Summer School Part 11 – Director: Sheelin Choksey/Writers: Paula Sevenbergen, Robbie Hyne
This one starts with Pat returning home with Jenny and the Staff but no Courtney. Naturally, her family is pretty freaked out by her vanishing into the void last episode.
Speaking of which, Courtney finds herself in a black and white version of Blue Valley. It seems pretty close to the real thing, but she soon finds out it
has some major differences … like all of the Zaricks being alive again and hanging out at the diner. Courtney tries to pretend she’s not freaked out and even plays along with Joey’s card trick. It happens exactly the same as the first time he showed her the trick (with the exact same cards), including Joey screwing it up and Courtney trying to cover for him. But this time Joey knows he screwed it up and confronts Courtney about her lie. She freaks when the card she’s holding shows Eclipso on it and runs out of the diner … ending up in the hallway at 
school. She runs into the Bowins but before she can digest that, she’s attacked by Cindy … the real Cindy, who Eclipso sent here during the big fight at the school. When Cindy makes Courtney bleed, she realizes she’s fighting the genuine article and stops her attack. When Dragon King shows up to torment her, Cindy ignores him (having already killed him numerous times) and shoves Courtney through another portal.
They wind up in a kid’s bedroom where Cindy tells Courtney they’re in the Shadowlands, a void created by the darkness in humanity, fed by fear, rage and guilt … and the place where Eclipso was spawned. Cindy says it’s like
Purgatory, making people there feel like crap. Courtney tries to leave but winds up in her own house from ten years ago. Barbara has to work on Christmas Eve and complains how hard it is to raise Courtney alone, working at a menial job. Obviously, this is Eclipso playing on Courtney’s own guilt and Cindy pulls her back to the bedroom before she can get too mired in self-hate. Cindy tells Courtney she’s not tough enough to survive there and blames her for not trying hard 
enough to save her when Eclipso banished her there. Cindy points out that her father torturing her is much worse than Courtney’s guilt about her mom’s hardships, and vows that she can kill her father a thousand times and enjoy it. But Cindy’s not so tough when a vision of her mom appears and blames Cindy for killing her. When Cindy is dragged off by some of her father’s minions, Courtney tries to follow but ends up in a swirling miasma of darkness.
Courtney is found by Dr. Mid-Nite, who pulls her to a version of the JSA garage. Mid-Nite knows her from his communications with Beth and explains that the storm of darkness is the real form of the Shadowlands, everything else being an illusion. He tells her the goggles show him the
truth of the place and lets her try them so she’ll know he’s not lying. He warns her not to give in to rage or despair, no matter what horrible thing Eclipso shows her. Dr. Mid-Nite lets Beth know that Courtney is alive and tells her Shade can open a portal to bring them back. He also mentions that Jenny can track Shade using her Green Lantern energy and she finds two possible locations. She and Beth go to check one place, leaving Pat and Barbara to go to the other, a movie theatre that just happens to be showing The Picture of Dorian Grey. In the Shadowlands, Dr. Mid-Nite tells Courtney that Shade isn’t really evil and 
that he shared a bottle of absinthe with Mid-Nite after Eclipso killed his daughter. Mid-Nite also says that Shade sending him to the Shadowlands was his way of saving him from the Injustice Society. Shade’s healing stopped when Eclipso destroyed the diamond, so he has to sit in the dark to halt the deterioration of his body. They let him know Courtney and Dr. Mid-Nite are still alive (which surprises him) and when Barbara begs him to help save her daughter, he agrees.
Shade opens a portal to the Shadowlands but it’s obviously taking a toll on his already weakened body. Barbara urges Courtney to come through the
portal, but Courtney can’t leave Cindy behind. When she tries to open a portal to Cindy, she winds up in Yolanda’s bedroom, where Yolanda is despondent over killing Brainwave. Young Bruce Gordon shows up to torment Courtney, playing on her guilt over Yolanda. When she tries to leave, she ends up in jail where Rick is being held for almost killing his uncle. Bruce Gordon blames Courtney for that too and goads her until she admits that she hates him … which is exactly what he wanted. Courtney finds Cindy being tormented by her father and reliving 
how she accidentally killed her mom. Courtney tells her they can get out of the Shadowlands and they go through the portal with Dr. Mid-Nite back to the real world. Unfortunately, keeping the portal open for so long took a toll on the Shade and he dies, asking them to remember the good he’s done rather than the bad. Cindy interrupts their mourning to ask who wants to kill Eclipso.
This is a pretty good episode, that shows Courtney trying to navigate the Shadowlands without losing her mind. I’m wondering if her admission of hate towards Eclipso will have repercussions, since he seemed so happy
about it. Dr. Mid-Nite warned her that giving in to hate and despair was the worst thing she could do, but it seems like she didn’t heed that advice. I can’t blame her for hating Eclipso, but hate is basically the opposite of Courtney’s normal character, so she might be in trouble if she can’t get back to her usual self that sees the best in people instead of the worst. She obviously hasn’t completely lost that part of herself, since she refused to leave Cindy behind in the Shadowlands, even after Cindy was an asshole to her (as usual). It was cool 
to see Shade getting his own form of redemption, saving everyone at the cost of his own life. He apparently didn’t know Dr. Mid-Nite was trapped in the Shadowlands, so it’s cool that his final act brought him back. I’m wondering why there were two locations for Shade when Jenny tried to track him and where she and Beth ended up. I’m wondering if the other darkness Jenny tracked belongs to her brother Todd, who did have darkness powers in the comics, where he was called Obsidian.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Okay, that’s psychotic.” Courtney’s response when Cindy gleefully tells her about all the times she’s killed Dragon King (and Courtney) in the Shadowlands.
- “Because he’s … complicated.” Dr. Mid-Nite explaining to Courtney why Shade might help them.
- “Would you mind awfully telling people that I died doing something good?” Shade’s last request to Barbara.