Warning: The following contains spoilers for Stargirl Season 3 on the CW.Though theCW put a lot of its superhero series on the chopping block in 2022,Stargirl’sthird season debuted in August. Like the two seasons before it,Stargirl’sthird season premiere set up a potential season-long mystery for fans to unravel. This time, however, it’s an actual murder mystery.
Season three features the return of the villain The Gambler, Steven Sharpe. While most of the members of the Injustice Society of America found themselves killed in combat or arrested, the Gambler escaped Blue Valley without being implicated in any wrongdoing. The discovery that he has a daughter sees him return to the place he’s called home for so long with the hope of doing better. After an attempt at making amends, and an unfinished search for his daughter, however, The Gambler found himself murdered right outside his front door. The first few episodes of the series have done a great job at giving the audience multiple suspects to consider.
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Cindy Burman (Shiv)
The first person that Courtney’s friends - especially Yolanda - think could be responsible for the Gambler’s death is Cindy. Though Cindy has stated that she wants to be better and has allied herselfwith the new Justice Society, she’s the person standing over the body of the Gambler with a gun that just went off.
Cindy’s explanation, however, is perfectly logical. She found his body and his gun after going to question him, and the gun went off after she picked it up. Unfortunately for Cindy, it does turn out the Gambler was stabbed, and she does have shivs that extend from wrists. Cindy has also been working on her own experiments on herself, modeled after her father’s work.
Cindy is definitely the least likely suspect. Making her the murderer would mean that Courtney and her friends would never be able to work with her again, especially if the truth came out in a murder investigation. Cindy as a frenemy is definitely more interesting than her being the biggest villain in town. All of the clues that lead to Cindy have been misdirection so far, and it makes sense for them to continue to be that way.
Richard Swift (The Shade)
As someone who has lived for hundreds of years and been able to do just about anything he wants, The Shade makes for apretty great villain in the expandedArrowverse. He’s used to getting his way, and his history makes him an easy suspect for just about anything bad that happens in Blue Valley when he returns. That’s one of the reasons Courtney and her friends think he could have killed the Gambler, even though he just spent the second season of the series (and their entire summer) helping them defeat Eclipso.
In fact, that’s the biggest reason to strike The Shade from the list of suspects. He spent all of Season Two proving himself as someone who operates in the gray area of the superheroes lives. Sure, he might be willing to do bad things, but he also saved the life of the original Dr. Mid-Nite by sending him to the Shadow Realm instead of killing him when they fought. He repeatedly helped Courtney’s mother as well, not wanting to put her or Courtney in any real danger.
The Shade might be a villain, but he’s also been trying to find a new lease on life in Blue Valley. Deciding to kill The Gambler would jeopardize that, something he wouldn’t want to do now that he’s finally found people he can get along with, even if he intimidates them.
Larry Crock (Sportsmaster)
Larry “Crusher” Crock spent a good chunk of his life being an enforcer for the Injustice Society. His quick temper and his tendency to use a baseball bat (like in his Season 3 fight against Starman) to solve his problems instead of talking them out makes him a likely suspect when it comes to having conflict with other Injustice Society members.
That’s especially true when fans remember that Sportsmaster largely blames the other members of the ISA for he and his wife ending up in jail. His daughter’s happiness and success is more important to him than any scheme the ISA could come up with, so when the plan the villains had to make the world better for their children failed, and Larry and Paula ended up incarcerated, anyone who escaped blame could be a target of his wrath.
Despite his temper though, Larry has found a friend in Pat, and he’s worked hard to turn his life around. Sure, he might not get to have the adrenaline-fueled outings the ISA once offered him, but he thinks twice about confronting The Gambler for getting away with his crimes. The audience actually sees Sportsmaster decide not to go after The Gambler. It seems unlikely that the writers would take that decision back.
Paula Brooks (Tigress)
Unlike her husband, Tigress hasn’t been presented to the audience repeatedly as a viable suspect, but as the former villain next door to Courtney and her family, it’s only a matter of time before she becomes one in the eyes of the new JSA.
While Tigress typically uses her martial arts skills to engage in hand-to-hand combat, she’s also proficient with weapons. Specifically, she carries a crossbow. That could produce a similar wound to the stab wound seen in The Gambler. Tigress might be in peak physical condition, but as far as the audience knows, she doesn’t have the superpowers or superstrength (and neither does her husband) to cause the damage to The Gambler’s mobile home seen following his death.
Of course, Paula does seem a more likely suspect than her husband as she’s actually had to have others talk her out of doing bad things. She regularly goes to Barbara, Courtney’s mother, for advice on how to be a normal contributing member of Blue Valley’s townspeople instead of a villain. Paula getting bored with small town life isn’t out of the ordinary, and her wanting revenge on The Gambler, just like her husband, wouldn’t be impossible. Like her husband though, she wants the best for Artemis, and her entire focus is on making a better life for her daughter. A revenge scheme doesn’t fit into that.
Who Killed The Gambler?
With the four most likely suspects inStargirlseeming increasingly unlikely culprits with every episode, it does make the audience wonder who actually killed The Gambler. Will the writers make one of the show’s regular villains the bad guy again, or will they throw the audience a curveball?
A curveball could be fun. Take Cameron, for example. Courtney’s potential love interest, and the son of the villain Icicle, is coming into his freezing abilities. An icicle could take the same shape as a shiv if he’s still trying to control his abilities. Cameron doesn’t have a motive to go after The Gambler though since he doesn’t know the full extent of his father’s time as a member of the ISA.
There’s also the possibility of the murderer beingObsidian, a comic book character who is set to make an appearance. His abilities are similar to The Shade in his manipulation of darkness and link to the Shadow Realm. His sister, the show’s versionof the Green Lantern Jade, was introduced last seasonand is on the hunt for him.
Starman himself even appears to be grappling with his morality (and his mortality) this season as he tries to find where he fits in when Blue Valley already has Stargirl, and his methods tend to be much more violent than Courtney’s. Sylvester Pemberton turning out to be the killer feels like a longshot since he’s obsessed with finding the killer himself though.
The simplest answer, however, might be that the murder of The Gambler will be used to introduce a brand new villain to the show as the mystery is slowly unraveled every week. It could even be the daughter he’s looking for since Becky Sharpe is a villain herself (known as Hazard) in the comics.
Stargirlairs Wednesdays on the CW.
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