"The Justice Society"
This week's episode of Stargirl was quite the journey to embark on. Not just for its characters, but for me as a viewer taking on everything that was happening onscreen. From having mixed opinions about a particular new villain introduction to then later geeking out about them, all while having previous cautions about the show being highlighted then relieved at the end of the episode. Suffice it to say, Stargirl's 6th entry took me on a joyride of mixed emotions yet manages to successfully stick the landing at the end of the day. So, without any further delay, let's dive into this week's episode entitled "The Justice Society".
Meet Sportsmaster & Tigress
Well…I guess it was inevitable unfortunately. Stargirl has finally introduced its first missing link of the show for me within its character roster. Here I thought I'd finally get a DC Comics TV series that'd hit a good track record with its gallery of heroes and villains, but alas, we get our grand debut of both Sportscaster and Tigress on the show. This is an interesting situation considering that I actually find what the episode does later on with their characters to be utterly fantastic (more on that later), but everything prior to that just didn't work for me. Whether it’s the direction given to them or the actors themselves giving full freedom to put their own spin on things performance-wise, I found both characters to feel slightly more over the top and cheesy than what the show had established. Now, let's be perfectly clear here, I'm only speaking in relation to their civilian alter egos as married couple Larry Crock and Paula Brooks.
Interacting in a scene next to a character like Icicle, or even following up Dr. Ito’s sinister and creepy debut, it feels almost as if Larry and Paula wandered off of Season 1 of Gotham's tonal shifting R-Rated whacky set and ended up on Stargirl somehow. Their “boy do we love being crazy evil parents” aura felt a tad bit cringeworthy and forced completely contrasting everyone else. The scene where they're made to look sinister after witnessing their daughter Artemis (who I hope we get to see suit up on the show) get benched by the coach eventually murdering him felt like it just barely touched the borderline of utterly goofy. Now granted, the series hasn't had the best sense of tone what with its often at times loud and off-putting pop music choices to follow up or lead up to heavy dramatic moments. However, the characters themselves have always felt consistently grounded for the most part making Larry and Paula our first true missing links of the series for me personally.
If there's one positive thing that I'll say about their portrayal as parents is that we can finally understand where Artemis gets her dangerously competitive personality from.
More Awesome Lore Building
Something that I’ve been highlighting with every episode discussion so far since the pilot is how much I absolutely love the way in which the writers insert tidbits of story elements surrounding the original JSA without us actually seeing them "in person". This series, in my opinion, has some of the best world/lore building within the comic book superhero genre on television making me more and more hope that we get a Golden Age JSA mini series of sorts down the lines. With this episode, we're given some history around the original Wild Cat, Ted Grant, with Yolanda showing Courtney his final boxing match on her phone before he reinvented himself as the superhero persona. We learn that right before "the Castillo fight" (who I couldn't find any reference to in the comics), they stripped Ted of his title due to the accusation of him fixing the fight's outcome. This caused his reputation to sink leading to him eventually deciding to become something new and transformative. I love how this piece of character lore also plays into Yolanda’s arc of wanting to reinvent/redeem herself which, as I said during the Wild Cat episode, is why she’s the perfect pick to take on the mantle.
Speaking of great character lore, we also get a bit of a history lesson about the original Hourman through Pat speaking to Rick about the hour glass’s tempting power and addiction dilemma which Rex Tyler cautiously managed after inventing it. Again, I love how the storytelling revolving around the show's superhero world history also ties into the current character arcs as Rick himself is driven and tempted by vengeance to inappropriately use his newfound power. There's an intriguing little seed planted there with his legacy as Rex Tyler's book seems to be difficult to decipher even for his son and Mid-Nite's goggles. Hmmm...wonder where that may lead.
Later on, we get a quick statement from Pat about the Green Lantern being dangerous but essentially useless at the moment without a ring (which hopefully isn't code for "sorry viewers but he's out of our reach for ridiculous legal reasons"). Last but not least, during the ending scene with the ISA, Sportsmaster speaks down to Anaya (the Fiddler) about how her husband would've been able to revive Brainwave from his coma with his use of the fiddle giving the impression that she may actually be a legacy character just as our new recruits. Not only are we getting some awesome JSA lore but some interesting ISA history as an awesome bonus. The more the writers tease about the past, the more excited I get in seeing it while being just as intrigued with how it affects the present and future. By the way, Pat or Courtney may want to pick up a certain pen left hanging around before a certain kid or dog interacts with it.
Oh, So That's What The Gambler Can Do.
