Eclipso has finally revealed his hand and it’s down to Courtney and the rest of the motley crew of villains and heroes she has assembled to take him down once and for all.

There’s been something quietly nagging at me throughout this season of Stargirl. It’s been enjoyable, sure – some of it has been exceptional. But overall, it’s been difficult to shake a feeling of a kind of holding pattern of a season. The very fact that the naming convention has been ‘Summer School’ rather than ‘Season 2’, the feeling that each character has been grappling with the basic tenets of being a superhero rather than actually doing the job, and the way other characters have been drawn in, all add up to make it feel less like a second season and more like a sort of adjunct to the first.

That all sort of contributes to the issue of how this finale ends, which feels more like a whimper than a bang. The return of Yolanda to the fold last week felt rushed and isn’t made any better here. The appearance of several other characters to come help save the day is a bit token, if anything, bar one who basically actually saves the day and then announces they’ll be sticking around for training. Add in Mikey and Jakeem mostly sitting around waiting for STRIPE to be fixed and Thunderbolt to reappear (and the fairly flat resolution to both those elements) and it all starts to feel a little rote.

Even villain Eclipso feels like he’s already been played out before we got here – his schemes to this point were interesting, but here it starts to get repetitive as we see various characters tested by him in exactly the same way they already have been.

It’s not without its higher points. Rick’s attempts to repair the hourglass so he can regain his super strength don’t end up playing out the way you necessarily expect, and there’s a pleasing surprise and some nice resolution in there for those of us who have followed on. Similarly, the way the episode actually ends is interesting in many ways, playing off that central premise this season played with of the fine dividing line between bad and evil, and promises some interesting and fun developments for season 3.

Overall though, as the season itself never really felt like a full fat season of Superhero TV and more like a bite-sized interlude between seasons, this has the feeling of a mid-season cliffhanger rather than a full on season finale, even in spite of the supposedly apocalyptic stakes. I’m pleased to see where it ended up, and it’s done some excellent work along the way, but ultimately it really has felt more like Stargirl Season 1.5, rather than Season 2.

Verdict: Enjoyable enough and sets up much that promises to be fun for Season 3, but definitely a quieter ending for a superhero finale than you might expect. 7/10

Greg D. Smith