Stargirl season 1, episode 4 review: Wildcat

“Listen blondie, I don’t want anything to do with you, or anyone at this school.” Minor spoilers for Stargirl season 1, episode 4 follow.

After the tragedy of losing her first battle with Icicle, Stargirl is more adamant than ever about rebuilding the Justice Society in the latest episode of the DC Universe series.

Her first recruit, a girl who hasn’t shown any interest in being friends with Courtney, or really anyone for that matter, Yolanda Montez.

A Wildcat enters the fray

After using last episode as a true springboard to bring Yolanda into the spotlight of the series, this episode goes all in on explaining what exactly happened and why she has been the way she has been. While nothing about the revelation is new as it’s been seen plenty of times before, the way that this episode executes said story is incredibly effective for the most part. The opening scene is entirely dedicated to explaining Yolanda’s backstory and it does a great job of building the dichotomy of the before and after effects of the incident that has been alluded to so far.

The episode also does a great job of building up Yolanda’s homelife as it is in the current moment. There are only three scenes that take place there in the entire episode, but by the final one, it was infuriating seeing Yolanda being treated the way that she is. Again, the scenes that take place at Yolanda’s home are nothing revolutionary, but are extremely well executed, which is why that they are effective. Also, by seeing Yolanda being treated horribly at school and at home makes the budding friendship between and Yolanda all the sweeter.

Once Yolanda dons the Wildcat outfit though, we get to see her for who she actually is. She’s getting used to the new suit, sure, but she slowly stops trying to push Courtney away and allows someone into her life again. It’s wonderful and Brec Bassinger and Yvette Monreal have great chemistry.

Speaking of the suit though, it’s a bit hit-and-miss. The suit is a great way to incorporate the metahuman powers that she has in the comics without making the character a metahuman right now. But, the suit is all too similar to Black Panther’s suit in certain ways that it is done visually. With the decision to have the suit be what it is though, it seems that the creative decided that being too similar to the Black Panther suit would be a risk they were willing to take and, even though it’s noticeable, it was the right choice.

The town is not what it seems

While Courtney is recruiting Yolanda to be the new Wildcat, Pat is off on his own, trying to work on S.T.R.I.P.E., but begins to hear more about Blue Valley. From the beginning, the town has been way too friendly to come off as anything, but creepy. At first, it may have been just the Californian used to large cities in me talking, but once it became apparent that the Injustice Society was running the town behind the scenes, the creepiness felt exactly right.

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Here though, Pat begins to see the cracks around the town beginning to form. Nothing large, but in ways that it feels like he’s suspected since the beginning, which is one of the reasons that he moved to Blue Valley. And with these cracks beginning to form and Pat becoming more and more suspicious, this leads to a fantastic cliffhanger that becomes all the darker the longer you think about it.

However, the biggest detractor from this episode is the fact that Pat and Courtney are apart for most of the episode. They are the heart of the show when together, so the show feels lacking when it has a whole episode with them not interacting one on one.

The plan continues

As for the Injustice Society, there is only scene dedicated to them in this episode, which makes sense. You can only do so much in forty-two minutes and, as this acts as an origin story for Yolanda, the focus was entirely on her. However, the one scene that is present here regarding them is very effective at building on last episode.

With the introduction of Dragon King in this episode, there’s a continuing theme of making the Injustice Society feel increasing Nazi-like. He uses demagoguery much like Icicle used previously, but this time talks about “sacrifices.” Not his sacrifice, though, but of those he wants to experiment on, much like Josef Mengele. It’s a creepy, and effective, introduction to the character.

Did you enjoy this week’s episode of Stargirl? Let us know in the comments below!