Summer School Part 2 – Director: Andi Armaganian/Writer: James Dale Robinson
This one starts with Cindy Burman’s stepmom (Bobbie) enjoying a glass of wine at the Burman house as she trashes the kitchen. Bobbie (who no longer looks like a Stepford Wife) is getting ready to leave now that Dragon King is dead. But just as she reaches the door, Cindy shows up and uses the Eclipso gem to take over Bobbie’s mind.
We jump back to six days ago at an orphanage in Milwaukee, where Jenny-Lynn Hayden (aka Green Lantern’s daughter, Jade) is leaving because she’s too old. The lady who runs the place gives her an old lozenge box and tells
Jenny she doesn’t have to try so hard to be perfect, since people will probably like her anyway … plus, it’s kinda annoying. Jenny opens the lozenge tin and finds a toy car with the name Todd written underneath, and her father’s ring. As soon as she touches the ring, it powers up and flies onto her hand, pulling her somewhere. Of course, we know the ring brought her to Courtney’s house to find the lantern, since we saw them fight last episode. Courtney’s family isn’t happy about the kitchen being wrecked and Jenny apologizes profusely and says the ring brought her there to get her dad’s lantern. When she mentions the name Alan Scott, Pat figures she’s legit and she ends up 
staying the night, sleeping in Courtney’s room (after Barbara basically forced Courtney to offer it to her). When Jenny sees the Christmas photo of Courtney with her friends and family, she looks at an old photo of herself and her twin brother, In the kitchen, the lantern flares to life, seemingly in reaction to her heightened emotions. Downstairs, Courtney is suspicious of Jenny but Pat reminds her that seeing the best in people is kinda her thing, so maybe she should give Jenny a chance.
The next morning, Jenny’s annoying perfection is on full display as she makes pancakes (which everyone loves), fixes the table, and seems to have made herself perfectly at home. Courtney wants to go with Pat and Jenny to
test the lantern at Pat’s garage, but he reminds her she has summer school. Courtney’s not happy to be there, but perks up when she finds out Yolanda is in the class too. (Yolanda’s parents enrolled her to keep her out of trouble.) Rick is supposed to be there too, but he’s skipping the first day to take more food to Grundy out in the swamp. At the garage, Zeek has installed a flamethrower in the STRIPE armour and promises to amp it up later. Pat is surprised the ring still works since Green Lantern had to charge it every day, but when he tries to 
examine the lantern, it blasts his wrench away. Pat mentions that the ring reacted to Alan Scott’s emotions and figures it’s the same for Jenny. After he gets her to relax a bit, she manages to conjure up an image of a classic GTO, earning praise from Pat. At school, Courtney is complaining about Jenny, but is forced to admit her pancakes are pretty damn good. At Cindy’s house, Bobbie is cleaning up the mess she made when she hears a voice (Eclipso, I assume) telling her she’ll never get away from Cindy.
A Jaguar rolls into town and we get our first look at Shade (going by the name Richard Swift), who goes to the American Dream offices and meets with Barbara. Shade says he’s a collector of old memorabilia and wants William Zarick’s magician stuff. Barbara says she’ll ask the committee if
they want to sell the stuff and Shade says he’ll be in touch. At the garage, Jenny impresses Rick and Beth with her command of the ring, but Courtney is less thrilled when she sees the others fawning over Jenny. Courtney accuses Jenny of having ulterior motives and Jenny takes off, followed by Beth and Rick. At Cindy’s house, Eclipso tells Bobbie she has to kill Cindy to get her old life back. At the garage, Pat tells Courtney again that her greatest super power is seeing the best in 
people and Courtney admits she’s jealous that Jenny is actually the daughter of a superhero, unlike Courtney herself. After Pat reminds her how lonely it was trying to figure out who she was last year, Courtney apologizes and tells Jenny about her jealousy and how she wishes she was Jenny. But Jenny freaks out, saying she wanted the ring to lead her to her brother, not the lantern. When she knocks the lantern to the floor, it flares up like it’s about to explode.
After a call from Barbara, Pat goes to the café to check out Richard Swift. He introduces himself and they talk, with Pat getting more suspicious all the time. Pat has to cut the conversation short when he sees Courtney and the
others running past the café with the glowing lantern. He follows them to the park, where he reminds Jenny that her emotions affect the lantern. Courtney realizes that Jenny basically is the lantern (which is why the ring worked as soon as she touched it) and that she can absorb its energy. It seems to work but when Jenny and the lantern explode, Courtney figures her advice wasn’t so great after all. But Jenny reintegrates herself, her body now imbued with green lantern energy. The next day, Courtney is surprised (and a bit sad) to find out Jenny left. Pat 
tells her about Shade and says he thinks Shade is in Blue Valley … and is probably planning something bad. Naturally, Courtney is thrilled to have an actual villain to fight. At the Burman house, Cindy returns home and Bobbie tries to stab her, but Eclipso takes over Cindy’s body and uses the gem to disintegrate Bobbie, body and soul. Cindy gives Eclipso shit for taking her over, saying she didn’t want Bobbie dead. Eclipso apologizes and assures her that she’s the one in control and he’s only there to serve her.
This is a pretty good episode, that gives Jenny (aka Jade) a proper introduction and shows her getting her powers from her father’s lantern. It’s interesting to see Courtney admitting her jealousy is because she wishes she was a superhero’s daughter like Jenny (although I have to admit, Jenny’s eagerness to please everyone does get annoying after a while). Now that she has powers, I guess Jenny went to find her twin brother, Todd, who
was known as Obsidian in the comics. I hope they both show up in future episodes. It was also interesting to see Eclipso taking over Cindy and Cindy resisting that. She actually seemed genuinely sorry that Bobbie was dead, so maybe she’s do a face turn and help fight against Eclipso. I’m assuming Shade is looking for the Eclipso gem and that’s why he wants to go through Wizard’s stuff, not knowing that Cindy got there first. His chat with Pat was cool and I’m thinking he might have a pretty good idea who Pat was and why he engaged him in conversation in the first place.
Noticeable Things:
- The orphanage where Jenny grew up is called the Ordway Home for Children, obviously named after Jerry Ordway, who co-created Infinity Inc (including Jade and Obsidian) with Roy Thomas.
- When talking about Jenny, Yolanda says she’s the daughter of Green Llama (instead of Green Lantern), who was a pulp magazine superhero back in the 1940s.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Looks like it.” Pat agreeing with Courtney that things got out of hand between her and Jenny when he sees the damage in the kitchen.
- “I am?” Pat surprised by Jenny calling him a living legend.
- “I’ll get my staff!” Courtney thrilled to hear that a dangerous guy like Shade is in Blue Valley.