"Brainwave Jr."
This week's episode of Stargirl left us with a climactic enough action scene to enjoy, a surprisingly deeper villain story to process, standout performances by its story-wise leading characters, and quite the epic cliffhanger to digest. Where the show follows from this point forward is anyone's guess, but speaking about it where it stands now, Stargirl just lifted itself up as one of the most refreshingly engaging live action superhero shows within the DC Comics gallery. Here are my personal positive and negative highlights from what I'd argue as being the best episode of the series so far appropriately titled "Brainwave Jr.".
Pros
Brainwave's Arc
The writers continue to surprise me on this show with the way in which they've taken initially one dimensional/generic villains and organically reveal them to actually be compelling three dimensional characters with understandable goals and motives. In this week's case, we have the furthering of Brainwave's story being unravelled for the audience such as the conspiracy behind his wife's death and how it connects to the ISA as well as his emotional vulnerabilities regarding her. This whole idea of Brainwave waking up from his coma regressed to a much more sensitive and tender father figure state due to his last known memories before Dr. Ito brings him back to being the cold hearted ISA member was such a fascinating concept to witness. To see how this then affects Henry Jr. giving us some sense of a potential redemption story being set up for Brainwave made the final moments of the episode all the more deeply impactful and tragic.
That final confrontation of father and son with the sad declaration that Brainwave himself killed his wife (revealed to be Starman's sister) raised the dramatic stakes to the highest peak that the show has ever reached thus far. The classic Darth Vader moment where the villain tries to get his son to join "the dark side" could've easily come across as cliched here with the two characters. Thankfully, due to the fantastic performances all around and direction of the scene with the JSA being trapped behind bars trying to bash their way through Brainwave's fore field to save Henry, only to witness his grim fate by his very own father, this scene was utterly gut punching. There's also the added fact that the whole team was originally scornful towards him joining them due to his connection to his father and past relationship with Yolanda, only to realize that he truly was changing for the better, converged into one beautiful package of dramatic storytelling.
If Henry Jr. was indeed killed by his father in this episode's jaw dropping and epic cliffhanger, then Stargirl just delivered one of the boldest character deaths in the history of live action comic book shows. Building up someone into a potentially redeemable individual and a possible superhero even though they clearly had the core ingredients to becoming a legacy version of a villain, only to kill them in the end, is truly gutsy. Now, if Henry isn't dead, and what we're witnessing here is one giant cop out where someone like Dr. Ito can heal/resurrect him, then I hope the writers have something fulfilling in store for the character as to not take away the impact of this scene. To the writers of Stargirl who will obviously not be reading this review, please take notes from Fox's Gotham series regarding how NOT to handle character deaths/returns on a show. You have to make the specific death and the idea of characters dying in general actually mean something or else what's the point of building up life and death stakes? That's all I have to say to that.
Also, on a side note, the performances by Christopher James Baker and Jake Austin Walker as Henry and Henry Jr. were absolutely stellar this episode.
Romantic/Family-Drama Done Right
Another major positive that I had with this episode was basically everything involving Pat and Barbara. The opening scene where we get to see how the couple met for the first time made me smile uncontrollably from the sheer adorableness of the whole scene. I found myself smiling like some teenage girl watching her favorite romantic young adult movie starring Ryan Gosling (hmmm that got way too specific). For that, damn you Stargirl for getting me giddy over a romance origin of all things. I say how dare you! This never happens to me on any other superhero show, and I've seen over 30 of them, so how in the world did you manage to be the first? You bastards! There goes my statement of being "too manly" (which is ridiculous in hindsight) to get excited in some fashion over a romantic story. I held onto that for decades and now Stargirl just officially threw it out the window. I blame both Luke Wilson and Amy Smart's immense level of charm for this.
It's this lovably cute scene showing them together at a diner that makes the rest of the episode so hard to swallow with their relationship now being in question. Barbara finding out about the whole JSA-ISA/Stargirl situation in the worst way possible made me feel both terrible for Pat yet completely empathetic with Barbara. This is a mother who just found out by accident that her husband has taken her daughter out to fight dangerous costumed villains that he has been fighting for decades. Also adding in the tiny detail of Mike feeling left out of the whole situation that seems like a possible divorce on the surface gave the series a very genuine family drama subplot to explore.
