Stargirl – Summer School – Chapter Ten

It’s so much more fun watching good superhero TV shows. Stargirl’s Tenth Chapter of Summer School was the darkest yet with the presumed death of the title character.

Presumed because you can’t actually kill the main character on a show named after them. But this made for another great episode with a killer cliffhanger. As fun as this season has been, being able to just binge it once it’s completed will be even better. And with the shorter episode count, it’s likely to be a quick two-three day max binge.

Pat reflects on Starman’s regret over killing Bruce Gordon. From what we’ve seen so far, Eclipso is seriously overpowered and it doesn’t seem like the JSA had a real shot at stopping him otherwise. It’s nice that heroes regret murdering someone, but in the case it felt like they were truly out of options. It’s a nice moment and finally shows why Pat holds Starman in such high regard. They were essentially brothers.

Courtney rightfully calls Pat out for lying saying Yolanda probably wouldn’t have quit if she knew she wasn’t the only JSA member to kill someone. Yolanda’s was self defensive while the JSA was proactive-defense? Pat just didn’t want Courtney’s opinion of the JSA to change, which is also understandable.  She’s at that impressionable age and Pat clearly doesn’t want Courtney to view killing as an option.

It’s nice that characters can be both right and wrong. Courtney is laying on the guilt trip hard, but Pat wasn’t at Obi-Wan Kenobi levels of withholding vital information. Regardless of the point of view. Shade drops in and tells them they can stop Eclipso by repairing the diamond.

With Courtney’s staff still on the fritz, Pat makes a logical next choice and wants to track down Jenny. Intelligent characters doing sensible things really helps make a show more enjoyable (glares at Titans). Pat and Courtney find Jenny’s notes about her brother, Todd, at JSA headquarters in Pat and Starman’s wing. This is maybe the first time the show had to make a budgetary shortcut. There’s no reason for Jenny to be in the already created Starman wing set when her father, Green Lantern, was also a member of the JSA.

Let’s jump ahead of this in case some folks want to accuse the show of forced diversity. In the comics, Jenny’s brother, Todd, was also a superhero named Obsidian. And he just so happened to be gay.

There was a really fascinating exploration of Obsidian’s dark shadow power being this metaphor for him struggling to come to grip with his sexual identity. Bringing in a gay character from the comics is a great way to introduce an LGBTQ character in a non-clunky and out of nowhere fashion.

Pat and Courtney find Jenny at the Helix Institute for Youth Rehabilitation, the last place she’d tracked down Todd. He’s a no-show and Jenny goes with them to help stop Eclipso. The helpful doctor, Louise Love, waits until they’ve left and calls a Mr. Bones. Whoa, that’s interesting. Stargirl has always had a bit more of an Infinity Inc. feel as opposed to the JSA, which has a decent amount of the legacy characters working in tandem with the new generation.

Infinity Inc. was just the children/heroes inspired by the JSA teaming together. And some of their members included Jenny, Obsidian, Dr. Mid-Nite II, Wildcat II, Hourman II, Solomon Grundy…and Mr. Bones. It’ll be really fascinating to see if Stargirl goes down that path.

Speaking of Hourman II, Rick is in his prison cell and gets an apple delivery from Grundy via his window. Do local prisons really not close the windows? That seems like a really bad design flaw. Maybe this is just in utopia Blue Valley? That was peculiar, but Stargirl is the kind of show where this comes off like a nice moment since Rick looked out so much for Grundy earlier this season.

While everyone else is away, Mike starts tinkering with STRIPE in hopes of getting him back operational. This is a good use of Mike and something to occupy him for a few episodes. Well, if he didn’t get the news alert about an arc of pink lighting.

Sounds like Jakeem has become acquainted with Thunderbolt. Mike finds a massive gingerbread house — the handiwork of Thunderbolt taking Jakeem’s directions literally.

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Beth is keeping her goggles on since she knows a way to see through Eclipso’s deceptions. Dr. McNider comes through Beth’s comms just quick enough to tell her he would never kill anyone.

McNider tells Beth that Shade saved him and shares Shade origin and connection as a conduit for the dark energy. Shade is seeing his sister instead of Barb. In this tech role at least Beth isn’t a hyper genius. She has to learn things and work for it beyond the click clatter of a few keystrokes.

This delays proves pivotal as Beth assembles the JSA notes too late to stop Jenny from putting the diamond back together. It was all a lie from Shade in order to restore his powers. The assembled diamond isn’t the means to stop Eclipso, but to summon him. Jenny isn’t experienced enough to prove more than a momentary distraction and Eclipso sends Courtney into the shadows — the same way he disposed of Cindy.

Luke Wilson does a heck of a guy conveying Pat’s grief over losing his daughter. Between Luke on Stargirl and Owen on Loki, the Wilson brothers are doing some strong work on exceptional comic book TV series.

Stargirl hasn’t stumbled so far this season. This was the darkest before the dawn episode and sets things up nicely for a strong finish.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

Read Infinity Inc: The Generations Saga Vol. 1 now on Amazon.