The first season of Stargirl hit the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service and surprised us with fun characters and a strong thread of family that went through both the heroes and villains’ storylines. For Stargirl Season 2, though, the show is delving into horror, creator and executive producer Geoff Johns said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“[Stargirl Season 2’s] first scene was purposely at the top and mysterious and both specific and vague at the same time because I wanted everyone to know there’s a tonal shift this season,” Johns said. “And so right away you get that tonal shift and it is scary and it is dark, but it was important to have that up front and then right away we go to like, summertime blues and the kids patrolling at night and there’s nothing going on … there’s a lot of humor and fun afterward. But it was important just to set the tone of the season right away, let you know that we’re going to get scary this season.
Johns compares one of Season 2’s villains, Eclipso, to horror icons like Pennywise or Freddy Krueger, calling him “more of a demonic force” than the much more human villains of Season 1, and points to movies like Lost Boys and Nightmare on Elm Street as inspirations for the season. Even though Stargirl and the other JSA members will feel Eclipso’s influence right from the beginning, though, Johns says we’ll have to wait to actually meet the character.
“As for Eclipso, when you’ll see him in the flesh, you’ll see him a little deeper into the season,” Johns said. “You will see Nick Tarabay in his horrifying makeup. We wanted to build to that moment so that when he finally does set foot in Blue Valley for real and you see him manifest, it felt deserved, it felt scary, and it felt like everything had changed. When people see that episode, hopefully, they’ll be both happy and scared when they watch it.”
While Stargirl began life on DC Universe and HBO Max, the show eventually aired on the CW, a network with many shows aimed at teenage and young adult viewers, and that’s allowing the show to tinker with the Arrowverse a little bit. John Wesley Shipp, who recurs on the CW’s Flash as Jay Garrick–the original Flash with the Mercury helmet–will guest star in episode 9 of Stargirl Season 2, a move which Johns said “opens up the door to opportunities for us to, eventually, interact with [Arrowverse] characters.”
Stargirl returns for Season 2 on Tuesday, August 10 on The CW. For more on the upcoming season, check out our first look at Eclipso, and read up on which villains are coming back.
