The previous episode of Lanterns threw us for a loop, revealing John Stewart’s shocking childhood and his motivation for wanting to replace Hal as Green Lantern. It was a great episode on its own, but it was also a flashback episode that mainly existed to show John’s new origin story rather than push the main plot and mystery forward.
Thankfully, after waiting two whole weeks, Episode 4, “The Weenie” (hehe, weenie), picks up right where Episode 2 left off, with Hal Jordan in his Green Lantern uniform meeting with his imprisoned mentor, Sinestro, to ask him what he knows about the Manhunters.
SPOILERS!!!
Sinestro Gets Inside Hal’s Head
Ulrich Thomsen plays Sinestro in a portrayal very reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, or Manhunter, if you want an even more appropriate comparison.
At the end of Episode 2, Sinestro referred to the Manhunter as “the second greatest threat” Hal (Kyle Chandler) was currently facing before immediately asking about Hal’s new protégé, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), seemingly confirming that John is the greater threat to Hal. Sinestro’s intelligence and subtle manipulation shine through in their conversation. He clearly still holds influence over Hal, confirming what Lianna said in the previous episode, and gets Hal to finally admit that John isn’t really his backup. He’s his replacement.
Sinestro suggests that Hal could simply kill John and keep his job, but Hal, being a superhero, refuses. He’s a space cop, but at least he’s not a corrupt space cop.
Instead, Sinestro presents a much more palatable option. If Hal finds the Manhunter hiding in Rushville himself and brings it back to the Guardians of the Universe to stand trial, maybe they’ll be impressed enough to let him keep his ring and his purpose as a Green Lantern. Of course, that would unknowingly come at the cost of John’s lifelong purpose becoming a complete waste.
Despite his limited screen time, Thomsen leaves an impression as the treacherous former Green Lantern. Sinestro doesn’t need to escape his prison cell or throw a single punch to cause trouble. He just has to tell Hal exactly what he wants to hear.
THEY LOOK LIKE TWO FRIENDS JUST HANGING OUT TOGETHER. NOTHING’S GONNA TEAR THEM APART.
What’s a Weenie?
Back on Earth, Hal interrupts John while he’s staking out the Macon compound from the top of a water tower. John, being a Marine, doesn’t use binoculars like most people. Instead, he uses a scope from a rifle he was forced to buy at a local gun store because apparently you can’t just buy the scope separately.
It’s a small detail that feels very specific to John. He even shows that he’s capable of having a charming side, cracking a smile and a joke while buying the rifle despite some obvious racial tension from the White customer and employee watching him.
John believes the Manhunter is hiding somewhere on the Macon compound after noticing a helicopter repeatedly landing at the same location. He calls that location a “weenie,” a term he explains Walt Disney came up with while designing his theme parks for something that draws people’s attention toward a particular location.
I don’t know what I was expecting from Lanterns, but I was not expecting Walt Disney lore.
Apparently, “weenies” and “boners” are two perfectly innocent words destroyed by teenage boys looking for funny names for their genitalia. More importantly, this little fun fact shows off John’s knowledge as an architect like he is in the comics, which is a nice touch.
Everybody Is Keeping Secrets
Hal and John tell Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) that they suspect the Manhunter is hiding on her father-in-law’s compound and ask about William Macon’s mysterious benefactor, whom Kerry claims she’s never met. She then asks them an important question: If the Manhunter can look like anyone, how do they know she isn’t the Manhunter?
Hal says he researched her enough to confirm that she really is Kerry Kane, but I’m not sure how well that works. Just because Kerry Kane existed 30 years ago doesn’t necessarily mean the Kerry Kane they’re talking to now is the original. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about exactly what the Manhunter can and can’t do, which makes it increasingly difficult to know who anyone can trust.
Meanwhile, John gets his own secret meeting with Lianna (Laura Linney), mirroring Hal’s conversation with Sinestro earlier in the episode. John had asked Hal where he’d gone the previous night, and Hal claimed he’d flown into outer space for a late-night booty call with a smoking-hot alien babe. Lianna reveals that Hal obviously lied and actually visited Sinestro, apparently breaking his oath in the process.
The Guardians really want Hal out of the way now. Lianna tells John that the next time Hal gives him the ring, he needs to recite the Green Lantern Oath, which will officially make him Sector 2814’s Green Lantern and replace Hal.
John is understandably uncomfortable with screwing over his childhood hero like that. He was under the impression that the Guardians would eventually give him the ring legitimately. Like Hal, John has a sense of honor, and while the two don’t particularly like each other or the situation they’ve been forced into, they do have some respect for one another.
So Lianna does what any supposedly benevolent and emotionless alien would do: manipulate him.
She reveals that Hal has criticized John in his reports and described him as lacking creativity, then goes even further by telling John that he’s actually as weak as his father.
That’s pretty mean for an immortal blue space elf.
