After a streak of strong and quite eventful episodes, this week Stargirl slow things down a bit and halted much of the ISA plot in favor of rounding out Courtney's new team. While it wasn't a terrible episode by any means, I did feel like nothing much happened outside of learning about Rex Tyler's death and who his son is. I know that's what the episode was supposed to be focused on, but something about it felt empty. Maybe it's because the episode also tried to squeeze Beth's introduction as the new Doctor Mid-Nite, so there wasn't a singular focused story.
As previously stated, this episode primarily focused on the introduction of Rex Tyler's son Rick, and his ascent into his father's role as Hourman. Overall, I think he's a pretty interesting character, and even though he could be a bit bratty at times, it's understandable given the absolutely horrible experience of being raised by his jerk of an Uncle. I can definitely see him continuing to be at odds with his teammates going forward, especially with all that revenge talk at the end. His introduction was interesting and didn't feel as forced as the other recruits, and as a plus, we got to figure out just how Rex Tyler died all those years ago.
Unfortunately, Beth's ascension to the Doctor-Midnite role felt extremely rushed in comparison. It's not that she doesn't fit into that role, it just feels like it was too coincidental and seemed like the writers did this in this episode because there wasn't time to put it anywhere else. Nevertheless, unless there's some unexpected Green Lantern or Flash that's gonna pop up soon (that flashing Lantern might hint at something), the team is officially together now. On the plus side, all the characters are likable and I'm excited to see how they work together as a team.
The only real development we got on the villain side was the reveal of some sort of satellite blueprint and the final scene with The Gambler and (who I'm now presuming to be) The Fiddler. Hopefully next week we can finally start getting some real answers as to what the ISA is planning, and possibly some more development on the Brainwave/Brainwave Jr. front.
This episode wasn't as strong as those that came before it too me, as it didn't move the plot forward much or contain any shocking twists. It also suffered from trying to jam two hero introductions in less than an hour. That said though, the new characters are interesting enough, and Rick has an especially tragic backstory. Not a bad episode per se, just a bit average compared to what we've seen so far.
Let me know what y'all thought!
