Editor’s Note: The following contains Stargirl Season 3 spoilers.DC’s Stargirl, which recently launched its third season on The CW, follows teenager Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) in the small town of Blue Valley, Nebraska, as she steps into the world of superheroes and works on putting together the next team of heroes to protect the world as the Justice Society of America. Alongside her are her family and friends — Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson), Barbara Whitmore (Amy Smart), Mike Dugan (Trae Romano), Yolanda Montez (Yvette Monreal), Rick Tyler (Cameron Gellman), and Beth Chapel (Anjelika Washington) — who have each come into their own over the show’s two seasons, whether as superhero or supporter. However, of Courtney’s loved ones, the character that hasn’t been focused on enough is Yolanda, who has endured such a terrible string of events since the series began. This is particularly true when it comes to her home life, which is possibly the most disheartening struggle that any of the characters has faced.
Before the Whitmore-Dugans Arrive, Things Are Much Different at Blue Valley High
As we see in the first season of Stargirl, a few months before the Whitmore-Dugans arrived in Blue Valley, things were much different at Blue Valley High. Yolanda was popular — beloved, even — and dating Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker), the most popular boy at school. That’s when everything fell apart. Yolanda sent Henry a topless photo, which he carelessly showed to a few of his friends. Then, mean girl Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy) took Henry’s phone and sent it out to the entire school, effectively ruining Yolanda’s life. Her popularity dropped due to the incessant slut-shaming she endured, and her life at home wasn’t any better. Her parents treated her even worse than those at school, who eventually started to ignore her. Yolanda’s parents made her feel like a pariah and hid her away from everyone because of their feelings of shame. She was indefinitely exiled to her bedroom, only coming out for meals and chores, grounded until her parents deemed otherwise.
Yolanda’s Relationship With Her Parents Has Yet to Evolve
Two seasons later, that remains the same. There’s been little exploration of Yolanda’s life at home since, outside of the time when she tried to stand up for herself and show her parents that she had learned from her mistake to no avail and when her mother shamed her for “wasting” the priest’s time with her insignificant issues — and, of course, this second example is while Yolanda is dealing with her crushing guilt over having killed Brainwave in the first season’s finale. Her mother even forced her to attend summer school, despite not needing to, condescendingly saying it’s to keep her out of trouble. Meanwhile, Yolanda has changed quite a bit over the course of the series, not that her family would notice. She’s become more confident, learned how to deal with her mistakes without letting them destroy her, and has donned the Wildcat suit and become a member of the Justice Society of America. In every other aspect of her life, she’s become the person she wants to be or is on the way to doing so, except when it comes to her family. This needs to change during Stargirl Season 3 (especially given the situation with The CW and the sad possibility that this could be the final season).
Our most recent glimpse at Yolanda’s home life in the fourth episode of the third season shows that Yolanda has taken on more responsibility at home. Her father lost his job, which has severely impacted their lives, even forcing them to sell their house. So, Yolanda’s job at the diner has become more about providing for her family than anything else, even if her tips are going toward her college fund. She’s taking on the burden (with no complaints, might I add) of helping her family to survive. She’s even trying to work more because her family needs the money, yet her mother still constantly shames her. Nothing Yolanda does is good enough or will ever repair her image in her mother’s eyes, and it’s causing inexplicable trauma to Yolanda to stay in this terrible situation with no progress whatsoever. In fact, it seems things get worse for her at home with each passing season, which is frustrating to watch because we actively see how much Yolanda has changed.
The Montez Family Needs a Major Shake up
This is the time for something major to shake things up for the Montez family. Whether it’s something that makes her parents finally see her as the beautiful, intelligent, skillful young woman she has become after hitting her rock bottom or Yolanda getting emancipated and leaving her parents behind, we cannot continue with this stagnated and distressing situation. It hurts the brilliance that comes from the other aspects of Yolanda’s character, constantly making her doubt herself and preventing her from being an even better Wildcat. As we’ve seen over the last two seasons, nobody else has that kind of effect on Yolanda. She’s strong-willed and stands up for what she believes in, just like she’s doing by being the primary person against Cindy’s new role on the JSA.
For as long as this story with her parents remains the same, part of Yolanda will always be held back in the grand scheme of things. She’ll never have quite the same progression as the other characters, which is what we’re seeing as things have changed so drastically for her friends at home with their secrets coming out. Even with Rick, he’s much happier and able to move forward now that his abusive uncle is gone, showcasing how even getting away from her parents’ mistreatment would be better than sitting around and hoping it’ll change one day. Out of the core four characters that make up the JSA, it has always felt like Yolanda is getting the short end of the stick. Her stories have shaken her world without really changing it, despite her world needing a seismic shift due to the situation with her parents. Until that happens, Yolanda won’t ever be able to make peace with her past and truly move forward. It’s time for a change, hopefully to come much sooner than the season finale, as it would be nice to see a different, freer side of Yolanda explored while we have the opportunity to do so.
Stargirl Season 3 continues Wednesdays on The CW. The first two seasons are streaming on HBO Max.
