Courtney’s latest suggestion for a recruit to the new JSA doesn’t meet with positivity from the rest of the group. Barbara invites Jordan and his family over for family dinner. Henry starts to uncover the truth about his father, as well as his own nascent powers.

You have to hand it to Courtney – she’s an eternal optimist and she never met a troubled person she didn’t think she could rehabilitate somehow. But even for her, this week’s suggestion of who the new JSA should try to recruit into their ranks is pushing it, for one member of the team in particular. It actually strays from her usual chirpy optimism into thoughtless boundary-crossing, but then that’s been another staple of her character since day one.

Meanwhile, having discovered his father’s secret room, Henry spends a revelatory few hours watching the videotapes charting his father’s journey from experimental scientist who started testing out his theories on himself to person fully in control of some serious powers. It’s actually pretty interesting to witness Brainwave’s journey from slightly damp scientist to man convinced of his own fitness to pass judgement on the world and its ills. It’s, in a lot of ways, a classic supervillain journey, but a better one than we are usually treated to onscreen. It seems that rather than a sudden drop into his villainous ways, Brainwave took a thousand tiny steps on the road to his ISA membership.

Barbara, guilty at having ditched her boss to rush back home, elects to invite Jordan to dinner with the family. This is hilarious for several reasons, not the least of which is that she can’t cook, but also she has no idea that her boss is also her daughter and new husband’s arch nemesis (though in fairness neither do they). Jordan’s family are as reliably creepy as ever, and a little slip by the man himself might be more revealing than he intended.

And we finally get an insight into exactly what Project New America might entail, though why it requires the input of Doctor Ito is unclear. It’s sort of disappointing in a way, given that it’s fairly cliched as supervillain plans go, although it does still seem to have an interesting motivation behind it at least.

Verdict: Interesting – a blend of unusual, unique choices and really well-worn ones. 8/10

Greg D. Smith