In Review: Stargirl (S2 – EP12) Summer School Chapter Twelve

Synopsis: In chapter twelve Courtney seeks help from the unlikeliest of places. Meanwhile, Mike’s search to find Thunderbolt leads him straight to his friend Jakeem, and Pat goes to extreme lengths to protect Rick.

The Story

Picking the story up from where last week left off. Courtney has returned from the shadowland and has brought the original Dr. Mid-Nite and Cindy Burman back with her. But in order to have any chance of defeating Eclipso. Courtney needs to get her original band back together. Meanwhile, having investigated the site of Courtney’s disappearance Beth and Jennifer find some residue from the darkness that engulfed Courtney. Jennifer uses her Green Lantern ring on the dark goo, but it winds up making her very ill.

Elsewhere, Mike hooks up with his friend Jakeem and attempts to recruit him for the team, but winds up helping with some dishwashing. Meanwhile, Pat strong arms Rick’s uncle into dropping the charges he has lodged against his nephew.

The Acting

Anjelika Washington and Alex Collins put in strong performances this week as Beth aka the younger Mid-Nite gets to meet the original Mid-Nite in perhaps one of the most fun scenes of what felt like a quite subpar episode.

We also get fun performances from Trae Romano and Alkoya Brunson as Mike attempts to recruit his friend Jakeem onto the JSA team.

Overall

With chapter twelve being the penultimate episode of the season. I was expecting more. But instead, we got a slightly subpar episode where we fell into the trap that CW superhero shows often fall into. Soap opera land. The first half-hour was pure kitchen sink drama where very little happened other than Dugan’s dog trashing the family home. We got brief glimpses of comedic elements with Beth’s utter delight at meeting the original Doctor Mid-Nite. But the Courtney not trusting Cindy and vice-versa felt a little too much like it had come out of the Beverly 90210 playbook.

The strongest elements were Mike and Jakeem and of course the closing scene in which Beth and Mid-Nite have an encounter with Eclipso.