Stargirl – Frenemies Chapter Twelve – The Last Will and Testament of Sylvester Pemberton review S3 E11
While I had my suspicions there was enough legitimate reasons to explain them away making Stargirl’s penultimate episode twist land beautifully.
But first, let’s take a look at a flashback of Delores Winters receiving an award for her latest big screen performance. An admirer reveals he knows something is off with her, which causes her to savagely kill him with the award.
It might be Delores on the outside, but the Ultra Humanite is running the show. That was some subtle foreshadowing for the present day.
She/he asks Dragon King to put her brain in a new body and she’s got the ideal candidate — the white albino gorilla Congo Bill. That’s a nice Easter Egg as Congo Bill and Ultra Humanite were two totally different gorillas in the DCU.
Sylvester is ready to go after Jordan and he doesn’t sound overly optimistic about his chances based on his parting conversations with Beth and Yolanda.
Citing Green Lantern’s kids, Sandman’s nephew and Atom’s son, he charges them with finding people worthy to carry on the mantle of heroes like Dr. Fate, Mr. Terrific and The Flash. “Keep my friends legacies alive.”
This was a good scene and made me think of the show’s lone weakness — not connecting enough of the past and present. In the excellent Justice Society run, the veteran heroes were important in linking the generations. Having all the JSA be teenagers shortchanged that dynamic since Pat wasn’t an official JSA member.
Sylvester tells Artemis her parents wouldn’t want her to go to prison. He’s gonna kill Jordan for her. He’s not as nice with Pat, who he basically blames for getting him killed in the first place.
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Courtney overheard and tells Sylvester that he’s wrong — Pat isn’t just a sidekick, he’s a hero and he’s her hero too. But Courtney can’t pull a power play with the cosmic staff as Sylvester summons it out of her hands.
To ensure Pat won’t follow him, Sylvester breaks STRIPE’s arm, which Zeke says just shows Sylvester was trying to protect him by pushing him away.
And on that front, Beth leads the charge to help Rick, who’s struggling trying to break his addiction to his hourglass.
Meanwhile, Cindy, Mike and Jakeem get the Thunderbolt to direct them to one of Dragon King’s labs where they discover Dragon King’s body minus the brain.
They get a surprise when Ultra Humanite arrives and Dragon King is using the body. Mike raises the very valid question of where is the Ultra Humanite then?
Rick comes to the others asking for help and they question why Sylvester showed him to jailbreak the limiter since he would know Rex needed it to stop from getting out of control.
Pat comes to Icicle’s house armed with a flame thrower (smart) but makes the mistake of turning his back to Sylvester, who knocks him out. Yep, we’ve found out where the Ultra Humanite’s been hiding.
Starman/Ultra Humanite has Pat in a grave and slowly fills it while breaking down his calculated revenge plot.
This is very villain monologue-y, but the logic checks out — covering all the bases and potential questions smoothly. In that sense, this twist doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. Nope, this all flowed in a logical and sensible manner.
With Pat buried alive, the JSA reeling and the power triumvirate of Starman/Ultra Humanite, Icicle and Ultra Humanite/Dragon King things are looking good for the heroes, but man did it make for a fully satisfying episode!
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW
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