Sinestro is manipulating Hal into protecting the ring from John, while Lianna and the Guardians are manipulating John into taking the ring from Hal. Both men are being pushed toward opposite sides of the exact same conflict without realizing the same thing is happening to the other.
So much for building trust between partners.
John Stewart, MVP
It initially looks like Hal is preparing to raid the Macon compound with guns blazing, or more accurately, big green fists punching. For a second, it seems like we’re finally going to get one of those epic, big-budget superhero action sequences straight out of the comics that we’ve been waiting almost half the series to see.
Instead, John comes up with the smarter plan.
He shows Hal a design for a drill he drew that can be generated with the ring, allowing them to tunnel underneath the compound without being detected. It’s another great use of John’s skills, this time combining his artistic and architectural abilities, and it’s a pretty satisfying “Take That!” to Hal calling him uncreative in his reports.
Hal gives John the ring, but he doesn’t say the oath, and the two tunnel underneath the compound until they reach Macon’s “weenie”: a bunker filled with high-tech alien weaponry, confirming that something extraterrestrial is definitely connected to Macon’s operation.
The sequence also gives Hal and John some of their best buddy-cop material so far. Hal accidentally steps on a pressure plate, leading John to create a weight to replace him in a scene both characters recognize as being straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Turns out they both love Raiders, so they’ve finally found something they can agree on.
There are several little moments like this throughout the episode. John surprises Hal by joking that he wasn’t allowed to go to Disneyland as a kid, which honestly might have some basis in truth after what we learned last week. Later, while they’re drilling underground, Hal reveals that his mother died from cancer years ago. John responds with genuine empathy and even loses concentration on the drill construct for a moment.
It’s these interactions that continue to make the relationship between Hal and John work. Lanterns still isn’t giving us much in terms of spacefaring adventures, visible aliens, or giant superhero action scenes, but the writing between its two leads has been strong enough to make up for a lot of that.
Which makes everything being done to drive them apart even more frustrating.
OKAY. THEY ARE STARTING TO MAKE BIGGER LIGHT CONSTRUCTS. THE SHOW IS BUILDING UP TO SOMETHING!
William Macon Shows Us His Weenie
Unfortunately, John’s pressure-plate trick doesn’t work, the alarm goes off, and the guards use strange black-cloud weapons to neutralize Hal, John, and the Lantern ring.
They’re brought before William Macon Sr. (Garret Dillahunt), who suddenly takes off his robe and reveals that he’s completely naked underneath and in incredible shape for his age.
His wife, Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), is a lucky woman.
As some kind of bizarre power move, William makes John draw him like one of his French girls while revealing more about his mysterious benefactor. The Manhunter isn’t just his benefactor. It’s also his boss.
William explains that he was dying of cancer until the Manhunter cured him. Apparently, it also cured everyone else in Rushville so thoroughly that they don’t even need the hospital anymore, finally explaining why the place was practically abandoned when Hal woke up there in Episode 2.
I’m still not sure how you cure someone so thoroughly that they seemingly can’t get sick anymore, or what exactly the Manhunter gave everyone. I’m also confused about why Macon, a guy who leads an anti-alien militia, would willingly let something from outer space experiment on him and everyone he knows. The Manhunter technically isn’t an alien, but it was created by aliens and came from outer space.
That’s a pretty glaring double standard.
William also reveals that he’s aware John had truck sex with his wife while Zoe is standing right there in the room.
That’s probably the real reason Macon showed John his weenie.
Can John Trust Zoe?
Kerry thankfully interrupts Macon’s naked power move and gets the Lanterns out of the compound, but John’s personal life isn’t getting any less complicated. His parents urge him to take Hal’s ring like the Guardians want, while Zoe later comes to his motel room and the two have sex again.
I’m not entirely sure why John would do that right now. He was just interrogated by her naked husband, who knows they’re sleeping together, and John still doesn’t know whether Zoe can be trusted. Earlier in the episode, we even see that John has a drawing of Zoe’s face in his motel room. They’ve had sex a couple of times and shared a few deep conversations, so there’s clearly a bond forming between them, but is there enough of one to explain how attached John already seems to be?
His mommy issues must run deep!
Afterward, Zoe tells John that William owes her his life. We already know she was William’s nurse while he was dying from cancer, but William specifically said that he owes his life to the Manhunter for curing him. So is Zoe basically admitting to John that she’s the Manhunter because she’s trying to save his life?
Before we can find out, a laser comes down from the sky and blows up Zoe’s truck as she’s driving away, seemingly killing her. Hal flies into space and brings down the satellite responsible for the attack, which Kerry discovers belongs to Atlas, Inc., a company owned by Green Lantern villain Hector Hammond.
If you don’t know Hector Hammond, he’s the evil guy with the giant head from Ryan Reynolds’ awful Green Lantern movie.