We finally get to learn what the Gambler’s abilities are in this episode which is essentially high classed hacking and probabilities. Yeah…not much there to get excited about, but it does make sense for the ISA to have someone in their ranks who can take control over digital networks around the world. We learn that he’s wanted for fraud, conspiracy, and murder which does sorta legitimize his threat level to a degree (I guess the hidden wrist gun helps as well). Though I'm not sure where the "gamble" part comes in strongly yet which gives the impression of luck related powers, yet Doctor Mid-Nite's AI specifically states that he has no superpowers whatsoever. We haven't seen him use his probability analyzing yet in a profound way, so we'll just have to wait and see. Now, much like Sportsmaster and Tigris, the actor playing the Gambler hasn’t quite won me over yet, but at the very least, I do kinda like his overall unique classy southern presentation compared to their "Look at us! We're psychotically obsessed with gym!" twisted parents vibe.
Stargirl's Greatest Battle Yet
Alright, time to get to the good stuff. After a bit of drama between Courtney and Pat revolving around her stealing the JSA gear and recruiting people without his involvement (which was a great scene on its own about trust issues and respect), we follow up with the recruits themselves not wanting to give up the gear after fully embracing their new capabilities and life direction. This leads to Doctor Mid-Nite’s AI picking up on the Gambler’s satellite hacking which the team, with Courtney now showing some maturity in her hesitation, deciding to confront him head on since he’s supposedly alone. It's interesting and kinda funny how everyone immediately sees the Gambler as a low level threat perfectly suited for a mission lead by inexperienced teenagers with crazy powers and tech. I was kinda anticipating that we'd get some shocker of a twist where the Gambler completely owns them on his own with some luck related abilities somehow, but instead we get something even more exciting.
At first, I wasn’t too sure how to feel about this rushed together new generation JSA going after an established ISA member without any semblance of a plan nor training whatsoever as a team. I was worried that the show would do another cop out and have them win by chance defeating the Gambler making the ISA look terribly incompetent. Thankfully, what we get instead is a surprisingly badass action scene with both Sportsmaster and Tigress showing up as the ISA's attack dogs and absolutely whopping the recruits' butts as they rightfully should. As terrible as it sounds, I was more than happy to see our heroes getting almost completely dominated by just two ISA members as it confirmed to me that the writers were being logical and realistic with the power scaling and experience level of the characters.
The action choreography was pretty solid showcasing several highlights such as Sportsmaster utilizing different sports gear (which shockingly worked for me somehow as looking dangerous in all of its ridiculousness) to take down both Rick and Courtney while Tigris utilizes her super athleticism to defeat Yolanda. The hero-villain matchups were perfect with what they were able to do visually in the fights and the battles themselves established that even the most grounded of the ISA members are legitimate threats to our super powered heroes. Let’s just say that, although I may dislike the performances given by the actors in their civilian alter egos, I absolutely love the action sensibilities given to Sportscaster and Tigress. The truly badass team up attacks that they execute showing off their perfect coordination as a couple was unexpected and highly entertaining to watch.
This fight scene was quite the surprise taking two villains that I wasn’t too excited about to begin with and making them immediately exciting to watch in action while perfectly highlighting the obvious problem of Courtney and the recruits impatiently running into their first mission against the ISA. Now to give credit to our new JSA, it was cool seeing them trying to adapt to fighting villains for the first time such as Rick utilizing his super strength to weaponize surrounding cars in order to get the edge up on Sportsmaster. We also had Yolanda who, even though struggled to keep up with Tigress, did manage to show off some of her athleticism with the suit being able to evade some of her attacks. Heck, even Beth helped out with the goggles. Stargirl also gets to shine with some of her gymnastics with the cosmic staff against the formidable couple while interestingly almost losing the staff's power to an explosion. Overall, this was an awesome fight scene successfully conveying everything that it needed to for where we are in the series with our characters as well as the show's sense of entertainment value.
Accepting & Embracing The New JSA
Ending the fight is Pat who flies in with the mech suit intimidating our villains enough for them to retreat to fight another day. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure how the show would follow up the fact that a bunch of kids went out to fight highly dangerous and experienced killers and schemers with highly dangerous stolen tech. To my delight, the writers did exactly what I was hoping they’d do from the pilot. I’ve stated this in every episode discussion with a sense of caution but now I get to finally shine a positive light on it. Through this defeat, and Pat catching her in the act of recruiting for a new JSA without him in secret, Courtney finally learns the crucial lesson of patience, planning, and communication. It took a major defeat like this to get it through her skull but she finally got it and boy was I satisfied to see this bit of character growth during her interaction with Pat at the end.
