[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Episode 6, “Bad Optics,” including the ending. Find last week’s review here, or for a spoiler-free analysis, read our full season review.]
“Shit, am I dead?”
Back in the series premiere, the Hal-o-gram’s first words serve as cheeky foreshadowing for the big reveal that ends that episode (aka revealing Hal’s dead body). But they also set up what Hal’s backup consciousness says when it spots Hal’s freshly exhumed body at the end of Episode 6:
“Goddamnit.”
While the real Hal may be dead and not-quite-buried, “Lanterns” won’t be without Kyle Chandler’s invaluable presence for the rest of the first season. “Bad Optics” revives Hal’s nicer alter-ego to join John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) as he investigates Hal’s murder. That’s right: Hal’s backup consciousness is now his former backup’s backup. Hal’s better half is replacing him, so his would-be replacement won’t be flying solo when it matters most.
Hal is back! Kind of.
Whether the Hal-o-gram is meant to be a permanent addition to “Lanterns” remains to be seen, but his reintroduction certainly invites a question or two about how the continuing series could move forward. Chandler’s portrayal of Hal is so charming, challenging, and flat-out fun that it’s hard to imagine the show without him. Now, we don’t have to, but saddling John with a semi-permanent sidekick may not align with the show’s long-term vision. Sure, it’s a nice reversal of their original dynamic, but does “Lanterns” need more than one Green Lantern to work? Does it even make sense for John to keep Hal (as a Hal-o-gram) around if/when he assumes the mantle? And is it “bad optics” to hitch an old white hero to a young Black hero’s story?
Forgive me for getting ahead of myself. “Lanterns” hasn’t even been renewed yet, so let’s put a pin in questioning how future seasons might look and get back to the present predicament: Who killed Hal Jordan?
The Case
Turns out the last person to see Hal Jordan alive may have been John Stewart. Although he doesn’t share as much with Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald) — even after she deputizes him (so cute) — John drives to Rushville the night Hal dies and meets with him at the diner. He goes there expecting an apology, but his mother’s promise is soon revealed as a lie. (Bernadette believes Hal wants to apologize, but Hal made no such promise.)
Instead, the former mentor and mentee argue over how much blame they each deserve for the destruction of a town and its ensuing death toll. “I took the fall,” Hal says, noting he was in prison for 10 years. “I spent the time. And we’re square.” John disagrees. “No, you didn’t take the fall,” he says. “You fell.”
Still, Hal doesn’t relent. After bringing up the new Green Lantern, a former gym teacher athletic director named Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hal tells John, “There’s more than one killer at this table. You know that, right?”
His forceful intonation is made all the more ominous by his parting words: “John,” Hal shouts. “Don’t tell anyone you were here. Please. Nobody.” Now, why would Hal care if anyone knew John was in Rushville? Is he meant to be protecting John from a town that hates him? Is Hal trying to keep a low profile while he goes door to door, apologizing and offering assistance? Or does he know something about what might happen to him later that night, and he wants to make sure the only person who can help him isn’t implicated in his death?
No matter the reason, John follows orders (not that he would consider anything Hal says an “order”) and later returns to town when Sheriff Kane calls to inform him of Hal’s death. She’s operating under the assumption that whoever broke his nose “probably killed Hal,” and if John cut himself on Hal’s teeth when he punched him in the face, the DNA results may be a problem come Monday. Whether that’s his rationale for sticking around (to prove he didn’t kill Hal by finding out who did) or there’s something more personal driving his investigation, investigate he does.
He bails on his big meeting to build “arcs” for cities in crisis. He calls in a favor from Guy Lantern to get Hal’s ring back, and then he steals the ring so he can use Hal’s backup consciousness to unlock the vault he left in The Fortress of Storage (which barely qualifies as a pun on Superman’s Fortress of Solitude). At least, I expect that’s why he went to such lengths to conjure the Hal-o-gram. The bird on Hal’s keychain has to be a message for John, right?
The Suspects
Does any of that bring us closer to finding out who killed Hal? It may not seem like it, but as it catches us up on 10 years worth of changes, Episode 6 slyly invites suspicion on a number of possible suspects. So, from most to least likely, let’s run them down:
• Sinestro. Hal’s former mentor may not have a big presence in “Lanterns” so far, but his name keeps popping up in all the wrong places. He killed a Guardian. He told Hal to kill John. If the Manhunter didn’t kill Abin Sur, then it’s more than likely Sinestro did. And now, Guy tells John that someone busted Sinestro out of space prison while Hal was in Earth prison. So the mustachioed pinkie is free as a bird, he’s got a grudge to settle with Hal (who locked him up way back when), and he’s a loose end the series needs to tie up.
• Noah. OK, there’s not a ton of evidence indicating that Sheriff Kane’s son is Hal’s killer, but there’s plenty of reasons to give him a closer look. First and foremost, the day the Manhunter died, it told Noah (Shea Pritchard) to remember everything it taught him. That comment seems too pointed to be random, and now he’s grown into an All-American kid? A football star who secured FEMA funds for Rushville and dreams of becoming President of the United States? Hal said (based on what Sinestro told him) that Manhunters always “find a path to power” in whatever community they embed themselves in. Maybe Noah is continuing his grandmother’s mission and Hal, once again, got in the way?
