Last episode of Lanterns was its most explosive episode yet, literally. Full of space lasers, machine gun fire, character deaths, and green light constructs, Episode 5, “Lights Out,” offered a satisfying conclusion to the series’ 2016 storyline with just three episodes left to go. Episode 6, “Bad Optics,” is more of a downer and a breather, showing us the aftermath a decade later and setting up the mystery that will unfold over the remaining episodes. So, what have our heroes been up to?
SPOILERS!!!
Ten Years Later
It’s been 10 years since John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) forsook the ring, and by 2026, he’s become an architect, grown a beard, and seems happier and more emotive. He also casually swears more, eats meat, and drinks. It turns out that giving up his lifelong “destiny” and following his actual passions has allowed John to become successful and at peace. It’s also confirmed that this takes place after James Gunn’s Superman, as John is now in Midway City (home of the Doom Patrol!) trying to convince the city council that they need to build bunkers where civilians can hide in case there’s another alien attack in the near future. Perhaps a tease for Man of Tomorrow?
John has founded a company with his brother Marcus and is funding the album of his other brother, Aaron. While John’s relationships with his siblings seem to be doing just fine, the same can’t be said about the brothers’ relationships with their parents. John isn’t on the best terms with his mother, even calling her “Bernadette” over the phone. I guess that’s what happens after all the abuse, grooming, and favoritism toward John and the neglect of his siblings.
John Sr. has been put in a retirement home and is much more prone to complaining and outbursts in his old age, implying that he might be in the early stages of dementia or something. It’s honestly probably a good thing that John has distanced himself from his parents considering how okay they were with the way they raised him throughout his childhood.
More importantly, seeing John now makes his decision at the end of the previous episode feel even more significant. He spent his childhood being prepared for a destiny he never chose, and walking away from it seems to have been one of the healthiest decisions he’s ever made. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Hal Jordan.
What Happened to Hal Jordan?
John is told by his mom that Hal (Kyle Chandler) finally wants to meet with him in Rushville. After losing the ring, Hal spent the past 10 years in prison after being found guilty for all the death and destruction in Rushville, describing it as “taking the fall.” It’s a little confusing since superheroes cause collateral damage all the time, but normally they’re never arrested or imprisoned for it. Then again, Hal was a public figure, and he was specifically warned about the deadly consequences if he didn’t leave Rushville alone, but went anyway. The entire town hating and blaming him probably didn’t help either.
Now out of prison, Hal is living in Rushville and trying to make amends by raking people’s lawns and buying their groceries. He’s old, disgraced, depressed, and largely forgotten, trying to find a new purpose in life now that he’s no longer the world’s greatest superhero. It also seems kind of dangerous for Hal to voluntarily live in a rural Nebraska town that hates him and had a freaking militia just 10 years ago. Hal apparently agrees, because we later discover that he has a shotgun rigged to aim at his front door in case anyone tries to enter his house.
John and Hal meet at a café, only to quickly figure out that Bernadette lied to both of them to get them together after a decade apart. Since they still don’t particularly like each other for obvious reasons (see all my previous reviews of Lanterns if you don’t know why), the reunion doesn’t go well. Hal eventually angers John enough that John punches him in the face and breaks his nose. As John leaves, Hal warns him not to tell anyone that he was in Rushville.
Not long afterward, Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) calls John and asks him to come back. Hal has been found dead, his corpse sitting on the football field bleachers, covered in snow with a bullet hole in his head. We have finally reached the point where the first episode, “Pilot,” ended. It only took until Episode 6 for the show to continue from there. That’s a long wait, and the jury’s still out on whether the payoff will be worth it.
Everyone Hates Green Lantern
Kerry tells John that she and her husband, Billy Macon, split up a few years ago and that she and Hal were secretly dating at the time of his death. He even sent her letters while he was in prison. That must’ve been an awkward secret to keep from her friends and family. Her son Noah (Shea Pritchard) seems to be thriving, though. He’s now the star quarterback, liked by everyone in town, and interested in getting into politics. He also doesn’t seem to mind that John Stewart, the man who killed his grandmother, is eating at their table. Apparently, he didn’t mind Hal Jordan, the other guy partially responsible for his grandmother’s death, dating his mother either.
That’s a little weird, but it’s too early to say if it means anything. That being said, I believe Noah is actually a Manhunter and he’s the one who killed Hal. If Hal didn’t fake his own death, that is.
John goes to Hal’s tiny new house and discovers that Hal still has Earl, the carnivorous alien plant. Other than Sheriff Kerry, it looks like Earl might have been Hal’s only friend. Earl even seems to visibly express sadness when he learns about Hal’s death.
The people of Rushville aren’t nearly as sympathetic, and they don’t seem to like John very much either. The coroner ignores John and insults him straight to his face, while a young waitress named Maggie (Hannah Christine Shetler), who turns out to be the girl John gave the watch to in 2016, tries blackmailing him into paying Rushville reparations for the destruction he’s partially responsible for. She threatens to tell Sheriff Kane that she saw him punch Hal shortly before his death. Later, John turns on Rushville’s Green Lantern signal. Yes, they have a Green Lantern signal. Nobody seems to like it, but they keep it up for some reason. Billy Macon (Jason Ritter) and several other men are understandably angered by this, but John easily beats them all up single-handedly before Kerry is forced to arrest him.
I don’t know why Guy Gardner thought it would be a good idea to install a Green Lantern-style sky signal in a town that famously hates Green Lanterns, directly in front of a monument dedicated to a disaster that two Green Lanterns were partially responsible for. But it does seem like a very Guy Gardner thing to do. And yes, he acknowledges that he stole the idea from Batman. So when’s he gonna physically appear in this universe?
