STARGIRL SEASON THREE (2022)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

After two strong seasons, STARGIRL perhaps inevitably fell victim to the CW Curse: too many plot threads. Seasons One and Two managed the feat of skillfully juggling many story-arcs at once. But that was partly because the threats were persuasive ones-- first, the heroes' need to avenge the slain JSA and to prevent the villains from mentally enslaving the country, and then, the heroes' battle against a force of Satanic corruption.

Here, though, the scripts lean too heavily into a theme suggested by the season's title, "Frenemies:" the theme of second chances and reformation. The narrative opens as The Gambler, who escaped Blue Valley after the other members of the Injustice Society were defeated, returns to the small Nebraska town with the professed intention of making amends. Before Courtney, Pat and the other heroes even have time to assess his claims, The Gambler is murdered, creating a mystery for the teens to solve. (There's no question of the police being involved: nowhere in the three seasons does one see so much as a deputy sheriff in town.) Their investigation leads the young heroes to discover a network of surveillance devices throughout most of the town. So who's watching the defenders? The Shade, who's still hanging around? Cindy, a.k.a. "Shiv," who's discovered near the body? Or Cindy's evil father, back from the dead in some fashion?

Within the group arise new irritants. Rick/Hourman, obsessed with staying strong to meet all contingencies, begins using his power-device all the time, resulting in addictive behavior. Courtney's tentative boyfriend Cameron must be told about the death of his father The Icicle. And Starman-- whose return from the vale of death is finally explained-- proves an irritant to Pat and Courtney, constantly treating Pat like he's still a sidekick and infringing upon Courtney's possession of the cosmic staff. There's also a mostly irrelevant side-trip to find the lost brother of Jade, Green Lantern's daughter, and I suspect that maybe the producers had some notion of using this arc as a back-door pilot for an INFINITY INC project.

At this point I'll invoke the "spoilers" to give away the hidden villains. Dragon King is one of the adversaries, though he becomes linked to a former SUPERMAN foe, The Ultra-Humanite, who takes the form of a giant albino ape. Only the ape-body that the evil scientist once inhabited is now occupied by the brain of Dragon King, and the brain of the Ultra-Humanite is in the head of-- Starman. Yes, it's the old brain-switching trick, and so all of the things Starman says and does are really just gambits by a super-villain. This concept was pretty lame when a similar plot appeared in the 1993 graphic novel JSA: THE GOLDEN AGE, and it's even lamer this time, particularly since there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for the masquerade. The brain-switching mad scientist just doesn't prove a very interesting mystery killer, and even the return of Icicle-- who re-constitutes himself after his apparent destruction-- comes too little, too late.

There are certainly many good moments in the season. Beth/Doctor Mid-Nite gets to fight a little thanks to combat-programs built into her suit, and both Mike and Jakeem generate a lot of comedy relief with their invocations of their literal-minded Thunderbolt. Yet the arc for Yolanda/Wildcat never proves satisfying, and Courtney's concerted efforts to seek the good in people are overdone, as is Pat's inferiority complex in the face of his mentor. Surprisingly, Artemis, whose presence seemed adventitious in the first two seasons, gets her own arc here, and so justified her reason for being in the show at all. 

Despite my opinion that the INFINITY INC subplot proves largely irrelevant, it makes possible more scenes for Jonathan Cake's sublimely sardonic Shade. Because the scripts are so exposition-filled, I didn't feel most of the actors got a lot of stellar moments. But even conveying coherent exposition was a skill that died on the vine for every other CW show after about two seasons in. The coda to the entire series is a celebration of DC Comics' rich history, which means that it will mostly be accessible to hardcore fans, but there are a lot worse things superhero shows can do than preach to the converted.