Stargirl S01E11 Review: Winged Victory

Stargirl, Season 1, Episode 11: Shining Knight

This one is a bit of a slower episode, huh? The Brainwave Junior episodes have been pretty intense, building up not just the 'Courtney's family is shattering' storyline but also the Injustice Society finally getting their shit together. And then this episode... ends up not really following up too much on the ISA stuff, but instead ends up becoming a heavy, character-driven 'has the hero finally lost her heroic spirit' style episode that also sort of feels more like a bit of a 'let's finish all of the sidequests' storyline. 

On one hand, Courtney's meeting with her biological father sperm donor Sam Kurtis is one of my favourite storylines from the original Stars and STRIPE run which really ended up being memorable even though I read those comics nearly a decade ago. On the other hand, it does feel kinda weird that it happened at this point just as the ISA stuff is building up. And... and the portrayal of Sam is a bit more expanded upon here than what I remembered the comic being, but there's the double-punch done to Courtney here because, well, Stargirl's Courtney has spent the past 10 episodes stubbornly insisting that she's Starman's daughter and she's carrying his legacy. 

And turns out that his biological father is just... literally some dude called Sam. Who Barbara is absolutely frosty towards, but Sam at the beginning seems at least friendly, decent, and apologetic, trying to make amends. Until, of course, the reason later on that Sam is just there to swindle Courtney out of the valuable locket (which the season has been pretty great at making it something very much associated with Court's obsession over her real missing dad) since it's actually valuable. The actor Geoff Stults (in addition to actually looking kind of like Sylvester's actor) is great, really well-done at being charming while also clearly trying to use all sorts of emotional words to trick Courtney into giving up the locket.

And, well, that assholishness as well as the later crass comment about Barbara really made Pat punching his face feel extra-satisfying. I also get the sense that Courtney totally knows what's going on, and yet she just wants so hard to believe earlier on in the conversation... and later, she just accepts that Sam is a piece of shit and doesn't want to keep the locket of fake memories around. 

Granted, part of me did feel like this is more of a 'well, that's actually well-done' since the Courtney/Sam scenes are one of the most memorable scenes in the comic. It was, personally, for me, the one piece of fiction that really hammer home how a step-family can be a lot better than the 'blood is thicker than water' trope. Some people are just assholes. But it's a pretty great moment for the series, too, particularly with Courtney being forced to confront that the entire premise of her crusade, that she's Starman's daughter and therefore obliged to avenge her dad, is sort of thrown in the trash. Except, well, what this episode really hammers home is that Pat Dugan, for all the mistakes he might've done, is truly Courtney's dad. To quote a Marvel movie, Sam might be Courtney's father, but he ain't her daddy. 

The other parts of the episode... isn't that solid. We don't get a particularly good reason why Brainwave doesn't hunt down the rest of the JSA Junior after killing his son. Okay, sure, maybe collapsing the tunnel allowed the JSA to escape, but I find it hard that Brainwave, Icicle and the loony sports couple wouldn't make it priority numero uno to hunt them down. That scene where Brainwave taunts Courtney at his own son's funeral is sure effectively creepy, but I also felt like it was kinda odd that he wouldn't, y'know, just give her and her buddies an aneurysm beyond a shrug and 'hey, plot demands it'.

In other B-plot storylines... Brainwave's got a power boost from absorbing his son's powers, Dragon Ball style, and Project New America just got that much more deadly. He's also basically pressuring Icicle to go further and further with it. Another B-plot that gets eclipsed by everything that's going on? Mike really not understanding what's happening and begging Pat, Courtney, anyone to tell him what's going on any what he did wrong. That's actually pretty sad. 

The Shining Knight stuff, as much as I do love the character, also felt pretty disappointing. After the little 'hooray' bit earlier in the season that Shining Knight, one of my favourite ridiculous DC superhero, is in the show... he's pretty much just kind of there, not really doing much beyond having confused, amnesiac headaches and speaking in ye-olde-Englishe. He finally gets to meet Pat and his 'fine suit of armour'. We learn that he got his mind shattered by the Dragon King. But for all the screentime and buildup that Sir Justin got, everything we got here felt more like exposition and a huge buildup of 'feel pity for this broken man'. I kinda expected something more. 

One thing that the Shining Knight storyline does have in common with Stargirl's is the fact that 'heroes can come from anywhere' (incidentally, the Star Wars sequel seeming to prop this up before going 'naaaaah bloodline all the way fam' is why I didn't like the final movie all that much). Justin's story isn't expounded much beyond him being a random page that was handed Excalibur... but so is Courtney. She's not Starman's child, but the Cosmic Staff picked her anyway because she's inherently heroic. The final act of Stargirl finally rediscovering her confidence with Pat and Barbara giving a pep talk is actually pretty damn well-done for something that's honestly pretty expected. 

Again, though, it's kind of a shame that the pacing is super-duper slow here. All the Courtney stuff is amazing, but the rest of the episode -- including the character it's named after -- is honestly pretty weak. Really could've done more with either Justin or the Brainwave/Icicle duo. We're building up to a two-part finale, though, and this episode ends with Icicle finally agreeing with Brainwave that, yeah, after everything, they can't let Jordan being sweet on Barbara get in the way... and Icicle even tells Brainwave to kill little Mike! Dang.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Sam Kurtis, and the whole plot about him coming back and basically fooling Courtney out of a precious heirloom, leading to Courtney realizing that her biological father is a piece of shit and Pat is her real father, is taken from one of the final issues of the original run of Stars and STRIPE.