DC’s Stargirl – Shiv Part Two

By starrymag | July 14, 2020

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

We open with Pat (Luke Wilson) driving alarmingly fast and directly into a tree. Elsewhere, Barbara (Amy Smart) and Jordan (Neil Jackson)are having a celebratory dinner. The sale was approved! And Jordan says he couldn’t have done it without Barbara. Jordan leaves and Barbara gets a call from a slightly banged up Pat. He tells Barbara everyone’s okay, but there’s been an accident.

 

We zoom in on a hospital bound Courtney (Brec Bassinger). She wakes up to Pat who tells her that her mother is on her way. Courtney wants to know what he told her. Pat explains he told her and the hospital there was a car accident. He adds that he crashed his car on purpose. Courtney comments that he loves that car. Pat brushes past it and  says they’re going home and he’s going to figure out who Cindy Burman’s (Meg DeLacy) parents are.

 

Courtney says she knows she shouldn’t have gone off alone, but maybe this is the break they needed. Pat says they need to be honest and not just with each other, but with Barbara. It’s fine for the rest of the world to think she got hurt in a car crash, but not Barbara. Courtney begs Pat to hold off until they’ve taken down the ISA and promises to stop being reckless and take a break. She’s afraid Barbara will take being Stargirl away from her.

 

Cindy, looking entirely healed, goes to her father Dr. Ito (Nelson Lee) and tells him she’s done it. She says she found Stargirl. Dr. Ito knows and he’s angry she didn’t alert him. He asks if Stargirl is dead and knows the answer. Cindy says she beat her. Her father is not pleased. She took her “graduation uniform” without his permission, she took his staff and nearly exposed the lot of them. Now he has to explain the mess to the ISA. Cindy tries to plead her case and says she hurt Stargirl. Dr. Ito says that’s what she’s good at. Ouch. He then tells her she might never get a seat at the table and to go home. When she hesitates he warns her not to make him remove his hood. What’s under the hood?

 

Rick (Cameron Gellman), Yolanda (Yvette Monreal) and Beth (Anjelika Washington) are reacting to the news at Pat’s garage. Rick wants to break stuff and go after Cindy. Rick says she sent Courtney to the hospital so they should take her out. Beth points out that Cindy has powers and probably ISA parents. That doesn’t deter Rick. Beth points out they have no plan, so they should all calm down. She also points out that Rick hurts so much he wants to hurt everyone else. Beth suggests they find out who Cindy’s parents are before they act and Yolanda agrees. So what do they do Rick wonders?

 

Courtney leaves with Pat, but on their way out say hi to Henry (Jake Austin Walker). Henry slams the door in her face. Setting his car on fire wasn’t a bad decision. Mike (Trae Romano) and Courtney mend fences. Mike explains he’s not really used to having to share his dad and regrets yelling at her. He says they’re kind of siblings now.

 

At first Pat appears to be preparing to talk to Barbara, but he really wants to talk to the staff. He says he knows the staff doesn’t take him seriously and he’s always found the staff too impulsive and reckless. However, when the staff was with Sylvester he was an adult with experience. Courtney is still green and the staff should protect her, no matter how much it wants justice for what happened to Starman.

 

Barbara returns and gives a sleeping Courtney a kiss. Then tells Pat she thought Courtney wouldn’t actually be driving. Pat admits it was a bad idea and apologizes. He says he wants to talk to her about something else, but Barbara wants to go to bed.

 

An Ed Riley (Matt Borlenghi) walks into his apartment and finds Jordan there. Jordan says he’s been waiting for him and uses his powers to stop Ed from leaving. Jordan explains that Ed has always done well for himself at a chemical plant and has been promoted more than once. What does Jordan want? Well, Ed worked for a company that dumped waste. He allowed a school to be built upon a former site and denied any wrong-doing when the students and teachers got sick and died. His wife was one of those teachers. Ed didn’t blow the whistle, so Jordan freezes him to death.

 

Henry isn’t having a great day. Hearing other people’s thoughts seems to be making the world too loud and he’s searching for pills. He finds them and a key. Also, he can make things float with his mind. He pockets the key and the pills.

 

Yolanda and Rick are outside of Cindy’s house and get made by Pat. He wants to know what they’re doing there and where Beth is. She’s ringing the doorbell and Pat tries to pull her away. Unfortunately, Bobbie (Lesa Wilson) answers before they can get away. Beth lies about being a classmate that Cindy invited over and Pat poses as her father. Much to his chagrin they’re invited inside.

 

Courtney gets a visitor in the form of Cindy. It’s awkward for obvious reasons. Cindy says she owes Courtney an apology for yesterday. In this case she means snapping at Courtney for bailing on homecoming plains. Cindy says her father was being awful and Henry, too. Courtney was the last straw. Courtney can’t seem to think of a lot to say. Understandable. She accepts Cindy’s offer to eat chocolate.

 

The Burman house is odd. The books are fake and Bobbie might be, too. When Beth puts on the glasses Chuck (Henry Thomas) says there’s no record of a Bobbie Burman. Beth pretends to need the bathroom to look around. She pokes around and finds a keypad, cracks the code and ventures down the stairs.

 

Cindy and Courtney have been eating chocolate with Cindy doing all the talking. Cindy says she realized she and Courtney have a lot in common. If things were different, she thinks, Courtney could be more like her. Courtney theorizes Cindy could be more like her. Cindy says the point is that she really needs a friend right now.

 

Back to the basement with Beth. Her coms go out as she goes down the tunnel.

 

Cindy finishes the chocolate and Courtney thanks her for stopping by. Before leaving Cindy says she forgot to mention she likes Courtney’s staff and calls her Stargirl. She says she spent enough time with Courtney to recognize her, but she won’t tell her father because she doesn’t want to get sidelined. Courtney doesn’t look comforted by that statement. Cindy tells her to rest up because she’ll be back, after she kills her friends.

 

Rick and Yolanda get a text from Courtney (the JSA has a group chat) saying Cindy knows she’s Stargirl. They text back that they’re at Cindy’s house with Beth and Pat. Beth is going down the tunnel still and goes back upstairs when she hears something growling. She goes to Cindy’s room hoping for something that can help them and finds a picture. It’s of a man named Shiro Ito a controversial chemist from the 1930’s and 40s. He created numerous biological weapons, including bombs, that spread the plague. He was executed for war crimes. Or was he? Beth wonders what Cindy’s connection to a dead war criminal is?

 

Then, Yolanda appears and pulls her out of the window. Beth says she’s afraid of heights (she picked the wrong after school activity), but luckily Rick catches her. Cindy returns and Yolanda hides on the roof and then makes a quick getaway with the rest of the gang.

 

Courtney goes for the staff and the staff, having taken Pat’s words to heart, resists. But when Courtney says the JSA and Pat are in trouble it relents. And Henry plays around with his powers. He uses the key to open his father’s secret lair. He finds Brainwave’s suit and a lot of VHS tapes. Plus, there is a letter from Dr. Ito to Dr. King which explains that Cindy’s with him on her father’s orders.

 

Cindy figures out someone has been in her room, but gets ambushed by Courtney before she can do anything about it. They fight and Courtney blasts her out of a window and in front of Henry’s car. He probably wants to talk about that letter. He’s confused by the struggle he witnesses between Courtney and Cindy. Cindy says they’re just like their parents and asks him to help her kill Courtney. All the thoughts become too much and he loses control. Cindy gets thrown by the energy released and grabbed by two hooded men and pulled underground. Henry reads Courtney’s thoughts, which freak him out and he runs away.

 

Observing from a monitor Dr. Ito says his daughter was wrong. Henry does have his father’s powers.