Courtney struggles to separate her work and love lives while the JSA continues to investigate Sharpe's murder.
Tropes:
- Acting Unnatural: Pat notices that Courtney is suddenly more than willing to let Sylvester take over as Starman and lead the JSA for a while. Barbara chalks it up to a crush, which is technically right.
- Amazon Chaser: Jakeem and Mike get googly-eyed when they see Cindy beat up their bullies.
- Awful Truth: Cindy tries to talk Courtney out of telling Cameron the truth about his father, because no one wants to know how horrible their parents really are.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Beth does this with her parents.
- Check, Please!: This is Pat's response to Paula and Crusher getting affectionate in the diner.
- Cope by Creating: According to Cindy, Cameron first got into art as therapy when he was sent away to an institution for troubled children between Grades 2 and 3, after his mother died.
- Cruel to Be Kind:
- Cindy convinces Courtney not to tell Cameron about his father's double life by bringing up how disappointing Courtney's own biological father is and how much happier Courtney would be if she still thought Starman was her father.
- Beth begs her parents to stay out of her work as Dr. Mid-Nite, crushing their hopes to help her, so they won't get hurt, citing what happened to Sylvester's sister Merry and Dr. McNider's daughter Rebecca.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Sylvester pauses in Dragon King's abandoned lab to say "Hey, handsome," to himself in a mirror.
- Flashback: The episode starts by showing the immediate aftermath of Sharpe's death. Cindy retracts her blade, hides his laptop, then picks up his gun, at which point a spasm causes her to fire it accidentally.
- Good Feels Good: Paula and Crusher tell Pat and Barbara that doing the heroic thing (insofar as shaking down people for information about the Gambler counts) has been a turn on for them in the bedroom.
- Heel Realization: Starman continues to have this, after he flips out at a picture of the ISA. He later states to Yolanda, Rick and Beth that his actions with Bruce Gordon destroyed the JSA.
- Hero with an F in Good: Crusher and Paula have been inspired by the JSA to help with the investigation...by forcing whoever owed the Gambler money into a High-Altitude Interrogation.
- Hypocrite:
- Yolanda disapproves of Courtney dating Cameron because his father was a supervillain, even though her former boyfriend Henry's father was also a supervillain and Henry joined the JSA shortly before he died and has seemingly been forgiven by her.
- Rick also holds Cameron's family against him, although he himself wouldn't want to be judged for being related to Matt. And he had also forgiven and befriended Grundy.
- Idiot Ball: Cindy holds it by hiding the laptop underneath her bed. Yolanda ends up finding it.
- Internal Reveal:
- Cindy learns that Cameron has manifested powers after purposefully riling him up about his anger issues to test him, and Courtney's reaction tells her that Courtney knew already.
- Yolanda finds Sharpe's laptop in Cindy's house.
- Irony: Cindy eventually cracks the password on Sharpe's laptop...by using one of his own password-breaking devices.
- Literal Genie: A couple of bullies threaten to beat up Mike and Jakeem for lunch money. Jakeem wishes for the bullies to be nice to them. The bullies then nicely ask for their lunch money or they'll have to beat them up. This is why nice isn't the same thing as kind.
- Malaproper: Mike tells Cindy he has a "preposition" for her. She lampshades that she gets his intent.
- Mythology Gag:
- Sylvester namedrops Wotan, the archenemy of Doctor Fate.
- Mike calls himself and Jakeem "the Young All-Stars", the name of a superhero team from the comics (which neither Mike Dugan nor Jakeem Thunder was part of). Jakeem and Thunderbolt aren't in favor of the name.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Sylvester compares Mike's frustration at being left out of JSA business to how he felt when starting out as the Star-Spangled Kid.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In-universe, Pat makes note of Courtney not really caring about Sylvester using the staff or taking the lead when she isn't around. Barbara tells him that she is interested in a boy (Cameron).
- Poor Communication Kills: Courtney knows Cameron has ice powers like his dad, and that he inherited them from his grandparents, but doesn't know they're villains who want to corrupt Cameron. (To be fair, neither does he, really, but he does know they're urging him to embrace his powers differently than she is.) Meanwhile, she isn't telling him what happened to Jordan, that she already knew Jordan had powers or that she's not just an ordinary girl, nor is she telling the other JSA members why she is trying to help him. Cindy knows about Cameron's inner demons but doesn't tell Courtney, in fact going so far as to say she likes the thought of them together. (Courtney does know he has anger management issues, but doesn't know how extensive they are, or how far back they reach.) And because Cindy isn't telling anyone about her mutations or that she's seeking a cure, Yolanda jumps to the wrong conclusions when finding Sharpe's laptop in her bedroom.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: See also What the Hell, Hero?.
- Restraining Bolt: When Rick still can't get the hourglass to work, Sylvester tells him about the "limiter" inside it being what kept its power working for just an hour, and that it may be damaged—but not to mess with it, since his father had made it clear how dangerous that could be. Sure enough, Rick removes it.
- The Reveal:
- Cindy stole the Gambler's laptop to find info on Dragon King's backup labs, because she hopes to find a cure to her mutations.
- Cameron apparently spent time in an institution for children (officially called an art camp) to control his anger after the death of his mother.
- Secret-Keeper: Courtney chooses to keep Cameron's developing powers a secret.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Courtney's friends (especially Rick and Yolanda) can't accept that she's dating the son of the villain who tried to kill them. Courtney argues that this isn't fair for Cameron since he's not a reflection of Jordan, just like how she's not a reflection of her own father, Sam.
- Too Much Information: The Crocks tell Barbara and Pat how being good guys is a surprise turn on for them, right in front of their lunch.
- The Un-Reveal: Despite the strong implication in the opening flashback that Cindy did kill the Gambler before stealing his laptop, it's still not made clear.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Courtney tells off her friends for their treatment of Cameron based on who his father is.
- Sylvester sides with Courtney on that later, telling the JSA point blank that they can't let infighting tear them apart, lest they end up like his generation did after their disagreement over what to do about Eclipso's host Bruce Gordon fractured them.
