DC’s Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8 spends a lot of time focusing on Rick and Beth, and what they have been going through lately.
Below is a recap and review of DC’s Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8. Be warned, there will be spoilers. So if you have not yet seen the episode and want to remain in the dark about it, come back later. Check out this recap and review of DC’s Stargirl Season Season 2 Episode 7.
Warning: Spoilers for DC’s Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8.
Fans of Solomon Grundy will be thrilled to finally see him again in DC’s Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8! At the start of the episode Rick’s teacher drives over to his house to apologize for the way that she treated him and assumed he would not be able to pass the test without cheating. His Uncle, who takes care of him, laughs in his face and throws trash at him, telling him he will never amount to anything.
Rick takes off to bring food to Grundy again, and he ends up appearing to him. He has a talk with him about how he had a dog that was treated poorly by his Uncle and became a different dog after he gave him to owners who loved him. Rick is suggesting Grundy is like a dog and if he is treated well, perhaps he will be a totally different person.
All season there have been radio reports of a bear in the woods, which is of course Grundy. Now the hunters association is out and about to shoot and kill the bear, so Rick is fearing for Grundy’s life. This drives him to confess to Pat and Courtney about the fact that he has been feeding him for weeks, and has known that he was in the woods.
While it is certainly cool to see Grundy again, this time much calmer just hanging out on a log with Rick, he doesn’t look great. He is very clearly not real, and a CGI effect. Grundy looks pretty silly on the screen, but it is nice to see him finally back.
Eclipso has been messing with Beth. When her parents come to talk to her about their divorce, he makes her see and hear that they are splitting up because of her — obviously her biggest fear.
She gets in contact with Doctor Mid-Nite again, who thinks that somehow the goggles are connected. He says he is in the shadows and that he is still, technically, alive. When Beth goes to Courtney’s house to talk to her about the effects that Eclipso is having on her, no one is home. They are in the woods with Rick searching for Grundy.
Just then Eclipso in the little boy Bruce form is there, and he is messing with her even more. He tells her that all the other JSA elements chose their owners, but not the goggles.
Things for Beth get even worse. Eclipso shows her the JSA and then tells her she is the wrong age, wrong gender, and wrong color to be a part of the team. She runs after him and viewers will be on the edge of their seats hoping she doesn’t end up doing something bad — because it is then that he can absorb and destroy her.
Back in the wood’s Courtney has brought the staff with her but it is very clear it is still not 100% after its encounter with Eclipso. It looks dark and dingy, and even Courtney says it only has one or two shots left in it.
Two hunters run into Rick and claim that something hit one of them — and it wasn’t a bear. There is also a girl missing and this has Rick second guessing keeping Grundy around and trying to change him. Rick runs off and finds Grundy, who is overlooking a dead body in the river.
Rick asks Grundy if he killed her and while he doesn’t exactly answer him, he runs away. Rick calls him a monster and chases after him, yelling that he is going to kill him. Right behind him are Courtney and Pat who stop when they see the little girl.
They pull her out of the water and she opens her eyes, giggles, and disappears. She isn’t a girl at all but Eclipso, messing with their minds. Seems like Rick was onto something when he was being nice to Grundy, who now doesn’t trust him anymore. Rick flips his hour glass when he finds Grundy and starts fighting him, and Grundy doesn’t really fight back much at all.
Back to Beth at Courtney’s house and Eclipso is trying his best to break her. He keeps telling her that she is a scared little girl and finally Beth asks him why he is hiding if she is the scared one. That is when Eclipso comes to her in his true form — through a GREAT jump scare by the way. He tells her that he isn’t scared and that she knows she is the weakest of the team. She fights back saying that she chose herself, and that she loves being Black.
When Courtney and Pat finally catch up to Rick they try to stop him but can’t. He thinks he is attacking Grundy but it isn’t him. It is someone else — his Uncle. Courtney has to use one of the blasts from the staff to stop Rick. The fact that Rick did this causes him to take the hour glass and smash it. Looks like another member of the JSA has quit.
Pat checks Rick’s Uncle and it seems that he is still alive, but very badly hurt. Rick ends up arrested for what he did, rightfully so, and ambulance takes him away. It is revealed that Grundy was watching from the shadows and as Rick is brought away he calls him “friend.”
Beth has put the goggles back on and it is revealed that she has never left her house. The goggles allow her to see through Eclipso’s visions and she is told by Doctor Mid-Nite to keep them on. Her parents come home and she realizes that she was never speaking with them before.
Beth admits to her parents that she doesn’t know if she can do the things she wants to because of what others have been telling her (meaning Eclipso), and it turns into a discussion about race. Her mother admits that when she came to town she was the first Black doctor Blue Valley had seen, but she worked hard and won everyone over.
Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8 Review
Even thought Grundy looks completely ridiculous in Stargirl Season 2 Episode 8, it is a lot of fun to see him as a big part of this episode. Rick’s relationship is something that needed to be explored, much like Yolanda’s PTSD in the previous episode.
It was nice to have time to focus on Beth as well, and what she has been dealing with after learning of her parents’ divorce. There is a lot of focus on race when it comes to Beth in this episode, that was very well done and worth putting out there.
Both of these characters have been pushed aside quite a bit this season, so it was good to spend a full episode on them both.
About DC’s Stargirl
DC’s STARGIRL follows high school sophomore Courtney Whitmore as she inspires an unlikely group of young heroes to stop the villains of the past. This new drama reimagines Stargirl and the very first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, in an unpredictable series.
The project focuses on the character that started executive producer Geoff Johns’ career as a comic book writer when he created her in 1999, lovingly inspired by his late sister, who was killed in a 1996 plane explosion.
Stargirl Season 2 airs on CW every Tuesday, starting on August 10th.
Stream for free the next day on The CW
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.