It’s exciting to see Lanterns continue bringing in more members of Green Lantern’s rogues gallery beyond Sinestro and the Manhunters.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
WELL, AT LEAST SHE WASN’T STUFFED IN A FRIDGE. LOOK IT UP. IYKYK
Hector Hammond… Sort Of
Hal and John track Hammond to a nearby slaughterhouse, and on the drive there, Hal tries to comfort John over Zoe’s apparent death. His advice is essentially to avoid real relationships because in their profession, the people they care about are going to get hurt or die. It’s why Hal doesn’t have a family and lives by himself, which adds another sad layer to what we saw inside his empty mansion in Episode 2.
Hal also mentions Ch’p, the alien squirrel Green Lantern, so at least that’s kind of fun.
Things immediately get weird at the slaughterhouse. The workers barely acknowledge Hal and John, a cow walks through a black-hole portal into the killing room, and lasers and robotic arms butcher it with technology far beyond what you’d expect to find in an Earth slaughterhouse.
They finally confront Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazabal), whose head is disappointingly normal-sized, only for him to reveal that another satellite is positioned over John’s parents’ house. If Hal and John don’t leave him alone before the timer runs out, he’ll kill them. Hector also plays Hal a recording of John’s conversation with Lianna, revealing that the motel was bugged and that John has secretly been communicating with the Guardians behind Hal’s back.
John panics, but Hal isn’t convinced that Hector is really the Manhunter and calls his bluff. “Hector Hammond” finally gives in, stops the attack, and reveals that he’s actually an engineer named Hector Gutierrez.
And I have mixed feelings about this reveal.
If Hector Hammond had turned out to be the Manhunter, that would have been one thing. But if Gutierrez isn’t really Hammond, does Hector Hammond even exist in this DCU? Because if not, that’s a pretty big waste of a Green Lantern villain, essentially reducing his name to an Easter egg and a red herring. And it’s a waste because Jason Manuel Olazabal’s performance was really good.
Hopefully, a later episode clarifies that there’s a real Hector Hammond literally floating around somewhere.
I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SAY THIS, BUT RYAN REYNOLDS’ GREEN LANTERN MOVIE DID HECTOR HAMMOND BETTER.
So Who Is the Manhunter?
Gutierrez reveals that he was given advanced technology and ordered to pretend to be both Hector Hammond and the Manhunter when Hal and John eventually found him. And I guess he took acting lessons in advance, because he was actually pretty convincing. According to Gutierrez, the real Manhunter is William Macon.
Hal still isn’t convinced.
When interrogating “Hammond,” Hal revealed that Sinestro told him Manhunters can’t convincingly replicate human hearts, meaning the only definitive way to identify one is apparently to kill the suspect and see whether their fake heart crystallizes.
Interestingly, when William Macon got naked earlier, he had a visible healed scar over his heart.
That can’t be a coincidence.
Then again, the episode has spent most of its runtime reminding us that practically everyone is lying, manipulating someone, hiding something, or all three. William could be the Manhunter. Zoe could be the Manhunter. Gutierrez could still be lying. At this point, I don’t trust anybody.
And neither do Hal and John.
Trust Issues
While driving back to the motel, John tries to assure Hal that he doesn’t actually want to steal the ring from him. Hal says he forgives John for lying to him, but he’s already figured out something else John has been hiding.
Zoe is the real Manhunter.
Or at least Hal thinks she is.
Hal believes Zoe survived the satellite attack and realizes John suspected the same thing but didn’t tell him, based on his lack of reaction to her supposed death. John then contacts Antaan, leader of the aliens hunting the Manhunter, and tells him they’ve found their target so they can arrange a meeting at the café.
Then Hal jumps out of the moving car.
Again.
The car crashes into a pole with John still inside. Considering we’re only halfway through the series and John is still alive in 2026, I’m going to assume he gets away with some very minor injuries. Hal also rolls out of a moving car without getting hurt, further supporting my theory that becoming a Green Lantern makes you naturally durable.
“The Weenie” pushes Hal and John further apart at exactly the moment they were starting to function like an actual team. That’s what makes the episode work beyond all the Manhunter clues and red herrings. We get several scenes showing that these two men are actually beginning to understand and even like each other, only for Sinestro, Lianna, the Guardians, Zoe, and the mystery itself to keep giving them reasons not to trust one another.
Sinestro wants Hal to protect the ring from John. The Guardians want John to take the ring from Hal. Both men lie to each other while still insisting they don’t actually want to betray the other, and both are being manipulated into seeing the other as an obstacle.
The frustrating part is that they probably could become friends if everyone would stop manipulating them.
Four episodes in, the question isn’t just whether Hal and John can figure out who the Manhunter is. It’s whether they can figure out how to trust each other long enough to do it.
“THAT’S WHY I’M VEGAN.” – JOHN STEWART
