Shiv Part 2 – Director: Geary McLeod/Writer: Paula Sevenbergen
This one starts with Pat driving his classic Buick at top speed (to the strains of the Cannonball Run theme song!) and crashing it into a light post. Obviously, he’s going to use the crash as an excuse for the injuries Courtney sustained fighting Shiv/Cindy last episode and has to crash the car for real to make it believable.
Meanwhile, Jordan Mahkent and Barbara have wrapped up their business in Oakville and are having dinner to celebrate, but Jordan leaves to visit an old friend. Barbara gets a call from Pat about the “accident” and immediately heads home. Pat visits Courtney at the hospital to fill her in
about the cover story and she’s surprised he would wreck his prize car for her. Pat knows Cindy must be the daughter of an Injustice Society member and wants to find out who. He also wants to tell Barbara about their double life, but Courtney convinces him not to, saying Barbara will make her give up being Stargirl and she can’t handle that. Shiv tells her father about the fight with Stargirl, but he already knows. She expects him to be proud, but he’s pissed off 
because she went rogue … and because Stargirl is still alive. Dragon King is so mad he won’t even listen when Cindy tries to tell him she’s figured out Stargirl’s secret identity. He basically grounds her and when she talks back, threatens to remove his hood … which scares the hell out of her. At the garage, Rick is pissed off too and wants to go after Cindy. Beth isn’t quite so bloodthirsty and wants to figure out who Cindy’s parents are before they do anything. She even has a plan.
At the hospital, Pat wheels Courtney past Brainwave’s room, but Henry Jr. closes the door in her face. Later at home, Mike apologizes for giving her
shit over bonding with Pat and says he really does consider her his sister. Pat has a heart-to-heart talk with the Cosmic Staff, pointing out that Sylvester was already a superhero before he got the Staff but Courtney wasn’t, so maybe she’s not ready to charge into danger at every opportunity. Barbara gets home and is pretty upset with Pat since she warned him about teaching Courtney to drive. Back in 
Oakville, Jordan talks to his “old friend”, Ed Reilly, who used to work for the chemical company that he blames for his wife’s death. Reilly didn’t have anything to do with the company dumping toxic shit, but Jordan blames him for not blowing the whistle. He becomes Icicle and kills Reilly. Meanwhile, Henry’s headaches are getting worse because his mental powers are finally manifesting, including telekinesis which scares the hell out of him.
At Cindy’s house, Pat finds Yolanda and Rick watching the place while Beth rings the doorbell. Pat tries to drag Beth away, but Bobbi (Cindy’s stepmom)
opens the door and they have to pretend Pat is Beth’s stepfather. Bobbi invites them in and Beth accepts, forcing Pat to go along. At home, Cindy drops by to visit Courtney and it seems she doesn’t know Courtney is Stargirl. She even apologizes for giving her shit before the game, but Courtney’s still on her guard. At Cindy’s house, Pat and Beth snoop around, with Beth using the Dr. Mid-Nite goggles to scan 
the place. Bobbi doesn’t show up in any database and Beth decides to investigate some more while pretending to use the bathroom. She gets through the security door and into the secret tunnels under the house, but quickly heads back out when she hears Solomon Grundy growling. At home, it turns out Cindy is just screwing with Courtney, revealing that she knows her secret identity and that she’s going to kill Courtney’s friends before she comes after her again.
At Cindy’s place, Yolanda gets a text from Courtney warning her that Cindy’s onto them and replies that Pat is inside Cindy’s house right now,
which naturally worries Courtney. Beth checks out Cindy’s room and finds a photo of her father, which the McNider AI identifies as Shiro Ito, a scientist who who supposedly died in 1947. When Cindy arrives home, Rick and Yolanda suit up to get Beth out before Cindy sees her. They leave the window open and Cindy realizes someone was in her room. Downstairs, Pat is fixing the sink but it’s obvious Bobbi wants him to look at her plumbing, so he gets the hell out of there. The others are outside and show him the photo of Ito, who he recognizes as Dragon King. They take off, not knowing 
that Courtney is so worried about them that she’s on her way over as Stargirl. At the King house, Henry uses his telekinesis to unlock his father’s secret room, where he finds all his Brainwave stuff. He also finds evidence that Cindy was only going out with him because Brainwave asked her father to let her keep an eye on Henry. Courtney attacks Cindy at her house and the fight spills out onto the street. Henry shows up to see Cindy, interrupting the fight for a bit, but Cindy gets the upper hand and asks him to help her kill Stargirl. Reading both girls’
minds is too much and Henry freaks, blasting them with an inadvertent telekinetic punch. Cindy is grabbed by her father’s minions and dragged underground, while Henry’s telepathy lets him figure out that Stargirl is really Courtney. Reading Courtney’s mind freaks Henry out and he takes off, but we see Dragon King watching on a monitor, now aware that Henry’s abilities have finally kicked in.
This is a really good episode that lets us see Beth in action. She’s got guts (up to a point) and an insatiable curiosity that might end up getting her in trouble eventually. She’s quick to improvise too; watching her and Pat 
bullshit Cindy’s stepmom was hilarious. (Speaking of Bobbi, she seems like a very frustrated woman, sexually and otherwise.) We get more parallels between Courtney and Cindy, with Cindy pointing out that either of them could’ve ended up living the other’s life if circumstances had been different. Pat talking to the staff was interesting and it seemed like it actually took what he said to heart, since it initially resisted when Courtney wanted to go to Cindy’s place. It was only after she mentioned Pat and the others being in danger that the Staff relented. Jordan’s continued revenge on everyone he blames for his wife’s
death is chilling (see what I did there?), but it almost seems like he might be ready to move on … possibly with Barbara. I’m not sure how that fits with his “family values” spiel, since he knows she’s married, but I guess supervillains don’t worry too much about stuff like that. There was no follow-up on Shining Knight this episode, since Courtney and Pat didn’t see him and Cindy apparently didn’t get a good enough look to recognize him as Justin the janitor. Hopefully, we’ll get some more on him soon.
Noticeable Things:
- The guy Icicle kills is named Ed Reilly and he works for Firebrand Chemicals. In the All-Star Squadron comic, there was a character named Firebrand (well, two actually) whose father was Ed Reilly. Icicle also mentions that Reilly used to work for Bannerman Chemical, which in the comics was the company where Rex Tyler worked when he developed Miraclo.
- The McNider AI mentions that Pat has gained 14 pounds in the last decade.
- Shiro Ito (aka Dragon King and Cindy’s father) was born in 1901, developed biological weapons that he tested in China in the early Thirties and was supposedly executed as a war criminal in 1947.
Favourite Quotes:
- “You hurt so much you wanna hurt everyone else, is that it, Rick?” Beth summing up Rick’s personality in one sentence.
- “Nope.” Beth’s response when she hears Grundy growling, right before heading back upstairs as fast as possible.