DC’s Stargirl – Summer School: Chapter Eleven

By starrymag | October 25, 2021

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

Pat (Luke Wilson) and Jennie (Ysa Penarejo) somberly enter the Whitmore-Dugan household. From the looks on their faces and Courtney’s (Brec Bassinger) absence Barbara (Amy Smart) realizes the worst has happened and breaks down along with Mike (Trae Romano).  Meanwhile, Courtney wakes up in a place that is completely gray. She walks into a diner and sees Joey Zarick (Will Deusner) having dinner with his parents. They seem pretty happy and tell Courtney that Joey’s going to be a professional magician some day. Joey wants to practice a card trick on Courtney, but he gets it wrong. Courtney pretends he guessed the right card, but Joey sees through it and angrily asks if she’s going to lie to his face again. This starts to upset everyone in the diner, Courtney included, and she runs.

 

But leaving the diner doesn’t lead her back into the town but at school in front of her locker. She’s confused and she becomes even more confused when she runs into Isaac (Max Frantz) and his mother Principal Anya Bowin (Hina Khan). Reminder, Anya Bowin is dead and Isaac has been missing since the JSA’s faceoff with Eclipso. Then, Cindy (Meg DeLacy) throws her down a hallway. They fight and then Cindy stops once she sees Courtney bleed. She says that people don’t bleed in this world. “Where are we,” Courtney asks.

 

Before Cindy can answer they’re interrupted by Dr. Ito (Nelson Lee), Cindy’s father. He says Cindy was his greatest experiment and they’re not done yet. Cindy says they’re not doing this right now and pushes Courtney through a door made of light. Cindy demands to know how Courtney got here. But Courtney’s still confused about where she is, she thought Cindy was dead. But she’s not and neither is Courtney, they’re in the shadowlands. It’s where Eclipso was born, a void created by the darkness in humanity.

 

Cindy and Courtney are in their own personal purgatory. It feeds off of guilt, anger and pain and shows them the less than stellar parts of their lives. Cindy’s been killing versions of Courtney and her father. Courtney points out that that’s disturbing and says she’s getting out of here. She marches through another door and ends up in the house she grew up in. She sees Barbara in her own waitress uniform. This version of Barbara is pretty resentful. Courtney has to listen to her say that her daughter ended all her dreams and imply that she wishes she’d never gotten pregnant.

 

Courtney is thrown back into the room with Cindy and is pretty shaken. She’s now more determined to leave. Cindy says that’s probably for the best as she’ll never survive here. Courtney wants to know what she means by that. She says Courtney sees everything in black and white and the Shadowland is all about the gray areas. And Courtney sees herself as strictly good, so she could never handle the darkness. Cindy can embrace the darkness in her, which is why she doesn’t believe she’ll be one of the souls that gets lost in despair. She doesn’t think Courtney will be so lucky and says it’ll serve her right as Cindy blames her for her current predicament. Courtney points out she tried to save her and that Cindy brought Eclipso back into their lives. Cindy says Courtney started this and Courtney explains trying to kill her to impress Dr. Ito started this. In response Cindy replies that Courtney knows nothing about her and her mom possibly resenting her for putting her careering ambitions on hold pales in comparison to Dr. Ito using her as a science experiment.

 

The argument is abruptly ended by the appearance of Cindy’s mother Suzanne (Luna Tieu). Or at the very least an illusion that looks like her. She says she wants to talk to Cindy and misses her. Cindy orders her away, but the illusion says she’s her mother. This makes Cindy so angry she charges at her and ends up being dragged away by two figures in suits.

 

Meanwhile, Courtney is dragged to a place that looks like the JSA’s old headquarters and comes face to face with Charles McNider (Alex Collins). Courtney’s a little confused at first but Dr. Mid-Nite, wearing his old uniform, reminds her he’s been talking to Beth (Anjelika Washington). To help, he lends her his goggles for a moment. Like they can see through illusions in the real world, in the Shadowlands they can see through the projections of the occupants’ subconscious. But it’s nothing but shadows and darkness. Courtney wants to know how he’s handled looking at the darkness all these years. Dr. Mid-Nite explains that when he takes the goggles off all he can hear is his daughter calling for him and blaming him for her death. The darkness is a better alternative. The Shadowlands, he explains, feed off of anger and guilt. No matter what Courtney can’t give in.

