Finished the first season of Stargirl. And....yeah well, it's a show. Sadly I don't have too many things positive to say about it.
The lead character is annoying, and never really stops being annoying. Yes she's supposed to be 15, so there is some leeway given, but she exceeds that in my opinion by about mid-season, and just keeps going into pure annoyance. The actress is just fine, I'm not knocking her, it's the writing.
I guess I should maybe toss up spoilers? If anyone actually cares, yeah ok I will.
So, about the rest of the cast.
The girl Beth, who I THINK they were trying to imply has a socialization disorder of some kind? She is just so fucking annoying. She just wanders around, literally spying on people, and thinks it's just perfectly fine. She gets the goggles that give her her "super power", which translates to the glasses from Spiderman Far From Home, by sneaking into Stargirl's room when she's not home, and just TAKING them. She then proceeds to stand there, in her room, scanning EVERY detail, and is totally confused when Courtney (Stargirl) comes in, finds a stranger in her bedroom, wearing some of her stuff, and is justifiably pissed about it. She has like a split second where she frowns like "processing, compiling, human behavior suggests this was wrong, I should redirect" and then does literally that, distracting Courtney from her justified criticism of Beth, with some random tidbit of knowledge. She has zero filter, and I'm supposed to find it....I dunno, endearing? Well it doesn't work. She's obnoxious and annoying, and even the other people in the show feel that way about her.
Yolanda (Wildcat), is from a ridiculously conservative, christian latino family, and she does one thing that gets her in trouble socially (she sent a tit-pic to her boyfriend), and they treat her like a fucking leper. The school also treats her like she's a slut, even going so far as to grafitti it on her locker. Now, I find this really dumb, because let's be real, at least HALF of those kids are sexting each other on a daily basis, and talking about it to their friends. And I know this, because one of my friends had a similar issue with their daughter, finding out that her little cluster of girlfriends were all discussing what guys they were going to suck and fuck. It was just casual conversation for them. So yeah, a school with hundreds of students, and only one is sexting? Yeah, bullshit. Also, she is incredibly hypocritical. First off, she literally tries to KILL the guy who she sent the picture to (they were dating at the time, so it was consentual), because she feels that the embarrassment she felt for a few months, among teenagers she will never talk to again when she graduates highschool, justified KILLING A GUY. He even confronts her about it, when she shows up in her power catsuit to kill him, "you really think I should die for what I did to you?" "YES!!" Ok so, overreact much. Also, I'm still not even sure how it's his fault. Given the scenes presented in the episode where we learn she is shunned at school because of a tit-pic, it's never actually established that he shared it around. In fact, the Bad Girl who ultimately DOES share it, is shown taking his phone from him (because she was scheming to break them up because she wanted him), and he immediately snatches it back from her, clearly not wanting to reveal what was on it. And then later, without any real explanation how, she's got it on her phone, and uploads it during an assembly. And she only had the phone for like seriously 2 seconds. And we see, she didn't have it long enough to do anything with it. And she doesn't have technology powers or anything (something that you actually have to establish in comic book land) So, yeah I'm still confused on that. But, the guy, Henry, doesn't claim he's innocent, even when confronted multiple times. So, I guess he DID share it? It's very fuzzy.
Then further hypocrisy from Yolanda, near the end of the show, one of the other heroes is angry at a villain who killed his parents, and he declares he's going to kill him. Yolanda actually pulls the "Killing is bad, because God Mmkay?" card....and then not 5 minutes later, kills a guy in cold blood. In fact, given what her claws do to flesh, and the fact that she had been fighting hordes of mind controlled thugs of the villain, it feels like she killed a LOT of people already. But this one was very clearly meant to be a big kill. And she does it without hesitation, or remorse. It wasn't self defense, it was "oh, he's a bad guy, I'm going to slit his fucking throat." And the reason for it, is WAY less personal than the guy she was condemning for his violent nature, yet she acts like she's totally justified because of the grief SHE was put through by this villain.
I forget his name, both real name and hero name, but the guy that Yolanda was condemning above, is also the most stock stupid Hollywood Atheist trope ever. Yolanda tries to console him when we learn that both his parents were murdered, with the cliche shit of "it's god's will" or some such tripe. And the boy gets angry and yells "Well if god didn't do it, then who am I supposed to be angry at?!" Which is just....sigh, so fucking dumb that it makes me want to scratch my eyes out.
Also, the one kid character that we actually LIKED, gets "killed" though I doubt that will stick more than a single season. Henry, the kid that shared the tit-pic of Yolanda, who is also the son of one of the villains, and inherited psychic powers of telepathy and telekinetics from his villain dad. Actually has a really good Heel/Face turn. He reminded me a lot of the boyfriend jerk character from season 1 of Stranger Things. Who is your stereotypical Jock Asshole, but by the end, realizes the shit he's been doing was bad, and turns his life around, to the point where by season 2, you love him. Henry has a similar arc, and we were cheering for him to shake off his father's conditioning to become a bad guy, which he does in a really satisfying way....right before he's "killed."
They "confirm" he's dead, because his father, who killed him, claims he drained his son's powers when he died, like a Highlander apparently. This made him stronger, and thus could implement their Evil Plan over a larger area. My theory though, because we don't SEE Henry die (and even if we did, it's comic reality, death is a vacation), is that he did lose his powers, but didn't die. And that now, as a normal guy, powerless, but with a really strong WILLPOWER, to resist and defy his mind controlling father, he will be a prime candidate to pick up the Green Lantern (which they establish is one of the items Courtney has and is trying to find a bearer of), and he'll join the show again second half of season 2, maybe 3.
None of the kids pay any attention to any adults in the show, which I get, since it's a kid's based hero story, so they have to be the ones to solve the problems. But, you usually offset that with adults who are oblivious, or incompetent, or both. The teachers in Harry Potter for example are really stupid, and can't be relied on for anything really. But the adults in this, Courtney's stepdad specifically, are very competent, but the kids just roll their eyes at the "dad" trying to tell them stuff like "Hey these are actual KILLERS, who have slaughtered heroes far stronger than any of you. You don't just walk into their house and poke your nose around!" And there like "Pssh, whatever GRAMPS!! What do you know!? You're just an ADULT! Who has fought these guys before, and has been alive 3-4 times longer than us, and have personal knowledge about all of this stuff! "
And this isn't just me as a 43 year old dude, my wife also felt they were very stupid kids, acting very stupid.
And I get it, it's a tv teen drama, you have to generate conflict and drama between the main characters. But there are good ways to do that, and bad ways to do that. And unfortunately for me and my wife, the bad ways outweighed the good ways. So we are hoping it's a show, that just had a bad first season, and with subsequent seasons they will improve the writing. The actors are fine, I genuinely don't have any issues with them, they were acting their little hearts out being as genuine as they could with what they were given. Just, what they were given, was really lame.
