Stars and STRIPE Part 2 – Director: Greg Beeman/Writer: Geoff Johns
This one starts just a few minutes before last episode’s cliffhanger, with a teacher at the school breaking up a fight between Isaac Bowin and another kid who was bullying him. Isaac took his mother’s advice from last episode and whacked the bully with his tuba, but any discipline will have to wait as the entire football field starts to open up under them. Yeah, the Injustice Society installed the satellite dishes for their mind-control plan underneath the school football field. Like all the adults in town, the teacher is basically catatonic from Brainwave’s mental attack.
Everyone downtown is paralyzed too and Icicle is strolling around admiring his handiwork. He encounters a little girl who asks why her father is unresponsive. Icicle tells her that all the adults are being shown how to
think properly about thing and they’ll all be better people when they come out of it. The girl doesn’t seem convinced. In the tunnels, Pat (who’s being directly controlled by Brainwave) attacks Courtney and she evades his strikes while trying to get through to him. In the American Dream offices, Beth can’t get through to Barbara either and Gambler taunts her through the Dr. Mid-Mite AI, reminding her that a quarter of the people affected will die if they fight Brainwave’s 
reprogramming too hard. Pat is fighting it (especially after Courtney calls herself his daughter) and the AI figures the Society must have earpieces to block Brainwave’s signal. Beth realizes there are signal blockers in the tunnels, but Gambler’s security system is impossible to hack. Beth and the AI target Gambler’s bank accounts, distracting him enough to get the signal blockers back on and free Pat and Shining Knight from Brainwave’s control.
The Injustice Society know what’s happening and prepare a welcome for the JSA. When Courtney and the others get to the underground lair, Icicle,
Sportsmaster, Tigress, and Dragon King are waiting for them. The two teams start fighting and Gambler releases Solomon Grundy from his cell to help the villains. The fight goes back and forth but the villains seem to be getting the upper hand. Dragon King almost kills Shining Knight but gets stabbed in the back by Cindy, whose cell was accidentally opened during the fight. Courtney helps Rick and Yolanda take down Sportsmaster and Tigress, and Pat is about to finish off Icicle when Grundy shows up. Rick goes after Grundy and gets slapped 
down, so Pat takes the monster on with the STRIPE armour. Courtney and Yolanda go to find Brainwave, but Cindy jumps Courtney so Yolanda has to go on alone. She runs into a bunch of Dragon King’s minions, but takes them out pretty easily. The last one takes his hood off and it’s Henry Jr., who claims he didn’t die in the cave-in and can help defeat his father. Yolanda’s happy at first but soon realizes this is Brainwave using his telepathy to look like Henry, so she rips his throat out.
Grundy smashes the STRIPE armour to shit but before he can kill Pat, Rick jumps him and starts pounding the shit out of him. Courtney blasts Cindy to take her out of the fight and finds Yolanda with Brainwave’s dead body.
They find the satellite projectors and Courtney uses the Staff to destroy them (watched by all the students at school). Now that the projectors are destroyed, everyone comes out of their trances, including Barbara at American Dream. Icicle shows up and destroys Beth’s goggles, knocking her out when she attacks him. He grabs Barbara and heads for the roof, trying to convince her that he’s the good guy in all this. He does seem to have a thing for her but when she rejects him, he’s ready to toss her off the roof. Pat shows up and distracts him long enough for Courtney to jump him. In the lair, Rick pounds Grundy 
and is ready to kill him, but spares him when Grundy stops fighting and looks scared. Rick lets Grundy go and heads out to join the others. Courtney and Icicle struggle and she tells him he’s too full of hate to save America. They fall off the roof, but Yolanda saves Courtney (landing on her feet) and lets Icicle fall. (Pat also pulls Barbara back up when she falls over the edge.) Icicle gets up but before he can do anything, Mike slams into him with a truck, shattering him.
Later, the JSA promise Beth they’ll help her get the Charles McNider AI back online. Shining Knight leaves, saying he might look for the rest of the Seven
Soldiers, while searching for other dragons to slay. The whole Injustice Society plan is being written off as an earthquake that somehow made a weather satellite go wild. We see Shade in the Injustice Society headquarters, gloating that he told Icicle his plan would never work. We also see Cindy going through Wizard’s stuff and finding the Eclipso gem. Six weeks later, the JSA celebrate Christmas at Pat 
and Barbara’s place. Yolanda is obviously bothered by killing Brainwave but won’t talk about it. Courtney gives Pat the present she bought for her father ten years ago, a mug that says “World’s Greatest Dad”. Later, the Staff convinces Courtney to go out flying and she’s joined by Pat in the rebuilt STRIPE armour. We get one last epilogue, with someone showing up at Pat’s old place in California asking about him. It turns out to be Sylvester Pemberton, aka Starman, who we saw die in the first episode.
This is a great episode that wraps up the first season with a bang. The JSA
foils the Injustice Society’s big plan, we get some cool fights, and most of the bad guys are captured or killed (although Gambler gets away after wiping out all traces of the Society’s schemes). There’s a lot of set-up for next season too. Besides the obvious questions about how Sylvester can still be alive or what role Shade will play, we also 
get several character questions. Yolanda is obviously bothered by killing Brainwave—or maybe she’s bothered by the fact that she’s not more bothered by it—but will she turn darker and start killing more? Or will this make her more reluctant to fight at all? In the tunnels, Yolanda tried to dissuade Rick from killing Grundy, so it’s ironic that she ended up wasting Brainwave while Rick spared the monster that killed his parents. It’ll be interesting to see how they bring Dr. Mid-
Nite back too, and Cindy finding the Eclipso stone suggests that he’ll be the main threat next season. I’m wondering how Cindy knew that Wizard had the gem and why the rest of the Society didn’t know. Or maybe they did but thought it was too risky to use the gem, since it tends to take over the person using it, body and soul … at least it does in the comics. Anyway, I still love this show and I’m looking forward to next season, which I have seen but I don’t remember much about it.
Noticeable Things:
- Yolanda refers to Shining Knight as Silent Knight, who actually was a DC character although I don’t think he had any connection with the JSA.
Favourite Quotes:
- “It’s me, it’s Courtney … your daughter.” Courtney being honest and getting through to Pat.
- “His normal.” Rick answering Yolanda’s question about whether Shining Knight is back to normal.
- “Pat, you don’t need the damn robot, go!” Rick letting Pat know that it isn’t the armour that makes him special.