Frenemies Chapter 3: The Blackmail – Director: Walter Carlos Garcia/Writer: Taylor Streitz
This one starts with Sylvester strolling downtown and getting freaked out by how open and friendly everyone is. He stops by the diner and talks with Yolanda, telling her Ted Grant would’ve liked her as the new Wildcat (and validating her mistrust of Cindy). Neither of them notices Cameron’s grandparents giving Sylvester an icy stare through the window.
Courtney makes breakfast and they discuss the Gambler’s murder, but the Crocks show up to force a healthier breakfast on Pat and Barbara’s family.
Beth is getting tired of her parents being so invested in her Dr. Mid-Nite career. Rick mentions that his Uncle Matt left town; I wonder if that’s because of whatever Pat did to scare him or if it’s because he was afraid Rick might give him another beating. Cindy sends Beth some documents proving that Gambler was blackmailing someone, although Beth doesn’t know where the info came from). Cindy tries to access Gambler’s files on her father, but can’t get past the password. At 
school, Courtney and Cindy discuss the Gambler and afterwards Courtney tries to talk to Cameron, but he just ignores her. At work, Paula tells Barbara she has to give a speech for the Rotary Club but has clue what to talk about. Barbara gives her some advice, but they’re interrupted when Barbara’s asshole manager (Tim) tells her he rejected her latest proposal and she has to do it over again.
At the garage, Sylvester is having an identity crisis because he can’t find a day job. He figures he’s nothing without his Starman identity and even Pat
and Zeek can’t really convince him otherwise. At school, Beth tells the others that Gambler was blackmailing the Crocks. Courtney isn’t convinced the Crocks had anything to do with Gambler’s death, so she makes the others promise not to tell Sylvester until they can investigate, for fear he’ll go after the Crocks like he did Shade. After math class, Cameron is a dick to Miss Woods (the math teacher) and Rick makes him apologize to her. Cameron does, but Rick threatens to kick his ass if he mouths off to Miss Woods again and Cameron doesn’t seem too 
impressed with Rick’s attitude. Outside, Cameron shoots an icicle into the tire on Rick’s car. Cindy drops by Courtney’s house and “lets it slip” about Gambler blackmailing the Crocks. She suggests she and Sylvester could take the Crocks down together, but Sylvester refuses and treats her like shit. (“Why don’t you go find someone who’s impressed by a dime-a-dozen cheerleader in green spandex with daddy issues.”) But Sylvester does head out to find the Crocks, not realizing that Mike was home and overheard everything. He calls Courtney to warn her.
The Crocks are at the supermarket and Sylvester attacks them there, starting a big brawl and trashing the place. Sylvester’s doing pretty well
against the two of them until Pat shows up as STRIPE to stop the fight. At home, the Crocks admit Gambler was blackmailing them (over crimes committed by other Injustice Society members) and that they paid him, but they say he stopped the blackmail a few weeks ago and even paid them back the money they’d already given him. Courtney figures Gambler really was trying to go straight and Crusher admits he went to Gambler’s trailer the day he died to kick his ass, but left without doing anything. Pat and Sylvester argue about Sylvester’s actions 
and Pat tells him how Courtney used to believe Sylvester was her father and still looks up to him. At school the next day, Courtney fills the others in on what happened and says she believes the Crocks didn’t kill Gambler. Cindy says she told Sylvester about the blackmail because she wanted to get his approval, figuring that would keep the rest of them from complaining about her being on the team.
Paula is nervous as hell about her Rotary Club speech, but Barbara shows up to support her and she does fine. At school, Cameron apologizes for being a
dick to Courtney and says he’d like to hang out with her again. Sylvester decides to go check out the scene of Gambler’s death, but doesn’t take the Staff since it’s not his turn to use it and he’s trying to be a better example for Courtney. Cameron and Courtney walk downtown together and almost end up holding hands, but Cameron gets weird and takes off. (I assume he was worried about accidentally 
revealing his freezing powers.) We get a montage of various activities: Barbara works on her report; Paula threatens Tim; Cindy still can’t break Gambler’s password; someone (Mr. Bones maybe?) watches different locations in Blue Valley on monitors; Pat sews a new costume for Starman; and Sylvester checks out Gambler’s trailer, where he gets pounded by something that sounds a bit like Solomon Grundy.
This is a pretty good episode that eliminates the Crocks as suspects in Gambler’s death, while bringing up even more questions. The supermarket
fight was cool (and intense) and it was good to see Pat give Sylvester shit afterwards and force him to at least try to be a better person. Sylvester’s problem with finding balance between his superhero and civilian identities is probably pretty common among superheroes, although he seems to always have had less going on out of costume. His trouble assimilating to the easy pace of Blue Valley is funny too. I’m not sure who (or what) jumped him at the end … I think Grundy 
would be too obvious, so it must be someone else. Cameron’s stuff is interesting too; I can’t tell if he knows about Courtney and the others being the JSA and is playing her, or if he really does like her and isn’t aware of the part she played in killing his father. I really like Paula and Barbara’s weird friendship; it was cool to see Barbara show up for Paula’s speech and great to see Paula paying her back by threatening Tim. There was also a cool inside joke about the Crocks using Irwin Hasen as an alias since Irwin Hasen was the artist on the JSA comic back in the 1940s.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Everything here is quaint.” Sylvester trying to get used to Blue Valley.
- “This is a little too much murder talk than I like to hear in the morning for breakfast.” Barbara not liking the in-depth discussion of Gambler’s death.
- “Birds fly, fish swim, blackmailers blackmail.” Cindy explaining her lack of surprise on hearing that Gambler was extorting the Crocks.
- “By the way, turns out, he’s kind of an ass.” Cindy letting the others know how she feels about Sylvester.