So I posted this review the SAME DAY that the episode aired, then had to wait A WEEK for IMDB to post it, only for it to get declined.
I am now going to post the exact same review again. Word-for-word. And if it goes up this time... Whatever.
The first undeniable 10 / 10 of the season. "Summer School: Chapter Seven" was still probably my favorite, but this episode had similarly creepy imagery, arguably better acting, served a very similar purpose in the season (though more character focused than plot focused), and resulted in me getting out of my chair several times! Whereas with Chapter Seven I had my doubts, I had none here. This episode was insane! Should the Shade have died? Probably not. Is the slow pacing still killing the season as a whole? Absolutely. Does any of that matter in the grand scheme of this episode? Heck. No. Absolutely not!
That starting sequence with Courtney entering the bar and seeing the Zarrick family sitting together was phenomenal! When Joey got up and did the card trick, and did it wrong (again), and then said "You were gonna lie to me again" to Courtney as everyone in the diner gets up and chases Courtney away was so creepy! The atmosphere of the scene really made it, and it was phenomenal!
Admittedly, they didn't need to show the flashbacks to season 1 during that scene, but I understand why they did it. It didn't feel like the writers treating me like an idiot like the flashbacks in The Flash's "Heart of the Matter, Pt. 1" did. Instead, the flashbacks served as a reminder to those that forgot about that scene in season 1, or for new viewers to the series. The difference between the two was that Stargirl did theirs with purpose and only partially took me out of the episode, while Flash treated the viewers like we were idiots and showed us a scene we'd just seen not ten minutes ago, completely taking me out of the scene in the process.
I also enjoyed everything that was done with Cindy here. I've said for a while that Cindy was to Stargirl what Painkiller was to Black Lightning, and I don't think I'm wrong to think that. The promos for the episode almost made it seem like Cindy had been stuck in the Shadowlands for so long that it had driven her to lose all her confidence, which I feel would've been an interesting dynamic. But that's not what the writers ended up going for. Instead, they took the "CJ Grant Approach" that Supergirl did in the episode "Prom Night!" and just made Cindy the same old Cindy we all knew and loved, and while that seemed reductive at first, it allowed Cindy to face the trauma about her birth mother that she'd been carrying with her since season 1. Because she still presents this (presumably fake) arrogant, narcissistic, pompous attitude, she dares Eclipso to give her everything he's got, and I just remember jumping out of my seat saying "Careful what you wish for (B word that IMDB doesn't like)!" before Ito's drones came out and grabbed her. Cindy proves to be the best character on the show once again! I'm sorry for doubting you!
Even the parts of the episodes not in the Shadowlands were pretty great too! One of the most powerful shots of the episode was Pat walking into the house, but instead of Courtney walking in with him, it was Jenny holding the Cosmic Staff. Now, this scene wasn't done like this for no reason. Sure, having Jenny carry the staff inside may fill the CW's "powerful women" requirement, but this scene does so much more than that. Jenny is the one that respected Pat when they first met, and she represents everything that Courtney wasn't during season 1. Jenny is everything Courtney wanted to be! So Jenny walking into the house carrying the Cosmic Staff... It wasn't just done to check off one of the CW's boxes (you know that's something they make all their shows do, don't lie). But now that Jenny's actually helping out the team more, we can see that she's not actually as naturally talented as she had appeared to be. She's just as scared and imperfect as everyone else on this show, and it makes her an actual interesting character now, especially because the roles of Jenny and Courtney have now been *reversed*!
Courtney's unconfident demeanor that she's adapted this season is now being applied to Jenny, and it works surprisingly well. All of the sudden, Courtney seems like the more confident one while she's trapped in a literal purgatory, and Jenny is the one that's unable to think straight! Jenny has all these people to support her and lift her up, but nobody to *challenge* her. And when nobody is challenging Jenny, it actually makes her come off as really neurotic and down on her luck, and Ysa Penarejo does a fantastic job nailing that aspect of the character! It's just something about Penarejo's voice that really exemplifies that energy. The casting crew did a phenomenal job this season. And that brings me to my next point...
