"Stargirl" Summer School: Chapter Eight (TV Episode 2021) Poster

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7/10
Feels more like a horror tv show than a Superhero one
ldamena29 September 2021
Don't get me wrong I like how Eclipso messing with everyone's head shows how dangerous and chaotic he is. Plus the scary imagery makes you tense. But,, that slow's down the pacing of the show a lot and it's a bit boring. To be honest I think I enjoyed the first season more than the second. Though I enjoyed the dread this ep. I was waiting to see if the JSA was able to defeat some of Eclipso's manipulations. Some passed while others failed. I guess that's what makes Eclipso so scary the way he goads everyone to do evil acts. How will he be defeated? Guess have to wait & see.
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7/10
Summer School: Chapter Eight is a character driven episode done right, each encounter with Eclipso are tense and suspense
Holt34429 September 2021
Summer School: Chapter Eight is directed by editor and Arrowverse veteran Andi Armaganian, the direction is great and I just like what Andi brings to the table as the director which she was in Stargirl's first season. So having a director that knows the cast, characters and universe is a great thing and it shows in this episode. Writing and cinematography is great in this episode, the episode doesn't make the same mistakes that the previous one did.

The episode follows the events of the previous episodes with Eclipso being out of the Black Diamond and is lurking in the shadows. Meanwhile, Rick tries to befriend Grundy, but discovers that the monster has killed a little girl and seeks vengeance. While Courtney and Pat try to stop him, Beth renews contact with Charles McNider in the Shadowlands, and faces more of Eclipso's mind games. Whilst the previous episode was a lot of filler, focusing solely on Yolanda I appreciate that Chapter Eight is back on track with moving the plot forward and giving the other heroes and characters time to shine.

The episode focuses on a handful of characters which is when this show is at its strongest. Rick Tyler / Hourman II gets some much needed screen time and continues the character arc that started in the first episode with him caring for Solomon Grundy which he spared in the season 1 finale. The other characters have meaningful arcs that are continued and the character interactions is back to being great, much thanks to the director of this episode. The visual effects for Solomon Grundy have improved a lot, he looks more human and there's a reason for that in how he's trying to redeem himself. Cameron Gellman's performance as Rick Tyler was the highlight of this episode, there's a lot of things he did right in this episode and being able to act alongside a CGI character takes talent. Overall, a terrific job. Anjelika Washington surprised me in this week's episode as Beth Chapel, I have always seen her as the weakest actor of the bunch but that have now changed, she is talented and will continue to grow as an actor and I hope she continues to get good writing for her character, Beth Chapel aka Doctor Mid-Nite II have grown a lot in these two seasons and the direction they're taking her in is the right one.

In my opinion, this was a great episode but it has its share of problems, poorly paced is one of them and that's about how Eclipso is continuing to get into the heroes heads, the previous episode was all about him turning Yolanda against them and now he's out for Rick and Beth. I get the way they're telling the story in this second half of the season, for a weekly release window I can see how people find the pacing to be quite flawed and I agree. This is perfect for binge watching, but for us who tune in every week, it's almost too slow. But if you find the characters interesting and the story, you'll still enjoy the slower character driven episodes. This season isn't a regular superhero show with light-hearted and cheesy villains, as the darker tone and Eclipso especially makes each encounter full of tension and suspension, it was the right villain for the show and I hope the pacing improves as it seems like season 2 of Stargirl is building up to something quite amazing, a memorable finale.
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8/10
Fear.
wetmars10 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Wow. Rick's uncle is an unnecessary hostile asshole. Rick vents to himself that he is sick and tired of all the troubles for the rest of his life, stumbling upon a horrid-looking CGI Grundy. Oh my god. For Eight episodes now, Beth is still trying to communicate with the Goggles, and it's getting annoying. The A. I. seemingly has forgotten his memories with Beth. The A. I. would instantly turn off; failure. Grundy sits near Rick "listening" to his life story, meanwhile eating apples. He gives Rick an apple for kindness. Courtney puts the Wildcat costume away in the basement. The Cosmic Staff is still healing from its major injuries.

Beth's parents come in and talk about their main reason for Divorce where they couldn't even love each other because of her. Beth has a freak out seeing worms on her sandwich and running away. Rick hears the radio that the Blue Valley Hunter association is hunting for a "bear". Courtney arrives at the Pit Stop informing Pat that the Staff is taking too long to heal, and the team should focus on Eclipso. Pat gets a phone call from Rick that "Grundy is going to need our help." The two arrive in the Forest. Beth enters the Dugan House only to encounter a small child. Bruce taunts Beth about stealing. Oooh, I love this! Beth comes upstairs to Courtney's bedroom opening the Closet door to find nobody. Beth finds out that Bruce is Eclipso. Man, "no one chose you because your kind is no fighter.". Eclipso is racist and sexist? Pat was right. Eclipso is fricked up.

Rick encounters two hunters trying to find their missing daughter. Something about Eclipso taking the form of a young boy makes this unsettling. Rick hears gunshots, running to the source only to find Grundy drowning a young girl. Pat and Courtney discover the dead body, but it is revealed to be Eclipso playing with them. Rick fights back with the giant monster as the fireworks appear. Oh my got, jumpscare. Eclipso finally appears, taunting more of Beth.

