“Why not?”
We had another quiet, meditative hour for our penultimate episode. I'm going to miss Hal. He had a very, very good episode.
Hal might be dead, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get to see what made him into the man that he was. It wasn’t a full diversion into the past, but it was still enlightening.
Hal has always been stubborn, especially when he thought that whoever was disagreeing with him was stupid or wrong. It’s not just that he didn’t want to leave the pitcher’s mound. It’s that he never let go of the ball, even after his whole team attacked him.
Obviously, there’s a very obvious connection to how Hal treated the ring. He couldn’t let it go, even if it resulted in him crossing all kinds of moral lines. The difference, and perhaps the most important part of it all, is that he had John Stewart there to relieve him. As his dad said, the person coming to take the ball from you is all that mattered.
John is certainly better than a gym teacher with a gold tooth, even if he never actually wanted to be a Green Lantern. That wasn’t a very surprising revelation. It makes sense. It was never a path that he chose. It was, to use his brothers’ nickname, Chosen.
It’s a shame that Hal and John weren’t able to have a genuine mentorship. Halogram is younger and less jaded, and far more willing to praise when it’s earned. He rightfully called John’s ability to maintain constructs without a ring as amazing. He was quick to actually teach, or to try to teach.
And they made a really good team too. We saw pieces of this in their actual relationship, but it was really highlighted here. They could read each other’s intentions with an ease that usually takes a long time to develop. They still bickered. Halogram was still incredibly stubborn and obstinate and willing to dig his heels in whenever necessary. But he still saved John’s life. And he still opened up to him when it mattered.
Was the fear lake a little on the nose? Maybe. But ever since Sinestro was introduced, I’ve been waiting to see just how much Lanterns would dive into the idea of fear as a powerful and motivating force. So of course they would find him in the island in the middle of the fear lake too.
Whoever broke Sinestro out apparently didn’t really need him for anything. Not if they essentially just traded one prison for another. I’m not really sure what role he’s providing in the story. Obviously, he’ll have a role in the finale, but right now he’s feeling very superfluous. Especially since it’s pretty clear by this point that he didn’t kill Hal.
There really hasn’t been any actual investigation into his death, which both doesn’t surprise me and also is a little frustrating. It’s hard to investigate when there’s no clues, no real leads to go off of. Hal’s box seemed to have more to do with his father and his legacy than anything else.
Antaam is dead. The last Manhunter is dead. The killer is going to be human. I wish that we had actual suspects as opposed to obvious answers because they’re the only characters’ whose names we know. Like Noah. And like Kerry.
I have to give a gold acting star to Kelly Macdonald for her performance in the science lab. Kerry and Hal’s romance has been largely off-screen, but her reaction to seeing Halogram made me fully buy into it. It conveyed everything that we needed to know about how they felt about each other.
It was quite a loaded conversation too. Did Hal actually tell Kerry the truth about his dad? I don’t know, but I’m leaning towards probably not. Something about Hal’s face just made it seem like Kerry had unknowingly confirmed something suspicious. Oh, I’m sure that they did talk about it. I just don’t know if he told her about the Jordan Boys’ Legacy.
Or maybe a curse is a better word for it. That’s a very heavy thing to tell a child. And not only to tell a child, but to also tell them that it should be a secret because it’s something that only they should know. Hal’s father didn’t just kill himself. He told his young son that he killed himself and that he did so partly because his grandfather did the same.
How was Hal supposed to grow up and not internalize the idea that the same will happen to him? I never considered the idea that Hal might have committed suicide, but it is something that should be given its due.
I have trouble seeing it, though. The very last shot of the episode was Hal going back to find the ball that he threw away. And he did that after he learned the truth about his dad. He kept holding on. He put himself back into the game. It's difficult to imagine him reaching the point where he does let go of the ball.
It also seems like it would be difficult to shoot yourself in the forehead and wind up in the position that he was in. Plus there was no gun found. Of course, someone could have found his body and arranged things so that the cause of death wasn’t obvious.
Could it have been Kerry? Especially if Hal did actually tell her the truth about what happened with his dad? Is that the guilt that Halogram noticed?
It’s interesting that he is so convinced that she killed him when John immediately decided that she was innocent. They obviously can’t both be right. Halogram was shown to have made several wrong assumptions too, including but not limited to the idea that Hal had been the one to kill Zoe. Does that mean that this one is wrong too?
I guess that we will find out.
Random Thoughts
Love John singing along to OutKast whenever he wanted Halogram to disappear.
Halogram did manage to go up and check out the city. John didn’t just make him vanish.
Antaam’s planet was gorgeous. Lots of green and yellow.
Noah framed his refusal to pick a college as selfless, but I would be really annoyed if I set up a whole event only for him to go so far off script.
John’s relationship with his brothers fascinates me. Despite how hostile and combative it is, they still went to the bank to withdraw the money like he asked.
And, of course, the idea of John trying to get money somewhere on a very tight deadline reminds me of Rebel Ridge.
Who the heck puts a half-eaten popsicle just into a cooler without wrapping it first?
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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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