Alright, I liked this episode a lot. There was a lot of great action in this one, some interesting character beats, and we *finally* got to see Eclipso in the flesh. However, once we got to the last seven minutes or so of the episode, that's where it lost me. If we'd cut those last seven minutes, this episode would've been a perfect 10 / 10, but it just wasn't in the cards for the writers.
I'll just cut right to it. Eclipso makes his first appearance in the flesh in this episode, and he's one scary dude! Anyone that can swat Rick away with one hand is scary on some level. And what's the first thing Eclipso does? He kills two characters! He killed Isaac by feasting on his soul, and then he killed Cindy by sending her to some dark realm of some kind, because Imdb doesn't like it when you use the "H E double hockey sticks" word. Now look, this is a pretty big status quo shift by killing off a season 1 fan favorite like Cindy, but I'm struggling to find the necessity in it other than shock value. In fact, I'd argue that the deaths of Isaac and Cindy were wholly *detrimental* to the series at large!
Isaac's death was worse than Cindy's in my opinion. Cindy will be back, but Isaac won't. Now, the reason that I dislike this character's death so much is that it just seemed like they were starting to do something with him. I'm not sure what exactly they were going to do, but I'm not really happy with the way it was handled. They put him against Yolanda at the top of the episode, and I don't think that was just so they could fight later in the episode. There was a plan of some kind there, and I would've liked to see whatever it was. Isaac's death honestly feels like the writers looked their cast of characters, saw who they thought was the most expendable, and then Isaac drew the short straw. Not fair to be honest. I'm left feeling like the character had untapped potential, and now we'll never get to see it because Eclipso ate his soul.
Isaac's mom wasn't actually killed by the JSA if you remember correctly. It was instead Sportsmaster and Tigress who killed her, because she insulted their parenting style. Imagine what would happen if Isaac found that out? Instantly, it makes him have to choose what to believe. Does he believe Cindy, who's the first person that's been nice to him in a long time? Or does he believe the JSA, who would most likely come with evidence from Beth's goggles. And if he did decide to join up with the JSA, now that puts him on the warpath against Artemis Crock, since her parents killed his mom. That means the two of them have to learn to work together and put the past behind them, reconcile their differences, and *then* he can heroically sacrifice himself to save his new friends from Eclipso. Doesn't that feel like a more *earned* storyline?
Isaac's death is a lot like Quicksilver's death in that way. This episode wanted a permanent character death, and Isaac was the one that bit the bullet. Quicksilver was the same way in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where his death leads to a lot of untapped potential with the character. Imagine Quicksilver and Wanda having clashing ideals and taking different sides in Civil War, Pietro dealing with his sister's death in Infinity War and ultimately dying in Endgame before they can be reunited, which then sets up WandaVision even better! It's the same situation with Isaac's death here, where there was a lot of exploration that could've happened with the character that the writers just didn't go for because "Eh, we already have a lot going on, and we don't have room for the Fiddler in our grand plan for the season." But they definitely had room for the art teacher becoming evil and conjuring up a really half-baked "worst fear" sequence in the last episode.
And then let's talk about Cindy's "death". Now, obviously, this character is coming back. I have no doubt about that. However, if Cindy were to have survived the first face-off with Eclipso, that allows the writers to continue exploring her humanity like they've been doing all season long. In "Summer School: Chapter Two" after Eclipso killed Cindy's fake mom, Cindy says "I didn't want her dead", showing that she does still have a little bit of humanity left in her. At least enough to feel sympathy for the death of an innocent. But now that she's gone, she can't realize the fact that she brought an untold evil into the world, and atone for that. Cindy *needed* to realize what she did wrong. She can still hate Courtney if she wants, but she needs to learn that there isn't a shortcut to beating Courtney. That way, Cindy can be the big bad of season 3, which the writers kinda *need* her to be, since I have no idea where they go after "pure evil given form" like Eclipso. But now that Cindy's "dead", I guess all that development is going to happen OFF SCREEN! And that is just... Lame and lazy. There was just a lot of potential that the writers left on the table with this episode, and I just wish it was handled better.
Those two *major* wastes of potential aside though, this episode was actually pretty good. There was some development for Mike that I thought was needed; Barbara actually called the Shade and asked for help which I thought was an intriguing twist in a "better the devil you know" kind of way; There was a *beautiful* action sequence where it constantly flashes between Rick vs Artemis, Yolanda vs Isaac, and Courtney vs Cindy by having one character do an action and cutting to another character doing something similar and having the fight play out in a really cool way in that sense; And S. T. R. I. P. E. getting dismantled was a *huge* status quo change. There was actually a lot of good here, but I just can't get past the wasted character potential.
Characters are the most important part of your story. Your characters *drive* your story, not the other way around. It's actually the same issue I had with Shang-Chi. The plot influenced the characters, and the characters' individual arcs felt rather trivial, and the main character himself didn't even have an arc through the film. Seeing this episode of Stargirl right after seeing Shang-Chi only makes the deaths of Isaac and Cindy *more* impactful to the story at large in my head, because I can't ignore the wasted story potential that results from those characters still being alive.
