Lanterns, episode 5 is being hailed as the best of one yet, and it is great…BUT.
I can’t help but wonder why this show is so addictive despite the best efforts of the writers room to derail it. Let’s explore, shall we?
There is an ongoing dichotomy between the characters’ actions and their dialogue. And a second dichotomy between what the show presents and what the members of the writers’ room say publicly about it.
Weird.
The writers’ room would have us believe that Hal Jordan is—to greater and lesser degrees—a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser. But his actions on the show demonstrate that Hal is focused on the 2016 case of four dead aliens in Rushville, Nebraska, and has been on it since 1996, when he assigned his ring-self to keep an eye on the area because he knew it was only a matter of time before things popped off there.
That’s not tired, burned out, etc. That’s a space cop doing his job well.
The writers’ room would have us believe that Hal Jordan is mean and cruel and not teaching John Stewart anything about being a Green Lantern because he is a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser. And yet they put clues in the show that flips that frequently promoted perception. Actually, Hal strikes out at cruel and mean people throughout the show (see the bar patrons, the jailed alien time bomb, the Stewarts.
I better explain that last one.
We see Hal in the Stewart home before John gets to his parents, even though John rushes right home to tell them he got the GL job. What is not shown is what absolutely must be true; Hal was informed that the Guardians were looking to replace him, and found out about John soon enough to do research on who he was, his family background, and get there to see them first hand to make his own assessment. That’s GL level work right there.
The writers room seems to want us to believe that when he visited the Stewart home, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern missed that ascending line of bullet holes in the garage, and didn’t make small talk with the Stewarts like he did with the pool-playing bar patrons and the arrested alien football fan, and the Macons, and the Sheriff, and the towns folk. The writers’ room seems to want us to believe Hal didn’t employ the same Columbo-esque technique he did in every one of those previously mention encounters.
Bah.
Hal Jordan doesn’t miss a thing. And he made a quick assessment with his gut.
Despite what was taken as a white privileged assessment of the Stewarts as “mid-west Huxtables” if we look at the year he delivered that backhanded compliment—2016—we know the Bill Cosby sexual predator scandal blew up in 2014-2015, tainting any reference to the Huxtables. In this context, Hal is doing what he’s done throughout this show, saying what he means with a smile. He’s accusing the Stewart’s of looking like the perfect family (you know, like the Huxtables) while having a dark secret. Having seen the abusive, troubling way they raised John (which he himself terms “crazy” in his interview for the GL job), we all know Hal is right.
The irony here is that Tom King knew going into the writers room that Hal Jordan was confronted about his white privilege over 55 years ago, and embarked on one of the most classic runs in comics to reteach himself about his own and his country’s deep flaws, which led to John Stewart becoming a Green Lantern, among other things.
Knowing all of this going into the writers’ room, how did Tom King not reject Hal leaping out of a moving car for the second time this season so it would crash into a pole with John Stewart in it sans power ring? Unless they are going to do the whole Parallax saga in the final three episodes of this season, this is not the behavior of the Hal Jordan we’ve known for more than half a century.
Has Hal suffered from the last half century’s sexism and racism creeping into his comics? Almost every comic character has, and thankfully, they have been allowed to progress. Until in this TV series. But only sometimes.
Weird.
The car accident is picked up in episode five, with Hal walking over to the wreckage, seeing John Stewart trapped in there, and both apologizing for the crash (supposedlyy because Hal can’t trust John anymore because he withheld knowledge that Zoe is the Manhunter). Also during this same odd visit, Hal tells John Green Lanterns “don’t kill people” then leaves John in an already smoking car wreck where John, very much a person in Hal’s eyes, could die. He does this very soon after declaring that Green Lanterns don’t kill people.
The logic of Hal’s characterization in this scene defies logic.
Weird.
And then Hal goes through town looking for Zoe the Manhunter despite being asked again to leave town. This request comes from Sheriff Kerry Kane after she empties her gun twice at him. She warns that townspeople will die and confirms she owes Zoe for performing a miracle for her (my guess is Noah). Hal offers to fly Kerry and Noah to safety. Kerry says she’s not leaving, this is her home, and asks Hal to leave. Hal says, “I can’t do that,” not because he’s a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser, but because he’s a hero who has been watching Rushville for a decade knowing some form of this chaos was coming.
And then he faces off against that overwhelming, three-sided chaos. Alone. Like a space cop High Noon.
One side is Antaan and his body bombers. Some want to say Hal brought them to town, endangering everybody. Nope. He was watching for their arrival or the Manhunters arrival, or some similar threat for ten years because that’s what Green Lanterns do.
