‘Stargirl’ Boss Geoff Johns Breaks Down The Season 2 Premiere

DC’s Stargirl is finally back for Season 2, and the show is ready to bring on the bad guys. Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere, “Summer School: Chapter One” past this point, but after a quiet few weeks in Blue Valley, not only did we meet the disturbing entity known as Eclipso, but Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy) is back, and ready to build a Young Injustice Society to take down Stargirl (Brec Bassinger) and her heroic pals. And to do it, she’s going to recruit… Mikey (Trae Romano)?

“Mike … wants to be in the center of everything,” showrunner Geoff Johns told Decider. “But be careful what you wish for.”

Plenty more went down in the packed hour, including Green Lantern’s daughter having a drag out fight with Courtney (Bassinger), Yolanda  (Yvette Monreal) dealing with killing villain Brainwave last season, Rick (Cameron Gellman) feeding the monstrous Grundy, and Beth (Anjelika Washington) getting the shaft from her parents.

Plus, we had the return of Joel McHale’s Starman, and even a few teases of what’s to come. To find out about all that and more, read on.

Decider: You have that great fight with Green Lantern’s daughter showing up at the end, I assume a version of Jade from the comics. What’s it like finally getting to use Green Lantern in live action, and what does she bring to the show?

Geoff Johns: Oh, I love Jenny. We had set up in Season 1, Alan Scott as [Green] Lantern and Johnny Thunder’s Pink Pen and the Thunderbolt, knowing that we’d explore that in the future and hopefully in Season 2. So the first thing that I was really anxious to do, was get to Jade, who I’ve always loved as a character since I saw Jerry Ordway first draw her, way back when. The reason that she was chosen to be such an impactful character and a character that would come on stage at the beginning of the season is, right after Courtney’s had her big win, gotten her confidence, is so vigilant and more determined than ever to be Stargirl, she comes face to face with somebody that is literally everything she thought she was last season.

So she meets this superhero’s daughter who actually is a superhero’s daughter and has this legacy and this power that’s unreal. How does Courtney react to seeing something like that? She kind of has a hint of envy in a weird way, and she doesn’t want to have it and doesn’t try to, but it’s just natural because she does have issues that she’s still going to have to overcome. Including, as much as she thinks she’s over her father and how he abandoned her, it still affects her self confidence and her self image, even if she says it doesn’t. So Jenny was a perfect character to bring on board and kind of challenge Courtney’s confidence in herself, and again, reaffirm that she deserves to be Stargirl. And Jenny, she’ll be back in Season 2, later in the season.

I’m curious about what’s going on with Yolanda. Are her visions just leftover from Brainwave’s attack, like he assumes? Or did he actually find some way of tricking death?

You’ll have to watch episode seven.

For Beth, why are her parents so mean to her? That’s the whole question.

[Laughs] Beth’s parents, I love Beth’s parents. Beth’s parents are very preoccupied with their own lives, and they’ve made the choice to be preoccupied with their own lives, and they’re going to get a rude awakening in Season 2. But yeah, they’re not the nicest people to Beth.

Rick seems to have turned a corner with Grundy from, “I’m not going to kill you,” In the Season 1 finale, to, “I’m going to feed you fried chicken,” In the Season 2 premiere. What led to that change, and what does that mean for both characters going forward?

Well, with Grundy, when Rick was determined to just destroy this creature, this monster, there’s a moment where he’s got the chance to do it and suddenly he hesitates because he sees this look in Grundy’s eyes, and it’s not what he expected. And he lets him go, even though he tells the others that his hour was up. This has haunted him, because in a lot of ways, if this monster that everyone says is a monster is actually kind of misunderstood in some way, it reflects a lot how Rick sees himself, because Rick has been labeled and torn down by the people in this town, and his uncle specifically. And if Grundy is not exactly what people say he is, then maybe Rick isn’t either. So Rick’s got this really strange, cautious connection to this monster. He’s interested in learning more about Grundy and peeling back the layers and seeing if there’s anything there. But is he a horrific monster, or is he something more? That’s the path Rick’s going down right now.