I think I both loved and hated this episode, and I think that's the reaction I was supposed to have. I just don't think that the way I hated the episode was the way the writers intended.
9 / 10.
I'll just cut right to it. Eclipso makes his first appearance in the flesh in this episode, and he's one scary dude! Anyone that can swat Rick away with one hand is scary on some level. And what's the first thing Eclipso does? He kills two characters! He killed Isaac by feasting on his soul, and then he killed Cindy by sending her to some dark realm of some kind, because Imdb doesn't like it when you use the "H E double hockey sticks" word. Now look, this is a pretty big status quo shift by killing off a season 1 fan favorite like Cindy, but I'm struggling to find the necessity in it other than shock value. In fact, I'd argue that the deaths of Isaac and Cindy were wholly *detrimental* to the series at large!
Isaac's death was worse than Cindy's in my opinion. Cindy will be back, but Isaac won't. Now, the reason that I dislike this character's death so much is that it just seemed like they were starting to do something with him. I'm not sure what exactly they were going to do, but I'm not really happy with the way it was handled. They put him against Yolanda at the top of the episode, and I don't think that was just so they could fight later in the episode. There was a plan of some kind there, and I would've liked to see whatever it was. Isaac's death honestly feels like the writers looked their cast of characters, saw who they thought was the most expendable, and then Isaac drew the short straw. Not fair to be honest. I'm left feeling like the character had untapped potential, and now we'll never get to see it because Eclipso ate his soul.
Isaac's mom wasn't actually killed by the JSA if you remember correctly. It was instead Sportsmaster and Tigress who killed her, because she insulted their parenting style. Imagine what would happen if Isaac found that out? Instantly, it makes him have to choose what to believe. Does he believe Cindy, who's the first person that's been nice to him in a long time? Or does he believe the JSA, who would most likely come with evidence from Beth's goggles. And if he did decide to join up with the JSA, now that puts him on the warpath against Artemis Crock, since her parents killed his mom. That means the two of them have to learn to work together and put the past behind them, reconcile their differences, and *then* he can heroically sacrifice himself to save his new friends from Eclipso. Doesn't that feel like a more *earned* storyline?
Isaac's death is a lot like Quicksilver's death in that way. This episode wanted a permanent character death, and Isaac was the one that bit the bullet. Quicksilver was the same way in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where his death leads to a lot of untapped potential with the character. Imagine Quicksilver and Wanda having clashing ideals and taking different sides in Civil War, Pietro dealing with his sister's death in Infinity War and ultimately dying in Endgame before they can be reunited, which then sets up WandaVision even better! It's the same situation with Isaac's death here, where there was a lot of exploration that could've happened with the character that the writers just didn't go for because "Eh, we already have a lot going on, and we don't have room for the Fiddler in our grand plan for the season." But they definitely had room for the art teacher becoming evil and conjuring up a really half-baked "worst fear" sequence in the last episode.
And then let's talk about Cindy's "death". Now, obviously, this character is coming back. I have no doubt about that. However, if Cindy were to have survived the first face-off with Eclipso, that allows the writers to continue exploring her humanity like they've been doing all season long. In "Summer School: Chapter Two" after Eclipso killed Cindy's fake mom, Cindy says "I didn't want her dead", showing that she does still have a little bit of humanity left in her. At least enough to feel sympathy for the death of an innocent. But now that she's gone, she can't realize the fact that she brought an untold evil into the world, and atone for that. Cindy *needed* to realize what she did wrong. She can still hate Courtney if she wants, but she needs to learn that there isn't a shortcut to beating Courtney. That way, Cindy can be the big bad of season 3, which the writers kinda *need* her to be, since I have no idea where they go after "pure evil given form" like Eclipso. But now that Cindy's "dead", I guess all that development is going to happen OFF SCREEN! And that is just... Lame and lazy. There was just a lot of potential that the writers left on the table with this episode, and I just wish it was handled better.
Those two *major* wastes of potential aside though, this episode was actually pretty good. There was some development for Mike that I thought was needed; Barbara actually called the Shade and asked for help which I thought was an intriguing twist in a "better the devil you know" kind of way; There was a *beautiful* action sequence where it constantly flashes between Rick vs Artemis, Yolanda vs Isaac, and Courtney vs Cindy by having one character do an action and cutting to another character doing something similar and having the fight play out in a really cool way in that sense; And S. T. R. I. P. E. getting dismantled was a *huge* status quo change. There was actually a lot of good here, but I just can't get past the wasted character potential.
Characters are the most important part of your story. Your characters *drive* your story, not the other way around. It's actually the same issue I had with Shang-Chi. The plot influenced the characters, and the characters' individual arcs felt rather trivial, and the main character himself didn't even have an arc through the film. Seeing this episode of Stargirl right after seeing Shang-Chi only makes the deaths of Isaac and Cindy *more* impactful to the story at large in my head, because I can't ignore the wasted story potential that results from those characters still being alive.
I think I both loved and hated this episode, and I think that's the reaction I was supposed to have. I just don't think that the way I hated the episode was the way the writers intended.
9 / 10.