And he faces off against Macon’s militia, an entire town armed to protect Zoe the Manhunter because she benefited them. Online, Hal is being called selfish for endangering the townsfolk, but who is selfish, the Green Lantern ready to take on a three-sided threat of impossible odds to save as many townspeople as possible or that entire town wanting to salvage their exclusive healthcare package by serving an alien’s desire to see Hal dead? And Hal still saved as many of them as he could. Wow, that’s selfish.
Yet the writers’ room isn’t out here defending Hal.
Weird.
The final part of the trifecta of chaos is Zoe herself. Want to talk about selfish? She let John burn just so she could save him so he would owe her his allegiance. She let him burn. His whole body. Just so she could do what she did to Macon, to Sheriff Kerry, to the whole town. So who is really selfish in this show?
The writers’ room would have us believe John developed feelings for Zoe the Manhunter. They actually wrote in the script that a Marine sniper who kept a gun trained on an arms dealer’s front door for nine months, remaining disciplined enough to stay fit on a diet of bugs and berries, would lower his weapon at someone he’s very sure is a suspect if not the actual Manhunter (at this point) just for some nookie, fully aware that Sheriff Kerry armed him because people would be coming to kill him and Hal.
That’s not John Stewart.
The John Stewart we’ve come to know from comics and animated series for the past half century doesn’t let his guard down. Our John Stewart is the one who tells Zoe the Manhunter what she wants to hear. In bed. And on the operating table. He even jokes despite burns to his full body that the deal’s off if she heals him into white skin just. He does this to keep her off balance, already knowing he was going to employ all his sniper skills to end her.
That’s our John Stewart.
The dichotomy of those incongruous portrayals of John Stewart in the same season of the same show, sometimes in the same episode is…
Weird.
Hal’s getting dissed online for “recklessly letting his ring’s power drain during the town battle. Nope. He’s busy trying to save as many of the townsfolk as possible. He shields whole portions of the townspeople from Zoe the Manhunter’s red lasers that already destroyed buildings. That drains his ring’s power even though he’ll need it to fight the towns people he’s saving, and Antaan’s crew, and Zoe the Manhunter. Once again, what Hal does is not reflective of what the writers room want us to believe about him being a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser.
And once he’s got Zoe the Manhunter handcuffed (not killed because GL’s don’t kill) he fights heroically when the townsfolk repay his efforts by attacking him with the black clouds, again showing he’s not a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser as he takes them all on with fists and ring power and quick thinking that has him snatch up goggles so he can see through the black smoke, clock Antaan ticking down to detonation, and hurricane his ass away from the town before Antaan can blow up the people trying to kill Hal from every side.
Yeah, damn selfish of him. He’s such a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser.
When Hal sees that Zoe the Manhunter cut her own hand off to escape, and his power is down to five percent, he uses a helicopter (he is a pilot) to go recharge so he can recapture her. Instead, John delivers a much deserved beat down to Hal (at least the out-of-character Hal who left him in the car). But he doesn’t kill Hal. That’s when John’s true character is demonstrated.
For his part, Hal fights back, but never uses the ring against John, which would have allowed him to win this fight easily. That’s true Hal. Instead, when Zoe the Manhunter sends her red lasers to kill them both, Hal uses the last of his ring’s power to save them both, despite the beat down. Is this the actions of a tired, burned out, old, jealous, privileged, racist, pan sexual loser? Nah. It’s a Green Lantern doing what is right.
John leaves Hal beaten and disappears into the chaos. Hal understands why and even tells Zoe when she comes to kill him. She gloats, asking Hal, “Why would John leave you here for me?” Hal smiles with bloodied lips. “As bait.” Zoe turns, sees John with his sniper rifle because, as the sheriff told us, Zoe the Manhunter can see everything. And she smiles, sure her charm will get him to lower his weapon again.
But John knows he isn’t looking at the Zoe he was intimate with twice, he’s seeing the Manhunter, the architect of all this chaos. And he puts a bullet right through its brain. Then he goes to her and cuts out her heart. When that heart crystallizes, John is sure, and has completed his journey from the chain-of-command obeying automaton his parents and the Marines trained to the independent thinking hero worthy of the mantel of Green Lantern.
But John also knows those taking up that mantle are beholden the Guardians. And he knows what they have done to maintain their control of that powerful army of space cops. So he delivers the heart, the lantern, and the ring, and rejects it all, walking away his own man.
That is terrific storytelling despite all the writers’ room weirdly trying to derail it.
How is it still a great show with all the ancillary oddness the writers keep adding in or saying in interviews?
Over half a century of outstanding characters evolving beyond writer and societal limitations will rise above such weird flaws. Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and next week, Guy Gardner, are just a few of the indomitable figures of modern American mythology. And that is what mythological figures do, they point the way to ascension, to evolution, to becoming our better selves.
Even Hollywood can’t completely derail that power.
