Courtney and Pat work through the revelation about how the original JSA stopped Eclipso, and the Shade returns with a way to defeat Eclipso.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Origin Connection: In this version, Shade gained his powers in a botched attempt to summon Eclipso. (In the comics he doesn't remember what the event that gave him his powers was supposed to do, and nobody else present survived to explain.)
- Alien Blood: Shade is shown to "bleed" shadows from the wounds Eclipso gave him.
- Apologetic Attacker: While not attacking her directly, Swift does sincerely apologize to Barbara for deceiving her.
- Batman Gambit: The Shade's scheme to have Courtney and Pat repair the Black Diamond so he could restore himself to full health depends on being able to convince them that doing so would trap Eclipso (quite the opposite, actually), the Cosmic Staff having sufficient power to do so, and them having no means to contradict his claims. But for the perfect storm of Courtney's shaken trust in Pat, Barb's misplaced faith in Swift, Pat and Courtney being able to locate Jennie and use her Green Lantern powers to reform the Black Diamond, and Beth not discovering the truth about the gem until it was too late to get out a warning, the Shade's swindle would have fallen through and he'd probably have died right there on the Whitmore-Dugans' couch.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: When Rick is in prison, he's brought apples by Grundy in return for the food he had been bringing him.
- Big Brother Instinct: In a flashback, Starman reveals the reason he sided with Wildcat and Hourman to kill Eclipso's host Bruce was because when Eclipso threatened his family he deemed that to mean Pat, whom Starman had come to love as a brother.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Jennie returns after being gone since the second episode of the season.
- While not seen on-screen, Thunderbolt returns, making his presence known by making a ton of giant candy and a gingerbread house appear out of nowhere.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When Beth's parents confront her over her behavior and the goggles, she tells them that this is due to how they told her to find friends and spent all of their time at work instead of with her, as well as not telling her about the divorce until she found out on her own.
- Cassandra Truth: Pat is the only one who thinks the Shade is out to manipulate them, and turns out to be completely right.
- Coincidental Broadcast: Mike turns on the radio in STRIPE just in time to hear about strange pink lightning in the sky.
- Continuity Nod:
- Courtney tells Jennie about Gentleman Ghost, whom she read about when researching potential baddies to fight.
- The Dugans' kitchen still has the battle scarring from Courtney and Jennie's battle early in the season, and the Shade doesn't help matters by landing on the center island.
- Mike recognizes Thunderbolt's work from when he had access to his powers.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Played with. Dr. McNider claims that "the Shade played the super-villain for his own amusement" but actually saved his life as he wasn't as bad as the ISA. Sadly, he's underestimated just how conniving the Shade really is.
- Family of Choice: Starman calls Pat this in a flashback, noting that his own parents never even remembered his birthday.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Discussed between Courtney and Jennie, after the latter told the former about Eclipso.Jennie: What else is out there? What else did the JSA fight? Are there ghosts?
Courtney: There is, in fact. A gentleman ghost. - Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Jade starts to put the diamond together again, the Shade suddenly grins just as Beth, reading the JSA's files on Eclipso, gasps "oh, no..."
- Flashback: The episode opens on a flashback to Starman explaining to Pat that he killed Bruce Gordon because Eclipso threatened to kill Pat.
- Foreshadowing: Dr. McNider fills Beth in on The Shade's history, including that he originally was a conman who made a living out of swindling others to get whatever he wanted and sometimes just for kicks. Sure enough, that's exactly what happens here; his solution to repair the Black Diamond turns out to be a con as instead of trapping Eclipso as he said it would, it heals him and summons Eclipso to Courtney, Pat, and Jennie's location.
- Follow the Chaos: Pat is able to track down Jennie based on some suspicious green fires in Civic City, and from that deduces she is likely hiding in the only place someone familiar with the JSA would: their former headquarters.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: It's shown in flashbacks that Richard Swift was nothing but a con man and thief used by a group called the Men of Tears to steal the Black Diamond. He double-crossed them with a fake which was to be used to sacrifice Swift to Eclipso. Instead, the dark energies imbued Swift, transforming him into the Shade.
- Gingerbread House: Mike (and a couple of neighbors) discover the Williams house has turned into gingerbread with giant candies littering the yard. The absurdity tips Mike off that this is Thunderbolt's work.
- Hard Truth Aesop:
- The people you look up to aren't meant to be idols; they're people with flaws and weaknesses. The truth about Bruce Gordon's death and the fact her parents hid it forces this lesson upon Courtney.
- At the same time, Pat learns the hard way that hiding the truth to make yourself look better to someone you care about will only make you look even worse to them when the deception is discovered.