Courtney uses Cosmo against Rick. Holy mother- so all this time, he was beating up his Uncle. This is genuine horror. Rick smashes the Hourglass against the ground. Beth uses her goggles, finally waking up. Eventually, Rick is arrested. Not the happiest Fourth of July after all. The A. I. tells Beth that she is now the new Doctor Mid-Nite and the goggles are Eclipso proof. So. All of that Divorce confession stuff didn't happen, and the Hunter encounter was only a hallucination.

Thoughts?

I do somewhat agree that the "Race" stuff was straight out of nowhere, but I feel that it makes Eclipso more threatening. Although, "I love being bl*ck." felt too far, and the episode had pacing issues. I wouldn't be surprised if Season 2 was filmed during the 2020 protests. One can hope that Beth's character development will grow on.

8/10.
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8/10
NICE
illaymelamed29 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
NICE EP AND ITS JUST COURTNY BETH AND PET VS ECLIPSO CANT WAIT FOR IT! I.
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6/10
Good episode, not sure why the alien seemed to be talking about race
JuanSolo029 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Good episode, except for the weird addition when the alien is a racist and that skin colour has anything to do with it. Really random. But other than that, interesting episode.
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7/10
The CW Put Someone in the Writers' Room, and No, it's Not Hard to Tell
demigodshmurda1 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way and give credit to the people doing Grundy's cgi. He looks great! Not as good as last season, but he looks great. That being said, good cgi can't carry an entire episode of tv. So how did this episode's story pan out?

Rick and Grundy actually had an interesting dynamic during this episode. This is the monster that killed Rick's parents, and he's trying to understand it and make it feel like a real person again. That's why when Rick starts hallucinating because of Eclipso, he reacts so violently. He thought he was making headway with Grundy, but Grundy slid back into his old ways, causing a showdown between them. It only later turns out that Rick wasn't actually fighting Grundy, but was instead fighting his uncle, and ended up putting him in critical condition. Eclipso manipulated his mind, and made Rick see himself as a monster. And that's why him smashing the hourglass was such a powerful moment. Much like how Yolanda killed Brainwave and now the Wildcat persona represents her failure as a hero, the hourglass represents the same thing for Rick. How the writers are going to rebuild the hourglass, I don't know, but this is a very interesting direction for them to take Rick's character.

Plus, as the police are pulling away from Rick's farm, we see Grundy come out of hiding and call Rick his "friend", as if Rick was actually beginning to make peace with Grundy and change him for the better.

I also liked all the stuff with Courtney this week. Courtney lost her best friend, and she feels responsible for it, so she begins to emotionally attach herself to the Cosmic Staff, saying how much she misses it and that it's her friend. She even names him "Cosmo" and it's actually kinda adorable. A line like that being delivered by most actors would've come off as cheesy and lame, but Brec Bassinger's delivery and facial expressions make this seemingly ridiculous development completely believable and incredibly heartfelt. I swear, Brec Bassinger is going to take over Hollywood one day! She is a truly fantastic and devoted actress!

But then we get to Beth's storyline in the episode, which feels a bit more... Disconnected from the rest of the show, and doesn't quite land as a result in my opinion.

This is the part of the episode that's most obvious that the CW put one of the Supergirl or Batwoman writers in the Stargirl writers' room, because I'm sorry, since when was Beth's race a big deal to the character? It was *never* a big deal until this episode, and that's what bugs me. It's the same problem I have with characters like Kelly Olsen on Supergirl, where they're portrayed a certain way for a long period of time, and suddenly their race becomes the only thing that matters about them so that the writers can comment on how victimized this group of people is, when it's so contrary to the way the character's been portrayed up until that point.

That being said, Beth still mostly seems like herself here, with the exception of a few token CW lines like "And I like being black", which is a little too on the nose. Personally, I think a better phrasing would've been "And I like who I am", but that's just down to a personal change, because it allows more for audience interpretation than being directly political (see also my review of Supergirl's "Blind Spots" for more small fixes to lines like that). I'm actually really glad that Beth was able to finally gain a sense of confidence and be comfortable in her own skin, since that almost felt naturally built up from where she was last season.

So Beth is mostly in the clear. However, it's Eclipso that's affected by the CW's politics the most here. I've been pretty disappointed by the writers take on this villain that they said would be portrayed as "pure evil". He doesn't really scream "pure evil" as much as he does "lame" in my opinion, and a lot of that can be attributed to the season's pacing, which I'll do a deep dive on later. As for his job in this episode, he tries to break Rick and Beth, and with Beth he fails because she's finally able to let go of what's holding her back. Why she does, I don't exactly know, but she does, and she's able to break free from Eclipso's vision because of it. How he was used was really weird though, as the writers randomly decided to make him a racist for this episode and this episode only, probably to force Beth to seem more confident by confronting an evil that's relevant in the modern day.

