We started the season with the question “Are you afraid?” We end it with the acknowledgement that the answer doesn’t necessarily matter nearly as much as how you act despite your fear.
More than fear, though, the theme of the episode was love, all of the good that can come from it, and all of the bad as well.
It was somewhat of a frustrating episode because there were several times where I wanted to shake Kerry and Noah for being so unbelievably stupid. There were so many ways that this could have been avoided. Kerry didn’t need to encourage Hal to come back, to publicly side with him, to start a relationship with him when the very idea of Hal finding out that Noah is a Manhunter is enough to make her panic and immediately kill him.
Noah didn’t need to rescue Hal, reveal that he was the one who rescued Hal, or trusted that Hal would keep his secret without any kind of safeguards against him telling his mother.
It was just a sequence of events that was so easily avoided at so many different points. Especially since Kerry called John to find out if Noah was a monster. She couldn’t have just asked Hal that? She couldn’t have just listened to the words coming out of Hal’s mouth before reaching right for her gun?
Maybe not.
I really did think that Noah had been the one who killed Hal. I had trusted John’s intuition. It does make sense that it was Kerry, though, and it makes sense that she did it out of protection for her son.
It’s just a shame that it was Hal’s love that got him killed. He wasn’t going to go after Noah. He was actively trying to figure out a way to keep him safe. He said that Noah was in danger, not that Noah was the danger. Hal loved Kerry, so of course he was going to try and protect her son.
Now, does the position that Hal’s body landed in make any sense at all whatsoever considering how he was standing when he was shot? No. Not really. I don’t know how he went from standing to landing in an upright seated position with his hands perfectly crossed in his lap. But I’m choosing to focus on the emotional tragedy of it.
It’s a little wild to think that Hal could have died only a few days earlier too after his house was set ablaze. I hadn’t noticed that kind of massive fire damage when John visited it, but it certainly explains why there was a shotgun booby trap aimed at the front door. We didn’t get to see who through the molotov cocktails, but the exact identity isn’t necessarily important. Hal was fundamentally unwanted.
It was also quite the slap in the face to Kerry. There was absolutely no respect for her as a person or as an authority figure. We already knew as much thanks to how everyone reacted to Hal’s death, but this really underlined that idea.
Noah’s identity as a Manhunter wasn’t exactly a surprise. That much had been obvious as soon as Zoe had a private conversation with him prior to her death. I didn’t expect them to revisit the idea of raising a child versus programming a child, though.
It was stressed multiple times that Noah was a selfless, giving person. He is the one who ensured that they actually got FEMA relief. He is the one who made sure that his offensive linemen were also honored alongside him, who did everything that he could to make sure that they also had a shot at a college team taking interest in them. He saved Hal’s life even when doing so exposed him to a large degree of risk.
But some of what he said was rather disturbing. THe idea that John would never stop screaming if he could see inside of Noah’s head? The intrusive thoughts that kept pushing him to amass power? The whole nature vs nurture debate kind of falls apart when the person in the center of it is synthetic and is literally programmed.
John took a huge risk in leaving Noah alive. Noah himself recognized that he was dangerous enough that he wanted John to kill him. Was it the right choice? The fact that he chose Nebraska as his college as opposed to the Navy in Annapolis seemed to indicate that was the case.
It certainly made for a contrast with how John handled Zoe. They both wanted John to kill them, but he only fulfilled that request for her. Zoe and Noah are so different in their actions, though, that it’s difficult to point to the difference as a result of John’s character growth. Like John said, Zoe let him burn alive in the car. Noah pulled Hal out of the burning house as soon as he discovered what was happening.
Reading back through what I’ve written so far, I realize that it sounds rather critical, but I did really enjoy this episode. It was very quiet, yes, and there wasn’t a big climatic battle, but it was well acted and the emotional core was very strong. I’d much rather have that than an empty CGI-slug fest.
Looking forward, there are a few things that I’m excited to see developed in future projects. John’s lantern and ring having streaks of yellow in it is really fun. It’s a great way to set up a Yellow Lantern arc moving forward.