- I Lied: Beth discovers too late that Shade's advice to reforge the Black Diamond wasn't meant to trap Eclipso, but restore his connection to the Shadowlands so he could heal. Furthermore, restoring the diamond summons Eclipso on the spot, and he banishes Courtney after easily smacking aside Pat and Jennie.
- Imperfect Ritual: In Swift's backstory, a cult called the Men of Tears attempted to sacrifice him to Eclipso. However, Swift had given them a fake black diamond, and as a result, Swift was instead infused with energies of the Shadowlands, transforming him into the Shade.
- Mocking Music: During Courtney and Pat's awkward ride to Civic City, the radio plays a song about saying sorry which Courtney angrily turns off.
- Mythology Gag:
- Pat and Courtney find Jennie at the Helix Institute for Youth Rehabilitation, and when they leave, the head nurse, Louise Love, contacts her boss, Mister Bones. Mister Bones is from the comics, where he was a part of an experiment involving forced mutation and turned into a supervillain before reforming and becoming the head of the DEO. The name of his original group? Helix. And the name of the scientist who mutated them? Dr Benjamin Love.
- The headlines on the newspapers reference Green Arrow, Speedy, The Spider, The Vigilante, Shining Knight, Deathbolt, and the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
- In the flashback, Starman says that when he was a kid, he was bullied by a boy named Hop Harrigan. This is the name of a Golden Age DC Comics character.
- The tattoos the Men of Tears give Swift as part of sacrificing him to Eclipso are identical to the ones Alex Montez uses to contain Eclipso in the 2001 JSA series.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By putting the Black Diamond back together, the heroes end up restoring Shade's strength and summon Eclipso to their location, who then banishes Courtney to the Shadowlands.
- Offhand Backhand: When Eclipso appears, Pat rushes at him with a wrench. Eclipso just casually swats him away.
- The Reveal:
- Dr. McNider was dragged into the Shadowlands by the Shade, ostensibly to save his life even though ending up there wasn't the expected result.
- Shade's powers are the result of a botched attempt to bind Eclipso to the Black Diamond. Since that had already happened and Shade supplied them with a fake, the cult using Shade as a sacrifice instead imbued him with the power of the Shadowlands when the fake diamond couldn't contain the power.
- Shade's interest in the Black Diamond is not entirely altruistic. It serves as a link between him and the source of his powers, so he wants it to remain intact even if he is opposed to Eclipso for moral reasons.
- The ooze that consumed Cindy is not lethal, as Eclipso makes clear that he is banishing Courtney, not killing her, when he does the same to her.
- Running Gag: The Whitmore-Dugans' kitchen island gets demolished again when the Shade drops in.
- Shout-Out:
- Mike calls The Shade "Benedict Cumberbatch."
- Later on, when working on STRIPE, he gets frustrated, hoping repairing a robot would be like working with LEGO.
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Spoiled by the Format: We're not at the season finale yet, so clearly Shade's plan to trap Eclipso will not be successful. - Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Due to the previous episode's revelation, Barbara worries that it may be a long time before Courtney trusts either of them again. Courtney spends most of this episode questioning whether Pat is being honest with her about their search for Jennie.
- Just because The Shade is nowhere near as bad as Eclipso, it doesn't mean that he isn't still a bad guy who worked with the ISA in the first place. While Pat, Beth and Mike don't trust him, Courtney and Barb do (for different reasons; he saved Barb from Eclipso and was honest with Courtney when Pat and Barb weren't). Shade exploits this to trick them into fixing the Black Diamond so that he can heal and get his powers back, endangering Pat and Courtney in the process.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: It's not stated specifically where Civic City is, but in the comics it's typically located in Pennsylvania and last season implied it was on the West Coast. Either way, somehow Pat is able to drive there from Blue Valley in a matter of hours.
- The Un-Reveal: The current situation and whereabouts of Todd Rice, Jennie's brother. We learn this episode that he was admitted to the Helix Institute after being arrested for shoplifting a few months back, but then vanished without a trace before Jennie almost caught up with him. Nurse Love's phone call to Mr. Bones suggests they had something to do with his disappearance.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After regaining his powers and healing, the Shade vanishes.
- Wham Episode: Eclipso banishes Courtney as he did Cindy.
- The Worf Effect: Despite her immense Green Lantern powers, Jennie only manages to momentarily inconvenience Eclipso before he powers through her barrage and swats her into a wall.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Shade's wounds from Eclipso won't heal, which he notes as an exception to his immortality. It's later revealed that shattering the Black Diamond broke his connection to the Shadowlands, preventing him from using his powers to heal. Once it's reforged, he is back to full strength.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Beth dodges the question of why she is wearing the goggles in front of her parents, only revealing that it helps her to see what is real. Them not knowing the truth is safer, and she feels entitled to keeping her secrets since they kept their divorce a secret from her.