SO HOW DOES THE GREEN LANTERN SIGNAL WORK? GUY DOESN’T LIKE IN RUSHVILLE, SO HOW WOULD HE KNOW IF SOMEONE NEEDED HIS HELP? DOES HE HAVE A NOTIFICATION SET UP WHEN IT GETS TURNED ON? OR IS IT JUST FOR SHOW?
Enter Guy Gardner
As seen in Superman, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), a gym teacher with a ginger bowl cut, is now Green Lantern. Nathan Fillion tones down Guy’s more comedic personality from Superman and Peacemaker. He’s still arrogant and egotistical, but we see a slightly more serious side of him that better fits Lanterns’ tone.
Guy has also completely embraced being a celebrity superhero. He has several sponsorships, including one with a drink called Electro Punch, which obviously doesn’t seem to be very popular in Rushville because of its connection to a Green Lantern. When Guy visits John in jail the next morning, he tells him that he and Hal “really damaged the brand.”
John reveals that Hal is dead and convinces Guy to retrieve Hal’s old ring from Oa, pointing out that everything Guy has now, the fame, money, success, and Green Lantern title, is only his because John refused the ring 10 years ago. Guy can’t directly help with the investigation, but before leaving, he reveals something much more important: Sinestro has been broken out of prison, and it happened around the same time Hal was murdered. In fact, Hal was the number one suspect in Sinestro’s escape, but him being dead obviously takes him off the list. Wow! What a coincidence!
“I Hope I Mattered”
At Hal’s very empty private funeral, Carol Ferris (Amie MacKenzie) appears, which is a delightful surprise. She’s Hal’s most famous love interest in the comics, as well as an on-again, off-again supervillain and superhero, and she’s also an ex-girlfriend of Hal in Lanterns. I wonder if she was ever the Star Sapphire at some point. That would be really cool!
Guy gives John Hal’s decommissioned ring so Hal can be buried with it while wearing his Green Lantern uniform. After the burial, John reads Hal’s eulogy, which, of course, was written by Hal himself, and struggles to keep a straight face the entire time.
The eulogy paints a picture of how Hal once imagined his funeral would look. Thousands of people from around the world and galaxy would attend, including friends, world leaders, other Green Lanterns, and superheroes, all united to honor a fallen hero. Hal even gives his blessing to his replacement, which is pretty funny considering how he reacted to John and also told Guy to “climb a rope” when Guy visited him in prison.
It’s pretty pretentious and full of jokes and profanity, and Hal admits in the eulogy itself that he wrote the whole thing as a joke. But there’s also enough self-awareness towards the end that if someone actually is reading it at his funeral, Hal apologizes to the people he’s hurt. He ends his eulogy with, “I hope I mattered.” And that’s being read at a funeral attended by only three people as Hal is buried in a town that hated him.
For all of Hal’s arrogance and his obsession with remaining Green Lantern, that ending makes his downfall surprisingly sad. He spent so much of his life defining himself by being a famous superhero that, once the ring and admiration were gone, he didn’t seem to know who he was anymore. Meanwhile, John gave up that exact same destiny and built a fulfilling life for himself. The contrast between them couldn’t be clearer.
AMIE MACKENZIE AS CAROL FERRIS. I KNOW THIS IS A FUNERAL, BUT I WISH SHE WAS WEARING SOMETHING WITH A LITTLE PINK OR VIOLET ON IT, JUST AS A REFERENCE TO HER BEING STAR SAPPHIRE.
The Mystery Isn’t Over Yet
Later that night, John digs up Hal’s grave. John told Guy that he wanted Hal’s ring so Hal could be buried with it, but that wasn’t true. He actually needs the ring to activate Hal’s vault, an alien cube Hal was keeping in a storage locker that he coyly called his “Fortress of Storage,” obviously inspired by Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
So we have a Batman reference and a Superman reference, but no Wonder Woman reference? Come on!
The vault might contain a clue to who killed Hal, but unfortunately, it can only be activated by Hal’s voice, and voice recordings from Kerry’s phone don’t work. But maybe the Halogram can open it. The episode ends with John turning on the ring and bringing out the Halogram, who looks down at Hal’s corpse lying in his freshly dug-up grave and simply says, “Goddamnit!” Looks like Kyle Chandler is still gonna be around for the next couple of episodes! Woohoo!
A Necessary Breather?
“Bad Optics” is admittedly a pretty slow episode, although that’s somewhat justified. After spending five episodes jumping between timelines and building toward the destruction of Rushville, the show needs time to establish how its characters have changed over the last decade and set up the mystery surrounding Hal’s murder. There’s also no action besides a fistfight, but I’m glad the timeline has finally caught up with the rest of the DCU, especially with Guy and John both confirmed to be appearing in next year’s Man of Tomorrow.
The investigation into Hal’s death and his life after prison and the ring raises plenty of intriguing questions and theories, but some parts of the episode don’t feel completely necessary yet. John’s personal life and family situation get some attention without overstaying their welcome, although I’m not sure how any of it will pay off with only two episodes left. John is even interrupted while robbing Hal’s grave by his brother calling about a meeting with a client. John botches the meeting because he can’t physically attend, with the client ironically saying that John isn’t “worthy of his time.” Maggie blackmailing John also feels a little forced and unnecessary, and honestly, it’s pretty forgettable. Maybe both storylines will have a worthwhile payoff in the final two episodes.
Episode 6 is mostly setup, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing after how chaotic the previous episode was. More importantly, it seems to close the book on Hal Jordan’s complicated life while immediately opening another mystery around his death. After spending five episodes learning how Hal Jordan lost everything, the final question is whether Lanterns can make finding out who killed him worth the wait.
I LOVE THAT HAL’S EULOGY ACTUALLY SAYS “(hold for applause).” LIKE HE ACTUALLY TYPED THAT IN THERE! XD
