The daughter of Dragon King, Cindy Burman, is the ultimate thorn in the side of Courtney Whitmore, aka Stargirl. However, her arc thus far in Season 2 has raised a question; is she in control of Eclipso? Given her recent appearances, it doesn’t appear she is, and it’ll cause issues on an enormous scale.
Cindy has always proven there is no difference between her and her alter ego, Shiv. What we don’t know is why she sought out Eclipso in the first place? Doesn’t she know how much of a threat he is upon his full release? Also, does she not realise she could become a target? We addressed this in passing during a post we did before the premiere.
Wielding Eclipso is no easy task and trying to reel him in isn’t simple as it has been alluded to by Pat Dugan as he knows something no one else – aside from his wife Barbara – does. Before now, something horrible happened regarding the “devil in the shadows” that involved the original JSA. We still don’t know what that is, and we doubt Cindy would listen to anyone if she were told the full extent of how bad her new ally is.
Injustice Unlimited
Without Eclipso, Cindy would’ve known recruiting Artemis Crock to her side would have been dead in the water. However, with the evil spirit, her job became much easier because of her former classmate’s built-up rage of not being recruited to an Ivy League college football team.
If Cindy hadn’t used Eclipso to make Artemis attack Courtney, then she would’ve had a much harder time getting what she wanted. She knew what the Ivy League coach would say regarding Crock’s temper being uncontrollable. That’s why she struck when she did.
Isaac Bowin was a no brainer, and Eclipso wasn’t necessary for the quest to recruit him. She used his grief over losing his mother to reel him into her web. We know that he already had some rage issues after being told by Anaya to beat his bully into submission. Also, he was looking for a place to belong and it appears Cindy played off that desire.
However, Cindy hit a snag with Cameron Mahkent. She tried to use the same tactic she used with Isaac by appealing to his dead parents. What she didn’t expect was him to rebuff her “sympathy” by bringing up her attitude in the fourth grade when her mother died. If looks could literally kill. Currently, she has abandoned trying to get him onside, but this may change later.
With Cameron not an option for the moment, Cindy’s about to lay waste to her next target; Pat Dugan’s son, Mike aka Icicle’s killer. The kid is also lonely as stated by the Thunderbolt. Perhaps, Cindy uses this to her advantage.
Cindy And Her Leftover Humanity
To say that Cindy has no shred of humanity left is stretching it a bit thin. She has shown remorse for killing her birth mother as seen back in “Shiv Part One”. Eclipso even chastises her for it in episode four of the current Season.
Also, she is visibly upset when Eclipso possesses her and kills Bobbie. This ultimately brings us to what we wanted to talk about. Is Cindy in 100% control of the prince of darkness? Our guess is no. She’s not. There have been incidents so far that hint at what might be coming for our favourite wrist knife-wielding villainess.
Cindy craves one thing: a family unit, who don’t abuse her as Dragon King did. Moreover, this is why she craved a place in the ISA. They were a “family unit”. However, she wanted to be Queen Bee the same way she was at Blue Valley High. Since the OG ISA wiped itself out, Injustice Unlimited is a splinter group where Shiv is the top dog.
Eclipso Takes Over
Now, we know Eclipso is pure evil. The Shade even tells Courtney that there’s a massive difference between bad and evil. He’s right. Not caring about humanity at all and relishing in chaos is wicked. But, killing the odd person and breaking the rules? It’s not the right thing to do, but it’s nothing compared to being evil.
Cindy was the one who found Eclipso stashed away in The Wizard’s storage unit. Technically, she’s the one in charge, right? That’s not the way the wrath of evil sees it. When he killed Bobbie, he told his mistress her stepmother was going to kill her so he had to intervene, hence taking over her body without consent. However, Eclipso’s goal wasn’t to help Burman. It was to feed off enough people so he could become stronger and than possibly kill her.
Eclipso isn’t a team player but he’s playing alone for now to get what he wants. It was never about Cindy and her goals for a proper family.
Another example of Eclipso taking over is when Cindy tucked the diamond away after her confrontation with Cameron in episode five. Then, we get the art teacher, Paul Deisinger, coughing up paint and basically going nuts.
Unlike Bobbie or Rebecca McNider, Paul didn’t die. All Eclipso did was corrupt him, but wasn’t enough to kill him. Sure, he had dreams, but the guy was so happy-go-lucky that it would’ve been difficult to latch onto anything in his soul. Going back to Cindy, and it’s unclear whether he was a target.
According to Hunter [Sansone] and Shawn [McBee] on last week’s episode of the Stargirl Aftershow podcast, Deisinger being corrupted wasn’t planned by Cindy. This indicates to us that Eclipso acted without his mistress’ consent again. It seems that she has no idea what he did and it is pretty damning that she wouldn’t care either way if she did.
