‘Stargirl’ Needs To Pick Up The Pace

This week marks two episodes in to Stargirl ‘s third season and the main plot has not exactly revealed itself just yet. Instead, the installment continued to build the theme established in episode one: the redemption of villains. The great thing about this premise is that comes from multiple angles. The first season revealed so many villains that to see them all take a shot at redemption is nice and creates more than one story arc. The downside to this episode is that it is continuing to build rather than taking any action. It’s still early in the season, but more things need to take place in order to build up steam a lot quicker.

This episode picks up where the previous one left off as the JSA begin an investigation into the murder of the Gambler (Eric Goins). The investigation is pretty slow going as this episode focuses mainly on the Shade (Jonathan Cake) as a suspect. There is one problem, though — the Shade obviously didn’t do it. So the episode feels like it spins its wheels as the Shade and Starman (Joel McHale) work out their past history. Plus, the beginnings of several storylines start to take shape as Icicle’s son, Cameron (Jake Austin Walker), is coming into his powers and Cindy (Meg DeLacy) works on her own agenda.

Right now, it just appears as if this season is gearing up rather than letting things unfold. The problem is that previous seasons of Stargirl didn’t operate this way. There were so many villains that the action and pace moved pretty quickly right from the start. This season doesn’t have any of that as the heroes and villains start to work on a new status quo. Of course, there were villains that were teased in the finale of last season … but it seems as if the show is still a far way off from including them into the storyline. Another example of how the show needs to get where it’s going a lot quicker.

Stargirl airs Wednesdays on The CW.