TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Stargirl Season 3 Premiere

And so begins what likely is the last ride of the Arrowverse and its shows on the CW. I honestly believe that by this time next year I won’t be reviewing any CW show. Which makes me sad as that has been a part of my life for so long and I do enjoy it…most of time. And no, I won’t even be trying to review Gotham Knights outside of MAYBE its pilot episode just to see how bad it is. But this review isn’t about that, it’s about Stargirl. Season 3 has begun and…it’s pretty much the same as it was before. Full of potential, not great on execution.

As we were told by its star, Season 3 is going to be focused on a murder mystery. The person who was to be murdered was not made obvious…until they showed up and you went “Yeah, they’re dead.” But I’ll get to that later as that was a lesser fault in this opening episode. At the end of Season 2, we saw a bunch of enemies become allies as they helped take down Eclipso in one form or another. As such, the “Frenemies” were born and thus the question was, “Could they co-exist?” Then, there was the question of Starman. He was somehow alive and that raised even MORE questions.

To stay positive to start, I was 90% happy with how they handled the Starman thing. He was grateful to Pat and co. for helping him and giving him a place to stay and he showed that. He weaved a plausible story for him being alive (though obviously there’s got to be more to it for obvious reasons. See: decomposing body), and then when Courtney called him out for wanting the staff back, he admitted that at first, he did come back for it. Yet he also gave a simple reason why: He didn’t know anyone had connected with it like he did. So he thought Pat was just holding it for him, which, he was until Courtney came along. He also wisely noted that because he’s been gone for a decade, he literally has no life. All he had was the staff, and Pat as he would have realized.

The only real problem with Starman this episode was the odd conversation on the porch with Pat. Where he noted that Pat would “be his sidekick again” and called him Stripesy. Why is that odd? Because a previous scene showed Starman saying that if the JSA saw the robot they’d “give him a seat at the table” of the JSA. He also called him STRIPE when they were flying, so…why the quick revert to sidekick status? It might have been a bad editing job, but it was noticeable.

Just as noticeable though was that all the bad personality traits that the #NotMyJSA had were back in full force in Season 3. Including Courtney STILL being insecure about anything that affects her being Stargirl. Seriously girl, get over yourself. It was unbearable at points watching her go puppy dog eyes at the thought of losing the staff. Then even when Starman admitted the truth (which I didn’t like at first as that made Courtney right) and she came up with a “compromise” you could tell her heart wasn’t into it. It’s really contradictory when you see Courtney be 100% gungho about giving the VILLAINS a chance at a second life, but she’s hesitant to let a HERO in Starman into her life because it might take away time from her staff. Plus, he also admitted that he “had no life” without being Starman and that should’ve resonated with her more, but it didn’t, because she was only thinking about herself. Again.

As for the other JSA members, Yolanda wouldn’t even give Cindi a chance to be reformed, Rick was willing to “wreck” Gambler because of a perceived slight, and Beth’s parents are still incredibly dumb and only fawning over their daughter because she’s a superhero. Classy. Are we sure this group isn’t the real villains?

Speaking of the villains, I like the broad topic of villains reforming that this show is doing. Not the least of which is that we’ve seen it a LOT in comics with characters like Harley Quinn, Venom, various X-Men characters like Magneto, and so on. My problem with this episode is that the villains…are still acting like villains at points. Mainly in how they interact with others. Like when Tigress got in Barbara’s face. Or when Crusher confronted Pat about Gambler (AFTER trespassing). Artemis was WAY over the top and it was like, “Really?”

For the record, I know it’s going to be a “process”, but there’s a different between “showing change over time”, and “saying you’re one thing but doing another.” And the twist at the end with Gambler and Cindi is obviously a feint and thus doing it is kind of pointless.

The potential is there, I really do believe that. And the opening of the episode was really strong in them showing the “new paradigm” of Blue Valley. I want them to explore that, but to do it in a way that isn’t so cringey at times. This more than likely will be the final season of Stargirl based on all that’s going on with the CW and Warner Bros Discovery. I would love it to finally live up to its potential and explore the characters in meaningful ways. But as of right now? It’s not a good start.

3/5