Summer School Part 1 – Director: Andi Armaganian/Writer: Geoff Johns
This one starts several decades ago (judging by the cars, I’d say the late 50s or early 60s) in Melody Hills, Indiana. A girl named Rebecca is forbidden from attending a birthday party across the street because she made a scene in a store earlier. Rebecca is brooding outside when a kid named Bruce shows up out of nowhere and talks her into sneaking over to the party. The presents are piled outside on the porch and Bruce talks Rebecca into stealing one, but
when she opens it she finds an evil-looking doll. Bruce looks pretty evil himself now, with half his face turning black, and he pulls out the Eclipso gem. I’m assuming this is Bruce Gordon, who was Eclipso’s “host” in the comics. When Rebecca’s mom can’t find her she assumes she went to the party and goes to check, but finds something horrifying—presumably Rebecca’s body—in the yard and freaks out. We finally see from the mailbox that Rebecca’s last name is McNider, as in Charles McNider aka Dr. Mid-Nite.
In downtown Blue Valley, Courtney (Stargirl) Whitmore is out on patrol but finds nothing except a hungry raccoon. The rest of the JSA are with her, but they’re getting tired on endlessly patrolling the town, looking for trouble 
that isn’t there. Rick (Hourman) Tyler reminds them that the Injustice Society are either dead, in jail, or fugitives, so there’s nobody left to worry about. Yolanda (Wildcat) Montez tells Courtney they’ll be there to help if there’s trouble, but there’s no point in going out every night when nothing is happening. We learn that Beth (Dr. Mid-Nite) Chapel got her goggles working, but they just function as a computer now, without the Dr. McNider AI that gave them a personality. Courtney doesn’t want to give up the heroic side of her life, so she goes home to look through Pat’s files on supervillains again. He finds
her and tells her to forget about being Stargirl and concentrate on her civilian life. Courtney figures that being Stargirl is her destiny and assumes that since the Staff is still working for her, there must be more to do. Pat urges her to enjoy the downtime and find a balance between superhero and regular teenager. As they head upstairs, we see Green Lantern’s lantern (which is partly broken) flare into life.
The next day, Pat tells Mike and Courtney they’re going on vacation to 
Yellowstone Park for two weeks. Neither Mike nor Courtney wants to go, but Barbara (and the dog) outvote them. At Beth’s house, she tries to reboot the McNider AI again, but can’t get it to work. She gives her parents their lunches, but after they leave she finds some divorce papers on the hall table. After hearing about a “bear” breaking into a couple of local restaurants and scarfing a bunch of food, Rick figures it sounds like Grundy and goes to the marsh to look around, finding a huge
footprint in the mud. Yolanda’s obviously feeling guilty about killing Brainwave and goes to church to confess. This isn’t her first time trying to unburden herself, but she just can’t bring herself to talk about it. As she’s leaving, she has a flashback of killing Brainwave and gets an overwhelming feeling of dread. Nothing happens, but she leaves the church, still freaked out.
Later, Yolanda and Courtney talk but Courtney can’t lessen Yolanda’s 
feelings of guilt. They see Cameron Mahkent and Yolanda warns Courtney to stay away from him in case he finds out the truth about his father. Yolanda wonders if Henry would still be alive if he hadn’t found out his father was Brainwave. At the garage, Pat meets with a guy named Zeek who’s going to run the garage while he’s on vacation. Zeek is very nosy and wants to know what’s in the back room, but Pat tells him it’s just storage. Zeek agrees to look after the place, but seems to think they’re business partners now. At school, Rick aces a test and the
teacher assumes he cheated, so she wants him to take it again. He gets pissed off and tells her to go ahead and fail him. Courtney and Yolanda notice that Beth isn’t her usual chipper self, but she pretends nothing is wrong. Courtney thinks Artemis Crock is attacking her and takes her down, which earns her a trip to the principal’s office.
Pat and Barbara are called in, not just because of the fight, but because Courtney’s grades are so low. The principal suggests she take summer 
school classes to keep from failing, which puts an end to the Yellowstone trip. Pat tells Courtney she has to forget about Stargirl for a couple of weeks and pass summer school. Elsewhere, we see Sylvester going to a restaurant where he finds a certain waitress (Maggie) and tells her he’s looking for her ex-husband. When she asks which one, he says it’s the one who likes stripes, so I’m assuming he means Pat (and that Maggie is Mike’s mother). Back in Blue Valley, Courtney runs into Cameron and they get along pretty well. His grandparents see them together and the grandma wants to tell him about Courtney’s double life. At the garage, Pat finds Zeek in the room with the
STRIPE armour and ends up having to let him work on the weapons systems to keep him quiet. At the river, Rick brings a bunch of fried chicken at leaves it by the water. As soon as he leaves, something (Grundy, obviously) takes the food. At the Chapel residence, Beth has made a romantic dinner to try to get her parents back together, but neither of them shows up to eat it. She hears Dr. McNider’s voice from the goggles, but when she puts them on, the AI claims it doesn’t know her and shuts down again.
At home, Courtney hears a noise downstairs and grabs the Staff before going to check. She finds someone stealing the green Power Lantern and 
they end up fighting. They kinda trash the place before Pat and Barbara interrupt and the intruder introduces herself as Green Lantern’s daughter. At school, we see Cindy Burman heading through the secret tunnels into the Injustice Society’s underground lair. She has the Eclipso gem and is ready to recruit some members for a new Injustice Society. We see she has photos of Artemis Crock, Isaac Bowin, Cameron Mahkent, and … Mike Dugan, for some reason.
This is a pretty good episode, although there’s not much action. We get the set-up for the whole Summer School thing (with Courtney and probably
Rick having to attend), and we see that Cindy is ready to start her own young Injustice Society to counter Courtney and her friends. I’m assuming she plans to use the Eclipso gem to corrupt Mike and turn him against his family. We get some background on Eclipso at the beginning of the episode, with Rebecca McNider’s disappearance. I’m 
assuming she was Dr, Mid-Nite’s daughter, since her mother mentioned her father being out on a call. The kid Bruce is probably meant to be Bruce Gordon, although he was an adult in the comics. Eclipso seems to be able to push people into doing wrong and then feed off their guilt. I assume the weird feeling Yolanda got in church has something to do with Eclipso too. It’s interesting that the rest of the team think Brainwave was killed when the satellites fell, so obviously Courtney hasn’t told them about Yolanda killing him. Rick is feeding
Grundy and keeping his presence a secret (and we find out that Rick has changed his last name to Tyler). It was cool to see Maggie, who I assume is Mike’s mother, and will help Sylvester track Pat down. And we meet Green Lantern’s daughter, who I’m assuming is Jade, and who has a power ring to go with the battery (and knows how to use it). Overall, there’s more going on than meets the eye and I’m eager to see the next episode.
Noticeable Things:
- When Courtney’s going through Pat’s files, she asks him about several classic DC villains from the comics: Per Degaton (who was banished to an alternate timeline by Flash); Blackbriar Thorn (killed by Green Lantern in 1988); Baron Blitzkrieg; and Gentleman Ghost. Later, we see her reading a file on Clifford DeVoe, aka the Thinker.
Favourite Quotes:
- “So, no supervillains? Did you check inside the trash can?” Rick being sarcastic about the lack of action in Blue Valley.
- How am I gonna deliver papers at Jellystone Park?” Mike looking for an excuse not to go on the family vacation.