Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Stargirl Season 3.DC’s Stargirl follows Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) as her family relocates to Blue Valley, Nebraska, where she stumbles onto a cosmic staff and long-hidden secrets about her step-father Pat (Luke Wilson) and his ties to the superheroes that once made up the Justice Society of America. Now halfway through the third season on The CW, Courtney’s life as Stargirl has been made infinitely more complicated by the attempted rehabilitation of former enemies that, despite their best attempts, aren’t exactly known for handling tense situations in the best ways. But, the most complex aspect of her life currently is her blossoming romance with Cameron Mahkent (Hunter Sansone), something that has been slowly building since the very beginning of the series. And now that we’re finally seeing this dynamic explored? It’s not giving the satisfaction we’ve been waiting for.
From the start, Courtney’s dynamic with Cameron has been incredibly complex, though he hasn’t been in on the secrets. Almost as soon as Courtney became Stargirl, she became entangled in the battle with the Injustice Society of America, the foes that ultimately killed and defeated various members of the JSA in a brutal battle about ten years prior. The catch? The leader of the ISA was Jordan Mahkent (Neil Jackson), Cameron’s father who later harbored a crush on Courtney’s mother Barbara (Amy Smart). Her most powerful enemy was the father of her love interest, which was absolutely delicious television to devour. However, since the end of the first season, the remaining development of their slow burn has been rather disappointing.
As if that alone weren’t complicated enough, her step-brother Mike (Trae Romano) accidentally killing Jordan and shattering him into pieces in his Icicle form during the final battle made matters worse. Plus, Jordan’s parents — Cameron’s grandparents Sofus (Jim France) and Lily Mahkent (Kay Galvin) — know about Courtney’s involvement in their son’s untimely death, something they’ve refrained from divulging to Cameron thus far. Throughout the second season, Courtney kept her distance from Cameron, while his role became limited to brief appearances as he created a mural of his father in the middle of town. Their limited interactions definitely showed their feelings for one another, but Courtney’s guilt was too powerful, and she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the truth about Jordan. Meanwhile, Cameron started to develop his own superpowers: Cryokinesis, like his father and grandparents.
In the third season, their dynamic has finally started to change… kind of. With his powers growing at rapid speed, Cameron is struggling to control them. Courtney finds out and, for many reasons, offers to help him learn how to manage his abilities, ultimately trying to help him not turn into his father. After finally spending a large amount of time together and two seasons of longing glances and heavy interactions, Courtney and Cameron finally decide to act on their feelings for each other and kiss in his cryokinesis-created snow. They've been moving forward in their relationship, even having an awkward family get-together with Courtney’s parents and Cameron’s grandparents, but it’s ultimately been kind of disappointing to see how things are playing out.
It’s become rather difficult to get invested in the couple now that they’ve actually made things official. Perhaps, in part, due to the fact that they’ve hardly spent any time together at all where Courtney hasn’t been conflicted in her feelings because of the many lingering secrets hanging over their heads. Or, rather, because of just how slowly this flame is actually burning. It’s taking “slow burn” to an extreme, and it’s hard to care when there hasn’t been much change. There’s been little to no resolution to the problems that have plagued the couple since the first season, so why have we waited this long for the two to get together? Courtney is nearly constantly lying to Cameron, who still doesn’t even know she’s Stargirl. He doesn’t know about the key role she played in his father’s final moments, which will obviously shatter their romance when he discovers the truth and just how much she’s been hiding from him, while he’s been relatively open with her in comparison.
Additionally, the question of whether or not he’ll follow in his father’s footsteps is something that continues to drag on as the show consistently chooses to focus on other stories, giving us such little time to know who Cameron is and whether these powers will also cause his perspective to shift, which is a possibility. His grandparents are definitely just as bad as his father was, so it’s hard to know if he can overcome decades of evil and break free. And, a new complication to this romance is the other members of the JSA not trusting Cameron because of what his father did, putting Courtney in a terrible spot where she’s torn between everyone and can’t tell anyone in her life the truth about what’s going on. Simply put, there’s just far too much going on with this dynamic that seemingly barely registers as anything of importance to the writers.
Stargirl has always struggled with having far too many characters in the spotlight with such few episodes, and the story with Cameron and Courtney has consistently been on the losing end of the battle. Now, the slow burn between Cameron and Courtney just isn’t really working because there’s just too much to be addressed after so many little things building up over the course of the show with more being piled onto them now. The show has, effectively, killed the buzz of the follow-through because of how poorly it has been handled up until now. Given the state of The CW, it’s quite possible that the current season could be the final season of Stargirl. With only seven episodes left, there’s no possible way for the series to bring this story and romance to a satisfying conclusion, even if they don’t end up together. Unless something drastically changes in the next episode, this slow burn will completely fizzle out and live on as one of the most disappointing aspects of an otherwise fantastic show, which is a shame because Courtney and Cameron had the potential to be one of the most interesting dynamics we’ve seen from DC’s superheroes on The CW.
Stargirl continues Wednesdays on The CW.