DC's Stargirl Recap With Spoilers: Here's Everything You Missed in "Summer School: Chapter Nine"
10/05/2021 11:47 pm EDT
Decades ago
The episode opens "decades ago". A thunderstorm begins outside a house while inside, an old record player plays and Bruce Gordon stands in his study, drinking, telling Eclipso - who is in the diamond - that he wishes he would have never brought him back from "that island". Bruce is regretting having used Eclipso to gain him fame and fortune as the cost has been so high. Eclipso taunts him, tells him to put the diamond down if he really wants to be free of him and Bruce goes for a gun, presumably to kill himself. Eclipso tells him that he can make things better, including getting back the woman he loves. Eclipso convinces Bruce that the only thing keeping his love, Mona, from him, is another man. All Bruce has to do is let Eclipso take control. Bruce does and Eclipso takes control.
Memories
In present-day Blue Valley, the weather continues to worsen as the storm rolls in. Everyone at the American Dream is sent home. At home, Pat and Mike put together a box of storm supplies so that they can take it downstairs. Courtney tells Pat that Rick's hearing was canceled and that with Eclipso getting stronger, she and Beth are no longer waiting to go after him. Pat tells her they are not prepared. Pat sees a yellow rose on the table and is taken back to a memory.
The memory is of a funeral, specifically for Rebeca McNider. After the service, the Justice Society comes together to talk about dealing with Eclipso and Jay Garrick comes up to talk to them about it while, at the graveside, Dr. McNider's wife has a breakdown. Back in his home in the present, Pat turns around to find a coffin in the dining room with lots of yellow roses. The coffin opens and Pat closes his eyes, trying to banish the hallucination, though he can hear someone calling "liar" at him in the distance.
Preparing for the storm
Upstairs, Mike overhears Courtney planning with Beth on how they will deal with Eclipso. He takes sleeping bags down to the kitchen as things get colder and can't find Pat. Pat has gone down to the basement to bandage the small wound he got from the yellow rose while the staff glows behind him.
Back in the memory, Pat talks to Sylvester and says he wants to help get justice for Dr. McNider. Pat wants to be part of the team to help with that. They soon find The Shade watching them. Sylvester dismisses Pat back to the garage and goes to talk to him. Pat tries to follow, but they are both gone.
Driving home, Barbara's car dies as the storm intensifies.
How to stop Eclipso
Pat starts looking through the old JSA files, looking at photos of himself and Starman. In memory, Pat works on his car in the garage when Sylvester shows up, a bit shaken. The Shade told him that Eclipso is a spiritual parasite, an otherworldly creature that Bruce Gordon had found and been possessed by. Sylvester explains what Eclipso can do and then that The Shade told him how they could stop it. It seems that The Shade is actually afraid of Eclipso and called it real evil. The only way to stop Eclipso, it turns out, is to kill the host as when the host dies, Eclipso is forced back into the Black Diamond and as long as it remains untouched, Eclipso is powerless. Pat doesn't agree with killing because that's the JSA code and Sylvester appears to agree that there is always another way.
Things get chilly
Upstairs, Mike is getting colder even though the temperature of the house is fine. There's a knock at the door and he goes to answer it, finding Cameron Mahkent. Cameron says he was caught in the storm and didn't know where else to go. He asks where Courtney is and then, where Barbara is. Barbara is still stuck in her car, unable to get out or get the car started. She also has no cell service and suddenly, Jordan Mahkent appears in her backseat. The car ices over.
At the house, Cameron taunts Mike about his real mother abandoning him and says that he knows that Mike killed Jordan and tells him that Jordan isn't dead. He's with Barbara right now. Cameron exhibits his own ice powers by killing the family dog. In the car, Barbara tries to convince herself that what she's seeing isn't real and that it's all Eclipso as Jordan tells her he is going to hurt her for hurting him.
In the car, The Shade tells Barbara that nothing she's seeing is real and that her car is fine. He tells her to start the car and when she does, the hallucination clears. He also tells her to go home and Barbara drives off. At the house, Mike fights with Cameron who tells him he's nothing, unwanted by the JSA and his own mother. Courtney comes downstairs then and realizes that Mike is stuck in a hallucination. She has him touch the staff, which somewhat breaks him out of things. Buddy the dog is fine.
Blood that won't wash away
In the basement, Pat picks up Starman's uniform and discovers that he's bleeding. He goes to wash his hands, and Eclipso - as Bruce Gordon - is right behind him. The blood doesn't seem to want to wash off and we're back in memory. Starman, Flash, Wildcat, and Hourman all come down to the garage. They need him as a possible tie-breaking vote. Eclipso has ravaged the JSA. Freelancer, the Spectre, Dr. Fate, and the Hawks were all unable to stop Eclipso and he beat them all before vowing to come after the rest of them and their families, too. Killing the host appears to be their only option. Pat doesn't want to kill anyone and neither does The Flash, but Wildcat wants to do it. He votes yes, as does Hourman. Pat votes no along with The Flash. The vote comes down to Sylvester who surprises Pat by voting yes. Jay tells him that he won't take part in it and Sylvester tells him that he won't have to. Pat says he won't participate either, but Sylvester won't let him sit it out. In the present, Pat hears Bruce and turns around as he fires a gun at him. Hourman, Starman, and Wildcat show up behind Bruce as he goes to shoot Pat but Courtney shows up with the staff just in time.
The grim truth
Pat confesses to Courtney how the JSA really stopped Eclipso and we see it in flashback. We're back at Bruce Gordon's house from the opening. Pat sits in the car outside and Starman gets in, shaken, but holding a box. Starman has a bit of blood on his uniform, but tells Pat he's right, the JSA should never take a life. Starman has the Black Diamond in a box and tells him that they need to get it to storage. He doesn't want to talk about what transpired.
Pat tells Courtney that the team drifted away after that and only came back together when the ISA showed up. The team was never the same and Pat says that it was the killing of Bruce Gordon that broke the JSA and led to their defeat and demise at the hands of the ISA. Courtney calls Pat out for lying to her even as her own friends were being destroyed by Eclipso. Pat also reveals that Barbara knows about it all so Courtney feels doubly betrayed and confronts Barbara when she comes home causing a rift in the family. Outside, young Bruce watches and laughs.
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