I like that John is an independent contractor with his own oath. Sure, the Green Lantern oath is very classic, but he was right in that it didn’t really fit him. Not this version of John. Having him reaffirm that this is a life and a role that he is actively choosing and that he is choosing it even among fear was surprisingly powerful.
It distinguished John from Hal but more importantly from Guy as well. They won’t be two coworkers. They’ll be rivals. They’re representing two very different approaches towards being a Green Lantern. Plus, there’s no way that Guy will just let John handle Earth. He looked really pissed when he flew off for the final time. This isn’t the end of that conflict.
There were a few issues, however, that reflect the problems that have lingered all season.
I’m not thrilled with how they used Sinestro. He is such an important and iconic villain, and yet he was reduced to someone who relied on the most unsubtle manipulation techniques that even a five year old could see coming. Seriously, he couldn’t even stick to a single idea! He hopped between trying to persuade John and Halogram without any hesitation or break in between. And he did that in front of both of them! At least do that kind of stuff one-on-one in private!
They weren’t even remotely tempted either. Sinestro’s claim that he could resurrect Hal got a moment of hesitation, but the lack of follow up on the logistics or even the sheer existence of such a thing meant that the idea was completely brushed off. It just made Sinestro seem like he was lying and that they both knew that he was lying as opposed to it actually being a possibility.
It didn’t help that he really did have a small amount of screentime. There was no time to actually develop him into a threat or someone interesting. We heard all about how he’s the only person who has ever killed a Guardian, but the man that we saw really didn’t seem capable of that. I have no idea what someone with no prior knowledge of Sinestro thinks about him because right now he’s just a very sunburned man who comes off as rather pathetic.
His storyline just ended too. They just left him on the island and that was that. Sure, it leaves things open for him to return in the future; he made a lantern once so there’s no reason why he couldn’t make a lantern again. Or, eventually, his own ring. But as it stands, it’s unsatisfying.
Everything involving the yellow in John’s new lantern landed in that awkward no man’s land where the show clearly expects the audience to know the implications for what it means without making it clear what it means within this version of DC. I’m assuming that Sinestro did not form the Yellow Lantern Corps and that the idea of Lanterns in colors besides green hasn’t been thought of yet, but I don’t know for sure.
The streaks of yellow made me sit up and take notice, but only because I know that yellow equals fear and that it is traditionally the biggest weakness of a Green Lantern and their abilities and often corrupts them and turns them into supervillains. For anyone else, it’s just a detail that means nothing at all that may or may not be explored later. They really didn’t hit a middle ground between newbies and comic veterans.
And I am a little unsatisfied that we didn’t get a chance to see John in the suit. I know that the whole series functioned as his origin story, and after the big battle in Episode Five, I didn’t necessarily expect an actionpacked finale, but I had hoped for more, well, Green Lantern-ing from him.
Sure, you could argue that this episode was full of John being the Green Lantern, but that’s just being pedantic. I wanted to see him in all of his glory, not have the episode end on him flying for the first time off into the night.
Still, I am overall pretty happy with Lanterns. If nothing else, Kyle Chandler was amazing as Hal in all of his iterations. If this is goodbye, then I’m glad that his last words, both as a person and as a Halogram was to tell someone that he loved them. For someone who was so lonely and so alone for so long, that felt important.
But no one is ever truly dead in comics, of course, and there are always hallucinations and flashbacks, so I do dearly hope that this isn’t the last that we’ve seen of him in the role.
Aaron Pierre did amazing as well. He still feels like he walked right out of the shows I watched growing up. I am very, very curious to see where the wider DCU takes him.
Random Thoughts
That was Nebraska’s actual football coach, Matt Rhule. That was a very unexpected cameo.
Was… Hal wearing cowboy boots in bed post coitus? How did he take off everything BUT his boots?
I’m curious about the timeline of Kerry and Billy’s relationship if she got pregnant after not having sex with anyone for several months. Does Billy know that Noah isn’t actually his son? That felt like an odd detail to not acknowledge.
I’m glad that John kept Earl, although who was feeding him when Hal was in prison?
As of writing, Lanterns has been neither renewed nor canceled, but Season Two is reportedly in early development.
We will next see John Stewart in Man of Tomorrow, the next Superman movie.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.
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