Pat begins coaching the new team. Cindy reveals some hidden depths. The janitor at Blue Valley High may not be all that he seems.

Is there anybody in Blue Valley who isn’t either a superhero or supervillain or someone adjacent to either (or sometimes both)? The answer from this week’s episode would appear to be no, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves somewhat.

Pat has relented and agreed to train Courtney and her new friends in the art of working as a superhero team. He may live to regret this. What’s actually surprising is the source of much of the issue in getting the whole ‘team’ part of that training going.

But then this is an episode that revels in surprises. Having established firmly that Cindy is an awful human being and basically one of those vacuous ‘mean girl’ stereotypes for its first half dozen episodes, here the show starts to dig deeper. Hidden talents are revealed and Courtney even finds herself getting a little closer to Cindy, but is everything quite as it seems about the girl?

And while everyone is getting tangled up in each other’s lives, let’s not forget that Barbara is working for Icicle (not that she knows) and Icicle’s son is carrying a little torch for Courtney. When the revelations start kicking off, life in Blue Valley is going to get really complicated.

The bits that stand out this week though, for me at least, are the smaller moments: Mike attempting to have a frank conversation with Courtney, jealous that she and Pat seem to be becoming very close. It’s a very human moment, and reminds us there’s a price to be paid for secret identities. Beth not seeing to her parents’ every tiny need because finally she has someone in her life who actually interacts with her. And a reveal about Blue Valley High’s janitor that really does suggest an expansion of the world of the show is incoming.

Verdict: Equal parts superhero shenanigans and high school drama, with some really nice character work. 8/10

Greg D. Smith