 

In the real world Beth is in Courtney’s room. She’s looking at Courtney’s keepsakes and trophies and the goggles tell her the events that go with them. Jennie comes in and Beth tells her she wants to take the goggles off as they’re now tear-stained, but she’s too afraid. But Jennie tells her that it’s all her fault. The guilt-fest is interrupted by Dr. Mid-Nite contacting Beth through the goggles.

 

Dr. Mid-Nite told Beth that Courtney is not dead and she and Jennie tell Pat, Mike, and Barbara. When he talked to Beth Dr. Mid-Nite explained that the Shade (Jonathan Cake) can re-open the portal and the Green Lantern ring can locate the Shade’s energy. They’ll just need something that he’s touched; Barbara gives them the business card he gave her.

 

When they get started Jennie’s nervous. She still feels responsible for what happened to Courtney but Pat encourages her to have faith in herself. She uses the fire from the ring and it project’s the Shade’s location.

 

Courtney and Dr. Mid-Nite talk a little more about their current situation. She wants to know how he’s survived all this time. For starters time passes differently there. And he sheds some light on his relationship with the Shade. He says after Rebecca’s funeral his wife went to go stay with her mother. He heard a noise and found the Shade in his kitchen drinking a bottle of absinthe. The Shade had known about Eclipso and chosen not to act and legitimately felt terrible about what had happened to Rebecca. He blamed himself but Charles didn’t. They finished the bottle of absinthe and the Shade asked him to tell him about Rebecca. Dr. Mid-Nite tells Courtney he wasn’t a hero, but he wasn’t like the other ISA members. He sent him to the shadowlands to save him and he could still help them now.

 

Dr. Mid-Nite gets a call from Beth, but there’s not a clear connection. In the real world Barbara and Pat track the Shade to an old movie theatre. He explains that the diamond’s healing power was lost when Eclipso shattered it. So, he’s preserving the little power he has left by staying in the darkness. Barbara blasts him for what happened to Courtney and says he’s going to help them save her. At first he refuses, but has a slight change of heart when he hears that he succeeded in saving Dr. Mid-Nite all those years ago. When Barbara begs and says she doesn’t want to live without her daughter he agrees.

 

The Shade opens a portal on the movie screen. Courtney and Dr. Mid-Nite are relieved, but then Courtney decides she has to save Cindy. Barbara and the Shade tell her she has to hurry. Courtney runs into another room and runs into Bruce (Milo Stein). He uses Courtney’s guilt about the abysmal state of Yolanda and Rick’s life to torture her. But Courtney refuses to drown in her guilt and says Eclipso did this to them not her. She admits she hates Eclipso and manages to finally conjure a door to Cindy.

 

Meanwhile, Cindy’s being tortured by the shadowland versions of her parents. Dr. Ito experiments on her and Suzanne reminds her of the day Cindy killed her. She was nine years old and Cindy had a tantrum over being sent to bed. Cindy tries to apologize to her mother, but then Courtney and Dr. Mid-Nite appear. Dr. Mid-Nite tells them to ignore the illusions and they have no power. She does what he says and they free Cindy, but before they go the illusion of Cindy’s mother says she still loves her.

 

The Shade is really struggling to keep the portal open, which is why it’s lucky that in that moment Dr. Mid-Nite, Courtney and finally Cindy come through. But the euphoria of victory is sweet. Keeping the portal open drained the Shade and it appears that it was the swan song for Richard Swift. He apologizes to Dr. Mid-Nite for sending him to the Shadowland, but Dr. Mid-Nite was never angry. And he apologizes to Barbara for lying to her and takes his final breaths and disappears. It’s a somber moment. But then Cindy asks who wants to kill Eclipso.