For most of the scenes with Beth, Eclipso takes the form of the child he's inhabiting, and oh my god, Milo Stein's performance is freaking gold! He really gives a solidly creepy vibe with almost every line of dialogue he delivers, and his voice has a really dark undertone to it. So when he makes Beth see visions of the JSA and says that she's the "Wrong age, wrong gender, wrong color" it evokes a real sense of disgust from the audience.

My complaint comes when those lines evoke the wrong sense of disgust. One of the things that, on the surface, made season 1 of this show so great was that it was refreshingly free of identity politics. The writers could've chose to make it about how much better of a hero Courtney was than Sylvester, but they didn't. Instead, they chose to make Courtney a real character that has real personal issues that needed to be worked out. But with Beth here though, the writers took the easy approach and played the race card instead of having her confront her actual fears of her parents splitting up. We've never seen Beth get picked on at school because of her race, and we've never seen her say or do anything that made it seem like it mattered to her, but now because Eclipso says so it matters? It just feels cheap and lame, and ruins the possibility for Eclipso to actually be an intimidating villain.

Don't worry though, I'm sure that the writers will remember to lock the door to the writers' room next time they go out on lunch break. That way, the Supergirl and Batwoman writers won't be able to mess with the scripts of future episodes.

At the moment though, Eclipso's goal seems to be splitting up the JSA and making them doubt themselves and their judgment, since they're the only ones that can defeat him. And while I do think that's a good premise for a villain, I think that goal might be affecting the pacing of the season in a negative way, because this is the slowest paced season of tv I've ever watched.

The writers still have so much to do, and they're running out of episodes to do it. They still need to have Jade and Jakeem Williams join the JSA, fix the Cosmic Staff, get Rick out of prison, ease Yolanda's tortured mind, solve Mike's self-confidence issue, save Dr. McNider and Cindy from the shadow realm, turn Cameron into Icicle Jr., fix the robot, fix whatever Eclipso did to the Shade, reintroduce Sylvester Pemberton into the present day JSA, break Sportsmaster and Tigress out of prison, solve the divorce of Beth's parents, have an action sequence that's on par with the one from the season 1 finale...

There's a lot left to do this season, and the writers only have FIVE episodes to do it, one of which has already been confirmed to take place entirely in a FLASHBACK. As far as I'm concerned, budget cutbacks or not, there's no way that the writers can wrap all of this up in a satisfying way... And I think that's by design.

Go with me on this. Eclipso won't just be the main villain for the rest of the season, but will bleed into the next season and will still be the main antagonist. Admittedly, it's just a theory based on the terrible pacing issues of the season, and the fact that the first *eight* episodes of the season were almost entirely setup. The writers have set up so much that it just isn't feasible for it to all be concluded in a satisfying way five episodes from now, so I can almost guarantee that they're planning Eclipso to be a villain for longer than just this season.

Honestly, the season has some massive pacing issues that it needs to work out, and not all of it can be attributed to budget cutbacks and unwanted people in the writers' room. Where does the setup end and the execution begin. Even Flash season 7 decided when to stop setting up its villains and start actually fighting them, and that's a scary comparison to make! When your first eight episodes are setup and you have yet to execute on almost anything, it just comes off as the writers prolonging the story for longer than it should've gone on. It doesn't make the story seem interesting, it just makes the episodes seem weak and disconnected. We've covered 3 or 4 episodes of development in the span of 8 episodes here, and that's a problem!

As for this episode itself, I'd give it a 7 / 10. It had some good action and strong character moments, but it really lacks a strong through line connecting it to the rest of the season, and some of the dialogue choices could've been changed or cut from the episode. It wasn't bad, but it was far from the greatness of season 1's "Shining Knight" in terms of character development focused episodes.
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6/10
The kid nails it!
cjonesas22 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Chapter 8: A mildly interesting, dragging and made as a filler episode, mostly focused on Beth and her issues! And Rick with his larger than life friend! . It flows mostly boringly, making you (constantly) look at the runtime and sometimes making you wish that Eclipso annihilate them all...

Kudos to the kid who plays his Eclipso part super bright.
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6/10
Weather
marymms19708 July 2022
Um, if it's July 4th in Nebraska, why are they wearing coats? Isn't it like s as million degrees it like it was here in Kansas? That really bugs me. I love this show but that is just not realistic.
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4/10
I didn't like this episode
kerwinjrmail1 October 2021
It just seemed so off from the vibe this show normally has. Plus, the racism was waaay over the top and just seemed completely unnecessary for the storyline.
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4/10
Not sure why race is being brought into an episode about superheroes
Dt18201 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
What possible advantage is there for bringing some political agenda about race into an episode of Star girl. This one was probably the most over the top unrelatable episode that they've had for this season. Disappointed in the writing for sure.
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2/10
worst episode in the series
A_Different_Drummer5 December 2021
Almost painful to watch. Suffers from the curse of all streamers that by the second season the writers are completely out of ideas. Even the dialog, if you break down the scenes, sounds off.
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1/10
Star girl, WTH happened?
erik-bieszczad30 October 2021
Racism is like ketchup these days, it goes on everything. Including this episode where it really wasn't necessary. At all C' Mon guys. Get it together. I used to like this show but if this keeps coming into the storyline I'm done.
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