How Barbara then surprises Pat (and the audience) by recording Jordon's family's Norwegian statements to reveal plans on a mysterious machine gave me hope that the two can work this all out and, who knows, maybe work together? Barbara joins the JSA as the new Doctor Fate. You read it here first. Alright, this is highly unlikely but jaws around the world would most definitely drop to the floor in unison if such a thing were to happen. Point is, I give major props to the show for taking what could've been a frustratingly distracting and over dramatic family conflict story and shaped it into something that felt natural, necessary, and legitimately impactful. Arrowverse shows, and I do mean every single series in the franchise, please take notes as to how romantic/family drama is done.
Battle In The Dragon King's Somewhat Formidable Lair
Leaning towards the more action heavy component of the episode, we finally get to see the Dragon King and his minions in action, and after weeks of anticipation, I have to say that I was...satisfied enough(?). Once the new JSA infiltrates the tunnels to get to Dr. Ito's lair, I was excited to see how they'd present his level of threat on the show being more than just an awesomely designed mad scientist character. Some of you will know that the Dragon King has been my most beloved villain on the show due to the various awesome genre elements that he exudes from his presence alone. Here's where we'll get a bit of a pro and a con in my thoughts towards the episode's climactic fight scene.
First, I loved the use of the environment and atmosphere of the lair being utilized as a battleground which is exactly what I was hoping for when we first saw this setting episodes ago. I also loved seeing Dragon King himself fighting with a sword against Courtney and showing how skillful he is in weaponry to take her down successfully before Yolanda jumps in and saves Courtney's life. Fun fact: This makes the 3rd time someone had to save Courtney's life after fighting someone in the Ito family. I also loved the design of his face when his hood gets knocked off showing off his heavy reptilian aesthetic much akin to Spiderman's "The Lizard" villain. On a side note, seeing and hearing Cindy in the background begging to be released so she can kill Stargirl herself was both hilarious and fun in sort of a "Harley Quinn begging the Joker to kill someone cuz she's bored" type of manner. Looking back at this, I kinda wish he did let her out just to see how even crazier things would've gotten.
The fight itself was great especially seeing Yolanda in action in the Wildcat suit as well as Courtney proving that she is indeed skilled enough to fight with a staff-like weapon without the cosmic staff itself (hinted by martial arts and gymnastics background). My biggest nitpick here is the fact that Dr. Ito's servants did absolutely nothing but walk around and sound like zombies without being of any real threat. No weapons, no powers, no combat skills, no nothing. Maybe they are just mindless robot-like servants to Dragon King, but for a big set piece battle, they offered nothing but threat-less canon fodder for our heroes to beat through. If they had reptilian-like claws of sorts then maybe the tension would've been felt even if our heroes were successfully fighting them off. Instead they looked as if they were simply trying to grab the JSA more so than kill them. Was Ito instructing them to capture and not hurt them so that he can take them as prisoners for experimentation? That could be easily speculated and interesting angle, but at this very moment without context, it made the fight feel less weighty. However, still highly entertaining.
I also wished Dragon King himself did more here (perhaps instantly heal from the cosmic staff blast like Cindy did immediately proceeding to fight them all off before Henry Jr. blasts him back). Still, it was a cool fight scene more for spotlighting Yolanda's badass combat skills and agility as the new Wild Cat (more than earning her place on the team) as well as seeing Dr. Ito fight with a sword showing that he's surprisingly proficient as a physical threat. If I'd toss in just one more nitpick here, it'd be the questionable security of his big secretive lair where an entire team of teens can just waltz in without any issues. They literally could've started shooting up the place with no problem which I find highly problematic for a big villain that I'm supposed to consider powerful and intelligent. I hope they reveal some surprise twist regarding this fight that makes Dr. Ito much more competent and sneaky than we think.
More Intriguing Lore Building
Last but not least, and I'm fully aware that I do this with every episode, but I have to mention how much I love the drop of lore building that we get here. Brainwave's wife being Starman's sister is already a lot to take in and worthy of an entire episode diving into that history. However, it's when he calls her "The woman with 1000 gimmicks" which confirms her to be the comic book superhero "Gimmick Girl" that got me a little wide eyed. How Henry met her while robbing a bank (which would've been a classic hero-villain encounter) resulting in him falling in love with her after reading her purely good thoughts is such a nice twisted parallel to Pat and Barbara's more innocent scenario. Giving the villains on the show their own moments of humanity as the heroes typically get is such a refreshing thing to see on a show like this. Also, I'd love to see what Gimmick Girl looks like in action within this universe. Perhaps a flashback of sorts. The more hero and villain backstories that we get on this show, the more I'm slowly leaning towards considering Earth-2 to be the more fleshed out and intriguing Earth in this new post-Crisis DC Multiverse.
Cons
Stargirl & The JSA's Lack of Trustful Communication
I hate to sound like a broken record here, but Courtney continues to quite literally be the only thing on this show to annoy me. 10 episodes in repeating this constant issue has resulted in me deciding to just stop myself from cringing and move on whenever she says or does something completely against everyone's benefit. This episode's basement argument scene being the case with Courtney disregarding Pat's plea to let him do the talking and instead laying out context lacking exposition at her mother making things worst. However, this episode opened up a whole new potential issue that I caught onto. I mark this one as not so much a "Con" but a point of caution moving forward. The new JSA being anything but a legitimate team and instead getting by with sheer luck and some bits of skill is completely understandable given their lack of training and experience. Unfortunately, I do see the possibility of their failure to act as a growing team being overly repeated in the future which would be a major hindrance to the show's fulfilling idea of centering around a team of legacy heroes.
Much like how I've officially disregarded the Stargirl character's evolution (which is sad to say), I'd hate to do the same for the idea of seeing the new JSA generation as an awesome fully functioning superhero team. Everything that transpires in this episode with them splitting up and the conflicts that they faced with both each other and the obstacles around them made sense from a storytelling standpoint. However, it's frustrating to watch your heroes constantly be at odds with each other having little sense of trust or communication between one another (or actual solid strategic planning) making the team look highly incompetent. By the way, no one speaks to Pat on this team it seems like whenever they're going out on missions. Pat...the guy who had all of the gear that they're using and knows about the ISA more than they do. Yeah, let's skip ever consulting that guy completely and infiltrate the big bad scary villain's headquarters. Heck, call the police if you need to for a planned out backup assistance if you can. Do something.
Again, they're supposed to be this incompetent early on in the story, but I fear that we may get a Courtney situation where they should indeed be maturing at certain pivotal points yet clearly not immediately after. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Still, I did like the Solomon Grundy moment with Rick wanting to face his parents' killer head on abandoning the mission as it made perfect sense for his character to feel empowered as their avenger. The problem here is that it didn't really lead to anything of note. Grundy never gets out, Rick never actually confronts him pass the point of just hearing him behind a giant door and Beth never manages to talk sense into him nor were the goggles of any use. The whole scene felt almost wasted, but at the same time, necessary to give one of our JSA members their own arch nemesis just like Courtney has Shiv.
Time To Let The Cat Out Of The Bag
Again, not necessarily a negative but a cautionary note, the whole Starman being or not being Courtney's father is starting to slowly reach to the point of lunacy if the show doesn't give us a clear answer really soon. Considering everyone that's in on the dilemma now, we have to be at the stage where closure or at least some sense of enlightenment begins to present itself. It seems as though we will indeed be getting some clarity in the near future via Barbara's researching and message to a certain Sam Kurtis (ex-husband if I'm not mistaken?). I'm just hoping that this means next week will finally put this plot point to bed and Courtney can stop rushingly using the "father" title without it sounding a little cringe inducing with the chance of her being way off. Either way, I'm actually pretty curious to see how the writers lay this bombshell of a reveal down after all the dramatic build up.
Episode Rating: 9/10
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