Milo Stein as the human avatar of Eclipso, aka Young Bruce Gordon, is the best member of the cast that this show's ever had, and ever will have! Somehow, this ten year old kid manages to act circles around Brec Bassinger, Meg DeLacy, Hunter Sansone, Luke Wilson, Nelson Lee, Christopher James Baker, and Neil Jackson! And he makes it look freaking effortless! He devours the screen more than his character devours souls! It's all in his delivery. He has this intensely creepy aura to him that almost sends shivers down your spine whenever he speaks, and most of the lines he says are supposed to give off that aura anyway! This may just be the most perfect casting for a tv show I've seen since China Anne McClain as Jennifer Pierce on Black Lightning!
Onto his one major scene this week, this kid, this freaking kid, is the one that finally manages to break Courtney. Eclipso doesn't really have a purpose as a villain, but as a character, he's meant to make everyone face their worst fears. I'd been wondering all season why we'd never gotten to see Courtney's fear vision. At first, I didn't really have a clean answer as to why. Then, I figured it was because this show got CW'd and we weren't allowed to see our main female character face off against an enemy she couldn't beat. But just like season 1, I was dead wrong about that. The reason that we haven't really seen Courtney struggle in any major way this season, the reason we never saw her fear vision, is because we've actually been seeing her greatest fear every episode. Her greatest fear is losing the family that she now has in the new JSA. That's why she insists on them suiting up in "Summer School: Chapter One". She's worried that with no more villains to fight that everyone will all just go their separate ways and she'll be alone again. That's why she pushes so hard to try to reach out to Yolanda and get her best friend back in "Summer School: Chapter Eight" and why she brings up Yolanda's feelings about killing someone to Pat in "Summer School: Chapter Ten". She's pushing it so hard because she's *terrified* of losing her friends and family, and she's stretching herself too thin because of it. So when Eclipso tells Courtney that it's her fault that her friends are where they are, that it's her fault her friends *abandoned* her, she finally breaks down and utters the most chilling words of the episode. "I hate you."
I don't know how you did it, writers, but you did it. You managed to fix Courtney Whitmore. Again! You managed to save her from the CW curse, and it only made her an even better and more interesting character! And it even manages to tie into her arc of not letting her past define her in season 1. Because she let go of how she idealized her father, all of the sudden, Courtney lost all her self image and started over-relying on everyone around her. It's honestly so masterfully constructed, and my expectations were absolutely subverted! Well. Done.
Now, could I bring up how the writers used the Shadowlands as an excuse to do whatever they wanted for an episode, and show whatever creepy imagery they wanted without having to worry about the rules? Absolutely, yes. But I'm willing to forgive that because of how the imagery and previously introduced characters were used here. In previous episodes, visions of the major players of season 1 felt exploitative and unnecessary. In this episode however, it was so that we could get a view into Courtney and Cindy's psyche. We saw the Zarrick family because Joey was the first person Courtney let down. We saw Dragon King because he's Cindy's dad and representative of her greatest fear, which was ironically herself. The visions of the major players of season 1 here were more than just eye candy. Everything in this episode, every motion of the camera, every movement of every character was done for a reason. Well... Except for the death of the Shade.
The Shade's death felt... Not exactly hollow, but it felt so contrary to how he acted last episode. It was a major letdown to see him die without his character ever really getting the chance to develop. The characters do a lot of talking about how the Shade isn't really a bad guy, but it's all talk. So when the Shade dies at the end of the episode, it didn't really mesh well with the rest of the episode. He said that he went out "doing something good", and I can mostly agree with that, but it seems like the writers didn't really have any idea what to do with the Shade this season, so each of his appearances feels different, but also underwhelming. With everything else in this episode being so great though, I'm willing to forgive the one thing in the episode that was mediocre.
I'd love to keep gushing about this episode, but I've already hit the character cap on IMDB no less than four times and had to delete some sections of this review. So I'll just leave things off by saying this: Don't screw this up, Geoff Johns. You won me back over, now you have two episodes left to keep it that way. Don't blow it.
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