• Sheriff Kane. Frankly, I don’t want this to be true. It’s hard to imagine her having a relationship with Hal and then killing him, but John’s explanation for ruling her out as a suspect doesn’t quite work. “I know you didn’t kill him,” John says. “You’re too real to fake cry.” That may be true, but she could be crying real tears and still have pulled the trigger. Maybe she killed Hal to protect the town. Maybe she did it to protect someone she loves. Maybe she really hated the nickname “Buttercup.” Sorrow isn’t the same as innocence, even if I hope, in this case, they end up meaning the same thing.
• Anyone else in Rushville (including Billy). Clearly, the four dudes + Billy (Jason Ritter) who try to jump John are meant to convey just how far the remaining citizens would go to get rid of a Green Lantern — even killing him. Message received. But at this point, I doubt an unknown character is responsible for the season’s biggest mystery, just as I doubt Billy is capable of murder. (Sure, Hal was sleeping with Billy’s ex-wife, but I just can’t imagine a former Green Lantern being brought down by this putz.)
• John Stewart. I’m ranking John as the least likely killer because it really does seem impossible for him to have done it. We saw him leave Rushville after punching Hal. We saw him arrive home, however many hours later. And we saw him react with astonishment when Sheriff Kane broke the news. But during their brief conversation in the diner, Hal says, “There’s more than one killer at this table doesn’t sit right,” and the way he says it just doesn’t sit right. So I’m leaving the door open for a truly mind-blowing twist.
The Co(r)ps
As written by Justin Britt-Gibson and Damon Lindelof, John’s return to Rushville in Episode 6 carries deliberate echoes to his first visit in the premiere. Both trips start at the high school football field, where John finds a dead body (or four) and meets Sheriff Kane. Both trips include a stop at the town jail after brawling with the locals, albeit this time John’s the one behind bars instead of Hal. Both trips even include a home-cooked meal where meat is on the menu (Macon’s ribs vs. the sheriff’s meatloaf) for which John is specifically told to bring beer.
But things have changed. Downtown is still in ruins. Scorched buildings are propped up by once-temporary beams that have atrophied into permanent reminders. The streets are quiet — not in the comforting way engendered by a small town that keeps to itself, but like a ghost town, where a once-happy community has been gutted and left for dead. The few people who remain are angry, sad, or adrift. Some are all three.
Perhaps most importantly, though, is the change that no one recognized — well, no one but Sheriff Kane. After he fell, Hal Jordan changed. In the eulogy he wrote for himself, Hal apologizes to the people he hurt and adds, by way of explanation, “Maybe it was just easier to fly than it was to stay on the ground.” The former pilot did just that in his final months, returning to the town he helped destroy and rooting himself there. Some of the locals saw him as a weed, but he refused to be torn out. Sheriff Kane says Hal went door to door, every day, apologizing to the families he hurt and offering to help any way he could. He would do their shopping or mow their lawns, and when the door slammed in his face, he would try again later.
In other words, Hal humbled himself before he died, which may be why John feels so compelled to bring his killer to justice. No one cares about Hal, other than Sheriff Kane, but Hal cared about them. He even cared about John. In case it wasn’t crystal clear from Hal’s reaction to seeing John in the diner (which, thanks to Chandler’s tremendous work, it was), Carol Ferris (Amie MacKenzie) tells John as much at the funeral. “I bet he liked you, John,” she says, and when he looks at her with a mix of recognition and surprise, she adds, “And I also bet he never said it.”
Rushville and what happened there, in 2016 and the years that followed, mean something to John just like they meant something to Hal. Something larger than they can put into words, and something neither was able to leave behind.
“You never came home,” John’s brother Marcus tells him as he digs up Hal’s body. “You’ve been stuck in Rushville for 10 years, and you ain’t leaving until you finish whatever it is you and Hal motherfucking Jordan started out there. I just pray it doesn’t kill you like it killed him.”
Now John is on his own. Well, not quite on his own. Let’s see what that Hal-o-gram can do.
Grade: B+
“Lanterns” releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
“Good Luck or Oh Fuck” (Points of Clarity)
• Honestly, it’s really funny that when John hears “Hal Jordan wants to apologize,” he immediately drives all the way to Nebraska to get that apology. (And it’s just as funny that Hal wouldn’t give it to him.)
• Lots of father-figure emotions getting tossed around in Episode 6. John saying he never thought Hal would “actually die,” John driving all that way to hear two little words, John being moved by Carol’s assurance that Hal liked him — it all makes you wonder how John will feel if something happens to his actual father while he’s refusing to speak to him. And his actual father is in a bad way.
• In the comic books, Carol Ferris is Hal’s long-time love interest. Here, she seems like shorthand for his cool first wife — the one who was too smart to stick around when he broke bad. (And let’s be honest: Hal has been giving huge “divorced guy” energy this whole time.)
• Never thought I’d sympathize with a scary carnivorous plant, but sad Earl put an ache in my chest.
• “Billy! You look… how you doing?” (John can be funny.)
• “He said, ‘Go climb a rope.’”
“Ohhhh, because you’re a gym teacher.”
“No, because he’s a shit fuck!”
(Good assist, John. Hal would appreciate you backing up his joke.)
• Where on Earth did Noah find a black suit on such short notice that would fit John? There’s no way Noah’s clothes would fit, nor his father’s, so did he go to a rental place? Or maybe one of his offensive lineman from the football team?
• I love that Hal made sure to account for the possibility of a female president, but he was still sexist enough to doubt a woman could ever be Green Lantern. Guess he didn’t change that much.
