Exactly one year passed from the Season 1 finale of Stargirl to the Season 2 premiere, but fans shouldn't go into Season 2 expecting it to be the same kind of series that it was throughout the first season. Despite some thrills, chills, and frights that came from the Season 1 villains and unexpected deaths, Stargirl certainly didn't qualify for the horror genre. Now, star Brec Bassinger has revealed that Season 2 will be like Nightmare on Elm Street and It, and the results should be interesting.
Brec Bassinger (who had to request some costume changes for Season 2) broke down why The CW's most lighthearted (although not entirely sunny from start to finish each week) superhero series is getting more horrifying, telling EW:
Every time [creator] Geoff [Johns] makes a season, he first comes up with what the tone of the season is going to be, and this one he said is like Nightmare on Elm Street and It. I was like, whoa, that is going to be different! It was fun getting to do it.
Apparently, Stargirl creator Geoff Johns was the brains behind the decision to channel Nightmare on Elm Street and It for Season 2. While that's not to say that a Freddy Krueger-esque killer will be stalking Courtney and the rest of the Justice Society of America with claw hands, or an evil clown will be preying on their fears and imparting a lesson about avoiding sewers, but Stargirl even getting closer to those kinds of movies could be a big shift from Season 1.
Season 2 isn't Brec Bassinger's first experience with scary stories, even if those are not the kinds of stories that Stargirl was telling in its firsts season. She explained:
Growing up, my dad I would go get a different Goosebumps episode every Friday night to watch together. So I was very open and excited about the idea of it this season. I was mostly just curious to see how Geoff was going to go about it because I knew his inspirations for season 1 were more like '80s coming-of-age, Karate Kid, and he did such a good job having that tone throughout the first season. How was he going to take a superhero show and put those horror elements throughout it?.
As Brec Bassinger noted, Season 1 had some similarities to movies like Karate Kid, although Stargirl definitely wasn't too similar to Cobra Kai over on Netflix during its initial run on a streaming service. As for how Geoff Johns' plans for more horror in Season 2 will play out, fans will have to tune in to find out. Goosebumps isn't exactly interchangeable with Nightmare on Elm Street or It, but they do have the genre in common. Just a little bit less graphic murder in Goosebumps, as I recall from that show and book series! And the same will likely be true for Stargirl.
That said, Brec Bassinger previewed how Geoff Johns and the rest of the Stargirl team managed to bring those horror elements to Season 2:
It shocked me how he was able to do it. It was very helpful that our villain was Eclipso [Nick Tarabay] because he's such a scary villain.
Nick Tarabay, who actually debuted in a different superhero series on The CW when he played Captain Boomerang on Arrow, is playing a new bad guy for Stargirl, which should make things interesting when John Wesley Shipp turns up to connect Stargirl to the larger Arrowverse. That's not to say that Arrow's Captain Boomerang was a big enough character that viewers won't be able to suspend their disbelief about Tarabay turning up again, but there's a lot to look forward to.
Stargirl returns for Season 2 on Tuesday, August 10 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW, now that DC Universe is no longer the home of Courtney Whitmore's superhero journey. New episodes will continue releasing on Tuesdays as summer turns into fall, leading into the 2021 fall TV season.
