtney’s father’s identity. Barbara keeps insisting he wasn’t a super-hero, but she’s now seen pictures of Starman, who didn’t wear a mask. If Starman wasn’t Courtney’s father, why didn’t she just point to Starman’s picture, and say, “Courtney, that’s not your father. I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”
Also, we again get the weirdness of somehow there only being fuzzy black and white photos of a person from only 10 years ago, and the weirdness of what people know about the existence of superheroes. Barbara doesn’t seem to question the existence of superheroes and supervillains, but doesn’t seem to know who Starman was. Are supers a secret in this world or general public knowledge?
BTW, the Easter Egg I pointed out above seems like a subtle indication that the existence of supers is in fact public knowledge. The box office is still dominated by comic book movies, but in a world where super hero comics would be “reality” comics instead of escapist fiction, the comic book movies are based on a science fiction anthology, two weird war comics, and a political satire.
Dr. Mid-Nite would also be able to tell whether or not Starman was Courtney’s father. It shouldn’t have been a “mystery” this long. (Also wondering what happened to Pat’s ex-wife)
My fanspec on Courtney’s father: Sam is Sylvester Pemberton’s brother.
Barbara only had a brief fling with him (possibly even a one-night stand) and didn’t actually know him that well. After that, she only saw him briefly once a year when he visited Courtney. And the last time was over 10 years ago. So, when she sees a picture of Starman, she’s pretty sure that’s not the man she knew, but there is a definite resemblance…
Sam disappeared after the JSA/ISA final showdown because the ISA was going after not just the JSA, but the JSA’s family members. He disappeared to protect himself from the ISA, and more importantly to avoid leading the ISA to Barbara and Courtney.
The staff bonded to Courtney because, while she’s not Starman’s daughter, she’s at least his kin.
AltSpec: Barbara actually knows all this (or a lot of it). She’s so insistent that Courtney’s father wasn’t a super-hero because 1) she knows that Sam was Starman’s brother, not Starman, and 2) she knows that the JSA’s enemies were going after their families, wants to protect Courtney from them, and wants to do everything she can to discourage Courtney from looking into her past and exposing herself to the JSA’s enemies.
Will Henry Jr.'s death become public knowledge? What will be the cover story - and will Yolanda (who has a clear motive) be suspected (or framed) for the death?
And will her brother (who seemed to at least want to stand up for her before) lie to provide her with a fake alibi?
If so, will he wind up in the JSA somehow?
Or will her brother be the suspect?
Or, maybe not.
(I’m almost a week behind, because my cable box suddenly stopped recording the show, and is having trouble even seeing that the show is on the air. It’s very annoying.)
I’m starting to wonder if Starman has been cosmically erased. As has been pointed out, Barbara should have easily been able to to point to the picture of Starman and say, “Nope, that’s not your father”. There should be better pictures of Sylvester than that blurry, black-and-white cameo picture.
Could Dr. Fate or the Spectre erase people from existence, or mask them in some way? It might’ve been done to protect Barbara and Courtney from the ISA.
Yeah, apparently not. I still like my fanspec more than the cookie cutter “real father is a deadbeat” teen angst storyline.
I feel bad for Courtney thinking that she’s responsible for Joey’s death, when I think he was doomed whether or not she existed.
1.I think Beth (or even Pat) should’ve suggested that she (Beth) should’ve examined the staff with the goggles. Maybe Chuck might’ve had some suggestions.
My husband and I wondered if the staff responded in some way to her locket. Sam did say it was “special” and that it was made by a “jeweler to the stars”. I thought she was going to go after him to get hers back.
Is there any way that Courtney might be related to the original Starman, Ted Knight, who made the staff?
Sam’s lucky that a) Pat’s “busy” and that b) Jordan didn’t hear what he said.
I think Mike’s going to find out about the JSA next week, when Sportsmaster and Tigress invade his house. And I think he’s going to be key to everyone’s survival, because he’s going to become a new JSA member. One of the artifacts Courtney took will somehow protect him. (Unless his friend is there, the one who’s going to control the Thunderbolt.)
It is funny that Beth, who had been wearing the goggles near constantly, wasn’t wearing them when she met with Pat - they would have been helpful in dealing with Shining Knight.
I wonder if Shining Knight can be killed - if he can’t that explains why the villains apparently just brainwashed him as a second-best solution to their problem (they might have also imprisoned him for a while - but maybe even brainwashed he managed to escape).
PS. Last night, Brainwave finally confirmed that he could brainwash people without any machine. Previously, we had only seen him kill with his mind, and send and receive thoughts.
Since Justin is, if not immortal, extremely long-lived, I wonder if Dr. Ito experimented on him searching for longevity secrets. He is very old himself. Maybe he didn’t learn what he wanted to know, or misunderstood it, and that’s how he wound up reptilian.
While A Starman is shown, it’s not Ted Knight.
Brec Bassinger’s performance in this episode was simply sublime. The cafeteria scene in particular, where Courtney was telling the rest of the JSA that she wasn’t Starman’s daughter. It started as a wide shot of the whole table from across the room. As the scene progressed the camera slowly zoomed into Courtney’s face, without any cuts whatsoever. She carried that whole scene like a champ.
In the show’s continuity, we don’t know where the Cosmic Staff comes from. Pat has repeatedly said that he doesn’t actually know much about it. It’s at least possible that Sylvester Pemberton got it from an earlier Starman, and that Courtney is somehow connected to that earlier Starman.
At this point, though, I’d be disappointed if that were the case. The latest episode made a strong dramatic argument (explicitly argued by Pat) that the Cosmic Staff bonded with Courtney not because of who she’s related to, but because of who she is as a person.