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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Stargirl Season 3 Episode 11: The Haunting

November 17th, 2022 by Todd Black Comments

The preview for the next episode confirmed that there are just two episodes of Stargirl left before its end, and frankly…it has a lot of ground to cover before its series finale. Thankfully, they planned ahead and shot two endings, one of which is a “happy ending” that brings things to a close. But even with that comfort, I’m not sure the ending as a whole will be worth the effort.

The biggest issue with the current season of Stargirl has been pacing and logic on certain matters. “The Haunting” just added to that with the return of The Icicle. Not only did we get a “fakeout” that we could see a mile away, but the explanation for his return was anything but fantastic. After all, we’ve had TWO characters return from the dead this season due to them “not fully understanding their powers.”  At least with Sylvester, it took him a decade (for some reason…), and yet with Icicle, it took less than a year. Frankly, of the two, Icicle’s was the most ridiculous because of him just “melting into a puddle and reforming over time.” For the record, that’s not even close to the powers that the Mahkents had in the comics. Even with the “new versions” that you see here or with Young Justice, it’s a big stretch to go from “ice powers” to “I can reform from a puddle.” Plus, if you recall the scene of his death, he didn’t fully ice up at the time of his “demise.”

The other big problem here was his killing the Crocks, which I’m still mad at, for the record. His saying that it was “regrettable” and “an accident” only for people to suddenly believe him was stupid. I’ll get to Courtney later, but it totally ruined the illusion of him trying to “make amends” when we KNOW he just killed two people in cold blood (pun intended) at the end of last episode.

I do appreciate them going big on the reaction from Artemis. Even though I have no idea how Barbara got into her house at the end, it was nice for them to bond…but…I do wish we saw more of Artemis this season leading up to that so that our connection with her would go beyond just “she lost her parents.”

Another thing that didn’t help matters was Starman. While you could argue his reaction to learning about The Icicle was fair, everything that came after that was bad. Him yelling at Pat multiple times (further cementing their toxic relationship), him raging against everything in sight, and so on. Did he have a point? Yes, at times, he did, especially at the end with Courtney, but despite him saying he wants to “do better” and “be better,” all it takes is the slightest push, and he goes over the edge. It’s really annoying.

Going back to Icicle briefly, we still don’t know all of what led to him getting to this point. Why he felt the need to put spy cameras everywhere, and how he even did that if he couldn’t access resources or not be at “full strength.” We better get an answer to that, or it’s just going to come off as weird…weirder in this case.

Now let’s get to Courtney. I’m glad that at the beginning, she was incredibly skeptical of The Icicle, even calling out Cameron for his loyalty to his father after everything he did. But then, after being kissed by Cameron and hearing Jordan, she was fine with the idea of working with them to take down Ultra Humanite, no questions asked. Even Starman was calling her naive, and he’s not exactly a guy you trust when it comes to judgments! Again, Icicle JUST KILLED THE CROCS and was spying on them for a long time, and yet it’s…ok? Because he “learned from Courtney”? The difference between him, the Crocs, and Cindi was that the later two TRIED to be good and proved it with actions. All he did was talk about “peace.” So when he met up with Ultra Humanite at the end, it was like, “Yep, saw that coming!’

Another problem here is that Rick is MIA, and now there are only two episodes to solve his addiction problem meaningfully. I liked Yolanda reaching out to her mother as it felt appropriate, given what happened to Artemis. But I hope they get a meaningful scene, or else this one is a waste. Oh, and Cindi randomly deciding to join Mike and Jakeem? No, just…no.

In the end, “The Haunting” tried to make a “big return” feel more impactful and instead did the opposite. We didn’t need the return of The Icicle. We could’ve focused more on Ultra Humanite and talked about why he’s “such a threat” outside of brute strength (which is all we’ve seen from him.)  We have two episodes left, and next episode is likely going to have another big “moment” that will either define the show’s season, or prove its redundancy.

2/5

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!