Rick Tyler's past is revealed as Courtney continues her search for new heroes.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Rick's maternal uncle turned foster father Matt makes no effort to hide how resentful he is about having to give up his aspirations to strike it big in Silicon Valley to become the unwilling guardian to his late sister's child, and abuses Rick every chance he gets to remind him of how he blames Rick for his current state of being.
- Clarke's Third Law: The Hourglass is ostensibly a piece of tech, but it essentially functions as if it were magic.
- Commonality Connection: Courtney empathizes with Rick, since they both lost their parents to the Injustice Society.
- Contrived Coincidence: Rick happens upon Pat having car trouble as he's driving Courtney to school. This causes the hourglass to react to Rick's presence, thus giving Courtney a reason to follow him, while at the same time Pat recognizes his connection to Rex when Rick mentions his father's classic car is the same one Rex drove.
- Cover-Blowing Superpower: Pat figures out that Courtney took Hourman's hourglass when he sees Matt's truck punched in half not long after learning Matt is Rick's supposed father.
- Didn't Think This Through: As Yolanda lampshades, Courtney gave the school's biggest delinquent a device that endows the wearer with Super-Strength and has no way to make him give it back. Thankfully, Beth revealing the truth about his parents' death gets him to join Courtney's side.
- Foreshadowing: When Principal Bowin attempts to use her violin to control the two truck drivers one proves too strong willed, and is killed by Sharpe as a result. Fast forward to episode 12 and it is revealed that the drawback to the ISA's plan to brainwash several states worth of people is that about 1 in 4 will be too strong willed, and be killed by the strain of resisting.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- As the goggles are scanning everything, one of the things they scan in Courtney's room is a hand-crafted owl that the goggles excitedly label "OWL!!".
- One of the items on Courtney's wall is a painting that she made called "Petunias in a Basket." There's also a pencil sketch of a ballerina.
- The goggles identify Courtney's algebra textbook as "barely used."
- The goggles label the picture of Santa Claus as that of an impersonator.
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: Dr. Mid-Nite's goggles have all sorts of cool functions, ranging from an Everything Sensor to holographic projectors.
- Gone Horribly Right: Courtney succeeds in finding a successor for Hourman, alright. His own son, in fact. Unfortunately, Rick is so filled with anger than he uses the Hourglass's power to go on a rampage.
- Halloween Episode: The episode takes place at Halloween (despite the episode's initial air date in June). Fittingly, Solomon Grundy plays a role in the episode's backstory, having killed Rick's parents.
- He Knows Too Much: Sharpe gives the informant a poisoned chocolate coin, not trusting the bribe to keep him quiet.
- Hour of Power: A very literal example as the Hourglass gives its user Super-Strength for one hour a day.
- It's Always Spring: Although the episode takes place at Halloween in the Midwestern state of Nebraska, the trees still appear to have mostly green leaves.
- Internal Reveal:
- Pat figures out that William Zarick was the Wizard and shares that with Courtney.
- Beth figures out Courtney's Secret Identity by following Yolanda and spying on the two of them.
- Pat realizes Courtney took the JSA's arsenal when he sees what Rick did to Matt's truck, and discovers the equipment in her closet.
- Lack of Empathy: Cindy is unconcerned with Henry Jr's distress over his father.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Courtney prepares to do battle with Rick, realizing that she can't let him keep the hourglass as long as he's consumed by his anger. Fortunately, Beth shows up just in time to defuse the situation.
- Living Lie Detector: Courtney tries to lie to Beth about being Stargirl, but the goggles immediately pick up the physical cues for lying and Beth has figured out the secret anyway.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The Injustice Society sent Solomon Grundy to run Rex and Wendi's car off the road and into a tree, then covered up the accident as a result of the car having been given the wrong kind of tires. The fact this is revealed one episode after another mysterious and fatal car crash suggests Icicle used the same means to cover up the loose end of Denise Zarick, but this is never confirmed.
- Mind-Control Music: Principal Bowin uses her violin to control one of the truck drivers. The other is too strong-willed to fall victim to it, so Sharpe just shoots him.
- Mundane Utility: Among the many amazing features of Dr. Mid-Nite's googles is access to Twitter.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: Sharpe kills the stronger-willed driver with a concealed pistol attached to a mechanism on his arm.
- Older Than They Look: Dr. Mid-Nite was born in 1914 and thus was 96 years old when he was killed by the Injustice Society in the incident at the start of the series.
- Omniscient Database: Dr. Mid-Nite's goggles know practically everything ever recorded, even stuff it logically shouldn't know such as information on Courtney's art projects. They also manage to easily identify Beth Chapel from just her name (and perhaps her voice) even though she can't possibly be the only person in the world with that name, demonstrating the ability to narrow results by geography.
- Power Incontinence: It's implied that Henry Jr's burgeoning powers are causing him to hear the thoughts of everyone at the party, hence his complaints of it being loud.
- Product Placement: This time it's Kit-Kats.
- Properly Paranoid: Courtney thinks Principal Bowen is part of the ISA due to her suspicious behavior at the hospital. Pat rightly has doubts about it, but it turns out Courtney is right.
- The Reveal:
- Rex Tyler and his wife Wendi were killed by Solomon Grundy after leaving their son in the custody of Wendi's brother Matt and attempting to flee Blue Valley, with the ISA covering up the incident to make it look as if they perished in an automotive accident.
- Principal Bowin is The Fiddler, though not the original.
- Revenge: Rick signs on to get revenge against the ISA for killing his parents.
- Shoot the Messenger: Sharpe tips the informant who brought him the satellite plans with a chocolate coin that poisons him after a single bite.
- Shout-Out: The mask Courtney "borrows" from a fellow party-goer at Cindy's party to avoid being noticed by her is Gizmo from Gremlins.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Somehow Dr. Midnight's goggles are able to get perfect footage of Grundy killing Rick's parents even though it happened in the middle of the woods years ago.
- Telepathy: Henry Jr. is starting to develop mental powers like his father, hearing Yolanda think "jerk" at him after leaving the party.
- Trust Password: Mention of Rex Tyler's classic car, a yellow '66 Mustang, is implied to be one. On the night he and his wife tried to flee, Rex gave Rick a toy version and made sure to stress the make and model. When Rick mentions the car, it tips Pat off there's something special about Rick.
- Villains Out Shopping: When the satellite blueprints are delivered to the Gambler, he's in the middle of watching a movie and munching on popcorn at the theater.
- Wham Shot: At the end of the episode, Matt's truck is delivered to Pat, with the tow truck driver noting that it looks like some monster tore it in half. Pat sees the first indent and immediately realizes that Rick, whom he already suspects to be Rex's son, must be responsible and therefore must have Hourman's hourglass, which he only could have gotten his hands on if Courtney gave it to him. This leads him to realize that Courtney took the JSA's arsenal.
- Wild Teen Party: Beth tracks Rick to Cindy's party, which she notes has a total of one person not underage and 80 violations of the legal drinking age.
