Stargirl Summer School Chapter Five S2 E5
Summer School has been such a breeze to watch in the traditional weekly format, but it’s set up in such a serial format that binging it might be even better. That’s what happens when a show has this many layers and subplots for all of the supporting characters.
Chapter 5 opens up with a flashback of young Cindy fearing the return of her father. Sorry, we’re all long past the point of finding Cindy sympathetic writing team. She’s a 2021 Mean Girl with some superpowers and basically everything she does is out of spite or jealousy. In other words — a perfect villain and antithesis to Courtney. There’s no need to water her down.
Pat shares another Eclipso tracking tip with Courtney — the weather patterns. This doesn’t seem all that helpful since Shade already confirmed Eclipso was in Blue Valley. Courtney’s just glad Pat has gotten past the need to keep any more secrets from her…er, this is awkward.
Shade visits Barbara to politely (seriously, no sarcasm — he was super gentlemanly about it) ask her to tell Courtney and the JSA to stop following him and to leave dealing with Eclipso to him. Barb also has to provide some support as Pat has to deal with Mike’s latest confidence crisis. He really just wants to help the JSA. Recognizing that sentiment and often being stuck behind, Pat suggests they can build something to help the team together.
This is all going to be for naught since Cindy is so pressed to have Mike join her team, but it’s definitely not a case of Pat, Barb, Courtney, etc. sending him straight to Cindy’s/Eclipso’s arms.
Just to reinforce that earlier sentiment about Cindy, she’s annoyed Cameron won’t join her ratchet Injustice Society so she corrupts Paul (Randy Havens), the super nice and cool art/summer school teacher, with Eclipso.
Following up on pre-corrupted Paul’s advice, Cameron finally shows Courtney his drawings of her. She digs them, but has to respond to an emergency JSA summons. It’s a storm brewing and that means it’s time to stop Eclipso. It was annoying that Pat didn’t tag along as S.T.R.I.P.E. in this instance. The budget has to limit his appearances, but this is where another veteran JSA member would really come in handy.
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Ideally, Wildcat would have filled that role since he’s a JSAer that doesn’t have any power. The Atom could work and so could Mr. Terrific just so an adult could take part in the actual fighting while Pat stays behind or tinkers with S.T.R.I.P.E. At this point in the season he seems negligent not tagging along with them on every mission.
At the high school, the JSA find the art studio going all Warhol…no wait, that’s just Eclipso. The Eclipso effect taxed the special effects budget, but they were mostly convincing.
Thanks to her cosmic rod, Stargirl was the only one not to fall prey to Eclipso’s manipulations and hallucinations. This makes sense given the rod’s light properties. Stargirl also managed to save Paul so a nice guy didn’t have to get killed to show that Eclipso is a major threat.
That’s such an annoying bad habit in shows. Clearly we see Eclipso is a menace and capable of killing folks. No need to lose a decent supporting character to reinforce that notion.
Beth finally got tired of pretending everything was fine and confronted her parents about their divorce. If they weren’t always rushing off and so distant this would have a bit more meaning. Maybe Beth’s mother is actually a Manhunter?
Cam’s powers are starting to manifest, which makes sense as his grandmother also revealed her innate frosty abilities when Cindy started eyeing her grandson. Does this mean he might rethink her invitation to join her gang?
Summer School Chapter 5 marked the JSA’s first official confrontation with Eclipso and showed they’re not nearly as ready to confront him as they’d hoped. Next up is Cindy and her Injustice Society.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW