Why DC's Stargirl's Series Finale Was a Perfect Ending

It's been nearly a month since the series finale of DC's Stargirl. The CW series ended its three-season run earlier this month and while it was sad to see the fan-favorite series end, its final hour ultimately gave fans a lot of closure and a lot of joy in how it wrapped up the Frenemies season as well as tied a bow on the series itself. In the weeks since, we've learned quite a bit about the series — that there was a potential Infinity Inc. spinoff that DC's Stargirl was laying the groundwork for and that while Season 3 wasn't originally intended to be the end of the line for Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger), the series would have concluded with the heroes graduating high school anyway — but while the questions of white might have been are fun to explore, looking back at the finale just a few weeks after its air date, it's pretty clear that the series ended exactly the way it should have. More than that, the series finale of DC's Stargirl was actually a perfect television ending.

A series finale, generally speaking, just needs to wrap up the story in a way that satisfies the plot and the characters and leaves the audience with a sense of closure, but DC's Stargirl's finale did far more than that. The episode not only wrapped up the season it also wrapped up a number of story threads for the whole series, offered up clues about the adventures still ahead even if we won't get to see them, and left the door open for the character as we currently know her to appear in other aspects of the DC universe should the opportunity arise. Let's break it down.

It genuinely wrapped up the series' storylines

While it's true that most series finales — at least those series that have advance notice that their time has come to an end — wrap up their stories, DC's Stargirl concluded the various storylines and chapters across the full run of the series in a way that left very few (if any) threads dangling. Over the course of it's all too brief three season run, Stargirl introduced a lot of things either directly as major aspects of the story or simply as references or pathways to potential future stories. There was the original JSA, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, the children of Green Lantern Alan Scott, and the potential that more members of the original JSA may have survived that fateful encounter with the Injustice Society — just to name a few. All of this on top of the concept of legacy both for the heroes and the villains as well.

While the final season of DC's Stargirl as a full body of work does a lot take some of these things — notably we get the resolution of Jennie and Todd's story with the siblings reunited and sent off with The Shade to help others, the finale cleans some things up as well. We see Yolanda's storyline come full circle with her reaching out to her family to begin to heal that relationship while we also finally see what can only be described as actual justice for the original JSA with the death of Jordan Mahkent at the hands of Artemis Crock who tracks him down in Copenhagen and kills him. His death, functionally, marks the end of the ISA more than a decade after they killed the JSA. We're also not left on a cliffhanger with relationships, either, particularly when it comes to Cameron and Courtney. While we don't see exactly how that young romance works out, the end of the series shows the pair coming back together with Cameron asking Courtney for help. And in what might be the best resolution of the series, Solomon Grundy comes back to life as well.

But the series also takes things a bit further and wraps up additional storylines with its leap to the future. By giving viewers a glimpse into the future, we learn that Sylvester Pemberton does come back to his friends. The JSA eventually finds his brain — which viewers saw was preserved in some far-flung location — and is returned to his body. We also learn that the Seven Soldiers — who Sir Justin left Blue Valley to go find at the end of Season 1 — are found and rescued.

It also left viewers with clues about the great adventures yet ahead

If the series finale had done nothing more than simply tie up the loose ends and offer closer to the wide range of stories it had planted seeds for over its three seasons, that alone would have been a perfect finale, but DC's Stargirl took things just one step further with its flashforward and offered fans clues about the adventures yet ahead for the characters — and did it in a way that tells the story without actually. having to show it on screen. The "ten years later" flash forward shows the natural outcomes of things that were pretty much already in motion. We learn that Cindy becomes a full-fledged member of the JSA in the future as Dragon Queen, as does Cameron as Icicle. Mike presumably becomes S.T.R.I.P.E. 2.0. Jakeem and Artemis on the team as well, as is Jade and Obsidian. Viewers are also told that Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite are set to be married. We're even told by Jay Garrick The Flash himself that the adventures are not over. Even with this chapter of the story over, there's still so much more to be told. It's hopeful and fans are left to imagine even as they know it has a positive outcome. To put it perhaps more finely, it's an ending that is very genuinely "not a goodbye, but a see you later" in the best possible way.

The door remains open

The best part of the finale, however, may be in how it leaves a door open for more. Unlike the conclusion of Arrow which pretty definitively saw Oliver Queen in the afterlife and Supergirl which mostly saw Kara going on a new journey with the world knowing her identity, DC's Stargirl leaves Courtney still somewhat in the middle of her journey. When we depart this path with her, she's still in high school and has just fully come into her own as a hero. We know her future; we know her past, but there is still room for more of her present. While the odds of the series being picked up anywhere else are few — series creator Geoff Johns has even said that the series would have organically ended with the characters graduating high school anyway — the way DC's Stargirl ended still leaves a space for Courtney Whitmore and her teammates to pop up in other DC projects — which is something that Brec Bassinger has herself teased when, back in September she shared a photo of herself with Titans star Ryan Potter, Johns, and director Eric Dean Seaton, captioning the photo that it was "so crazy running into my friends in Toronto". Titans films in Toronto. DC's Stargirl filmed in Atlanta. Nothing has yet been confirmed about a crossover — but there's always hope. After all, the closing title card of DC's Stargirl did say "never the end."

What did you think of the DC's Stargirl series finale? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.