I’m glad that the episode didn’t lean to heavily on some loud argument with Pat yelling at the recruits (which would've been well earned honestly) but instead keeping the conversation focused on having Courtney be able to experience for herself what she’s essentially been doing wrong this entire time. It’s a great show of character progression and exactly what the doctor ordered for what was my main caution for the season prior. So, to that I say “kudos to the writers for paying off what I was hoping was one big set up for Stargirl’s superhero arc of maturity and teamwork”. Putting a nice bow on the whole thing is Pat accepting and embracing the recruits telling Courtney that everyone needs training which makes me eagerly await next week’s episode’s potentially awesome training montage. We also see the recruit’s acceptance of Pat as well realizing, after seeing his robot's entrance, that he isn’t "some potentially useless guy who doesn’t want them to do anything they want” which is a typical teenager thing to think (glad we’re passed that now).
To cap things off, we have the ISA meeting up and speaking about both the furthering and hindrance of Project New America with Brainwave’s significance of being absent in a coma. With Jordon now setting up the the new JSA as a priority target worth investigating, things are beginning to get pretty exciting for the rest of the season.
Bonus Thoughts
1. Our Heroes Face Death For The First Time As A Team
During their first terribly planned out mission, the new JSA, while searching for the Gambler, comes across a body on the floor who we can assumed to be dead. I absolutely love how the episode stops to show their different reactions to seeing a dead body while on a mission. Yolanda covers her mouth in shock, Courtney looks frightened (perhaps due to witnessing Joey's death), Beth looks possibly traumatized, and Rick looks even more driven to find and interrogate the Gambler. It's a great small moment that highlights just how inexperienced these youngsters are in the superhero lifestyle where encountering corpses left by villains is quite possibly a weekly thing. Since the series premiere, the series has done a fantastic job at implementing scenes like these for our characters to have a self reflecting moment while several other superhero shows would quickly skip over it just to get to the next big action or dramatic moment.
2. The Interesting Thing About Icicle
Though we don't particularly get a lot of Icicle this episode, what we do get is some individually compelling character moments worth observing with our season villain. First, we have a scene where Jordon is awakened out of his sleep by a nightmare which we're given a subtle but effective audio cue invoking a heart monitor (referencing his wife's passing). This coupled with his tender and emotionally effective interaction scenes with his son later on about the importance of the day being his wife's birthday were genuinely moving. It's interesting seeing these types of legitimately heartfelt and family centered moments being given to the show's season villain presenting a very multilayered foundation for the character as being much more than your typical "kill everyone because I'm simply evil" villain. This makes Icicle already a deeply intriguing character to follow along as the audience can truly feel some semblance of empathy for him despite the insanely cold hearted move that he did to Joey just a few episodes ago.
3. Doctor Mid-Nite's Goggle Highlights
During this episode, we get some new discoveries with Mid-Nite's goggles such as the A.I. highlighting the Gambler as his arch nemesis (which would make sense given the tech background) as well as our first visual lead of Project New America with a digital mapping of a satellite network. This implies that Icicle's agenda involves utilizing a signal of sorts which would make sense with Brainwave's crucial involvement. The goggles is also revealed to be able to display the passcode to a door as well as strategic environmental tools such as a fire extinguisher for Beth to use to help Yolanda escape near death. I also love the character bio art that the goggles showcase whenever a classic JSA or ISA character is being analyzed.
4. Stargirl's Excellent Focus On Family
Stargirl does something during this episode that the Black Lightning series on CW also did during its first season that I loved. Contrasting itself from other shows within the genre, Stargirl puts a prioritized focus on family in both its use of legacy characters and sense of character relationships with their loved ones on the show. This episode in particular had an absolutely heart warming though admittedly crowded over side plot where Mike makes a candy themed volcano for a Science Fair but feels rejected when no one at the showcase visits his exhibit. In comes Barbara who saves the day from what could've been a gloomy side story about a child feeling useless and forgotten leading to some misguided rebellious arc (thank you writers for not doing this). Instead, we get a fun and charming scene where Barbara gets to be the cool mom sharing a moment with her stepson watching the candy volcano erupt and eating it all up later on together watching a movie. Scenes like these are the ones that I cherish the most in these types of properties as it showcases a much more tender human side to the costumed crazy superhero world.
Episode Rating: 8/10
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