Summary
“Summer School: Chapter Two” gives Courtney a rival for both Pat’s attention and her superhero status, as new — or perhaps old — villains continue to assemble.
Stargirl is about being a superhero, sure, but it’s also about being a teenage girl, and sometimes that’s a much more complicated endeavor. This is what Courtney Whitmore is forced to grapple with in the second episode of Stargirl’s second season when she’s confronted by not just another superpowered associate but someone who really is everything she has always wished she was.
Stargirl season 2, episode 2 recap
This obviously follows directly on from last week’s cliff-hanger ending, which was also the premiere’s only effects-heavy action sequence. Jennie (Ysa Penarejo) wasn’t just any old home intruder, but the daughter of the Green Lantern, the real daughter of a real superhero who is also annoyingly polite and perfect – that’s how Courtney sees her, anyway. But as “Summer School: Chapter Two” reveals in a six-days-earlier flashback to a Milwaukee group home, Jennie hasn’t exactly had things easy. The Green Lantern ring, left for her in a box of lozenges that also contained a toy car belonging to her brother, Todd, was supposed to be a tether to the real family she feels she has lost. Instead, she found the Dugans and Courtney, who didn’t exactly give her a warm welcome on her arrival and continues not to for most of the episode.
Of course, to Courtney, Jennie represents everything she’s not, but to Jennie, Courtney’s relatively well-adjusted family life and sense of normalcy is the enviable thing, so they both have things to teach each other. But it takes a while to get there. Since Courtney has to attend Summer School, she’s forced to leave Jennie to befriend everyone and to learn how her emotions control the Lantern courtesy of Pat, who just seems happy to finally be getting some credit. Ironically, it isn’t until Courtney tries to make nice with Jennie that she inadvertently angers her to the point that the Lantern becomes dangerously unstable.
With the help of Courtney and Pat, Jennie is able to bring the Lantern under control… sort of, anyway. She prevents it from demolishing Blue Valley, which seemed to be the direction it was heading in, but it also erupts in a giant ball of green light that leaves her floating imperiously in the air. This is obviously a lot to take in, and when Courtney wakes up the next morning she finds Jennie gone, though one suspects not for long as far as the entire season is concerned. Either way, though, it reminds Courtney of what’s important, and she resolves to be Courtney first, Stargirl second, at least until a villain turns up.
Of course, a villain in the form of Jonathan Cake’s snooty, Jaguar-driving, tea-drinking Brit Richard Swift, aka The Shade, has already turned up, rounding out the OG members of the ISA. “I’ll get my staff!” Courtney excitedly exclaims, having obviously not been too serious about keeping it locked away in its crate.
Speaking of putting magical implements back in their boxes, that’s what Cindy threatens Eclipso with after he inadvertently compelled Bobbie into trying to kill Cindy and then possessed Cindy into killing Bobbie so that Eclipso could feed on her soul. It’s a bit of a complicated arrangement, in all honesty, but it’s very much an evil one, proving that, even if it wasn’t for the arrival of the Shade, Courtney probably wouldn’t have been keeping the staff on ice for very long anyway.