There’s that very brief scene with Joel McHale as, at least who looks like Sylvester Pemberton, searching for Pat, finding his ex-wife. I don’t know how much you can tease about that, but certainly my alarm bells raised in terms of the edge that Joel McHale brought to the character there. Is this the Starman that we saw back in Season 1, or is there something bigger going on?

You will see Starman’s story unfold in a really surprising way. There’s a lot of emotion that Starman and Pat have, that’s going to be explored in Season 2. And yes, you’ll see the Starman from the JSA, from Season 1. But you’ll see different layers of him as he opens up more to Pat, and we get to know him more as a superhero, and as a man who’s a little bit lost right now.

I know it’s never a one-to-one adaptation, but with The Shade showing up this season, you’ve got a friendly Grundy, you have Sylvester Pemberton… Are we going to see other characters or ideas from James Robinson’s Starman run pop up this season?

I don’t know if it’s this season necessarily, if there’s anything specific beyond what you’ve just outlined. We’re always talking about it, because obviously James, I brought him on the show. He was the first hire I made on the writing staff, because I don’t know how you can do a show with the JSA without James. He’s one of my closest friends and an amazing writer, so it was natural that we were going to bring Shade in. And we’ve talked about other things, and when we get to them, hopefully we get to them, knock on wood, we get to keep doing the show for a long time… We’ve talked about bringing in a lot of other elements.

We almost brought Prairie Witch, of all characters, this minor character in Starman. We almost brought Prairie Witch into Season 1. She was almost going to be part of the ISA, and it didn’t… There were just so many characters, she fell out. But we’re always talking about the characters and we always have ideas. With Jenny, Obsidian can’t be far behind. And we have plans. As long as the show keeps going, we’ll keep mining for those deep cuts that our DC hardcore fans like.

To that point, you have Courtney listing all of these villains at the beginning of the episode. The one that interested me in particular, you mentioned Per Degaton a couple of the times in the episode, which I know is a character that you’ve written a bunch in JSA. Having a time traveler villain seems ripe for helping Courtney sort of evaluate her legacy. Is that somebody who potentially might show up down the road?

I’d love to use Per Degaton, yeah. 100%. He’s definitely a character that has been earmarked and pinned to my wall. I think he’s a great character.

Pat and Courtney’s relationship is always going to be one of the hearts of the show, and they seem to be wanting very different things right now, at least at the beginning, heading in different directions. Will these upcoming challenges bring them back together, or are they going to force them farther apart?

Well, that’s the story that unfolds during the season. We’re kind of our own worst enemies in a lot of ways, and Eclipso knows that, and he’s going to prey on that with everybody. And if they break apart, will they come back together? Those are all things we’ll explore in the season. But clearly, Eclipso is designed to do just that. Hopefully, our heroes and their relationships will be strong enough to survive whatever he does.

Right at the end of the episode, we get that great scene of Cindy coming back, her villain strut through the ISA headquarters. And then she reveals this lineup that presumably is going to be some sort of Young ISA, ending with the swerve that she’s interested in Mikey. What can we expect there as she puts together her own team?

One of the things I love about what’s happened in Season 1, that has allowed us to do in Season 2 and beyond, is that now that Barbara and Mike both are in the know, they just become more central to the stories, because they’re no longer on the outside. For Barbara, I find her becoming even more integral to Pat and Courtney, as she becomes more the center of everything. And Mike, in a similar way, wants to be in the center of everything. But be careful what you wish for. Mike, this season, is someone that really wants to find a legacy of his own and be something. But he’s still not quite looked at that way by his Dad, or by the JSA necessarily. Where he lands is going to be really fun.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

DC’s Stargirl airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW

Where to watch DC's Stargirl