Lanterns It’s such a strange show both in terms of tone and story. We’re five episodes in and I simply can’t connect with this narrative or its heroes in any meaningful way. Spoilers below.
I don’t blame the actors for any of this. Kyle Chandler is the breakout star here as the much-maligned Hal Jordan, Earth’s only Green Lantern. Aaron Pierre does a solid job as his stoic counterpart and the rest of the supporting cast, from Poorna Jagannathan to Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt and the rest.
There’s just something weird about this show. It’s hard for me to get involved in the mystery. Zoe being the Manhunter was incredibly obvious. What’s less obvious is why everyone hates Hal Jordan. I can accept that the Guardians’ motives are part of a larger mystery, but what about John Stewart and his deeply troubled parents? Why are they so sure he doesn’t deserve the ring?
In the end, when John takes the ring from Hal, leaving him beaten up in the motel, he goes to Laura Linney’s Keeper and tells him that Hal did everything in his power to keep the ring, including betraying himself and his oath, and that he probably doesn’t even know why he wants it anymore. John then places the ring on the counter and says he doesn’t know why he wants it anymore. He just felt empty taking it away from Hal.
I’m confused. First of all, how exactly did Hal betray everything he believed in to keep the ring? I’m pretty sure the only oath he broke was to talk to Sinestro, which was an attempt to find out more about Manhunter, i.e. just doing his job. At this point in the story, all I see is Hal getting screwed by everyone and reacting accordingly. John feels “empty” because he stole the ring, which wasn’t his. As Hal points out, “he chose me!”
Episode after episode, the show keeps telling me that these relationships and conflicts are emotionally significant without doing the work to make them feel meaningful. What should have been an emotionally devastating episode ultimately fell flat.
The rest of the episode is an elaborate showdown. Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor de The wire) and his alien assassins attack and reach an uneasy truce with Hal, who lies about Macon being the Manhunter to buy time to capture Zoe so he can take her to the Guardians. He also tells John that Lanterns don’t kill. The plan is to capture and deliver, although he can’t promise what the Guardians will do to Zoe once they have her. Meanwhile, Macon has learned the language of the aliens hunting Zoe and pretends to be the Manhunter.
We get a couple of fun moments when Antaan reveals that Manhunter would have “coitus” with the most powerful person to help gain their trust and loyalty. Does that mean William Macon had relations with John Stewart? Antaan wants to know. Hal, unwilling to admit that John is more powerful, claims that he was, in fact, the one who had intercourse with Will Macon. “I always saw you as presenting heterosexually,” Antaan responds. “When you’ve seen as much of the universe as I have,” Hal responds, “it’s less about preference and more about opportunity.” This show has its moments. It’s a shame they’re almost all Hal’s lines.
The only good thing about this was that John cheated on Zoe. She left Hal and destruction as bait, and when she’s there, feeling smug and victorious, we cut to John with his sniper rifle (I guess he got it after all?) and it hits him right between the eyes.
John actually didn’t take the ring when he hit Hal and set up Zoe, so he returns to the motel and takes the ring after she dies. Take the flashlight charging station and Zoe’s heart and go through the city. A group of militiamen surround him, but none of them open fire and Kerry Kane, the sheriff, breaks everything up. He then meets up with the Guardian and gives him the ring back, which I guess could be the next step for Guy Gardner, although based on Hal’s death scene in the pilot, maybe he’ll get it back after all this. . . ? I’m not sure.
This show has so many moving pieces, but nothing connects them, grounds them, or weaves them into a cohesive story. It’s very strange. A lot of people respond to my reviews with dismissive things like “You just want more action” or “It’s a deep show and you clearly don’t like deep shows,” but this was an action-packed episode and I still felt a little bored. I’m not sure what’s so deep about this and so far no one has explained it to me either. I am simply perplexed. And unimpressed. There are three episodes left and I still don’t care what happens.
All the relationships and plot threads leave me unsatisfied. Will/Zoe supposedly have this deep relationship, but we barely get to know it; Kerry owes her life to Zoe, but almost all the emotional weight of that relationship is concentrated in a single flashback; John’s troubled relationship with his parents is clearly supposed to explain something fundamental about him, but we don’t really know what; The Guardians’ hostility toward Hal is supposed to be sinister, but because their motives remain opaque, it often feels arbitrary. These are all potentially good ideas individually, but the show still fails to bring them together. The spaces between these ideas continue to be filled with elaborate and often compelling fan theories, many of which I have enjoyed more than the show itself. It’s not a good sign.
All the action in the world won’t help if there’s no one to root for, and right now I’m mostly rooting for each episode to end. After all, the only character I really like on this show already has her fate sealed.
