Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Lanterns Season 1, Episode 6!
It was obvious from watching Lanterns Episode 5 that the series was due for a major shake-up in the remaining three installments. The 2016 storyline reached its fiery climax, as half of Rushville was destroyed, the Manhunter stood revealed, and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) finally had their big falling-out. The series now pivots by returning fully to the 2026 timeline first teased in the pilot and digging into the mystery surrounding Hal's apparent murder. Lanterns is a very different show in Episode 6, and not necessarily for the better.
Looking at Season 1 as a whole so far, the pacing is definitely a little strange. Lanterns teased a 2026 narrative early on and then waited a full month to return to that plot thread. Meanwhile, you have Episode 5 acting as a major storytelling climax smack dab in the middle of the narrative. I can't help but wonder if there might have been some way to more evenly divvy up the 2016 and 2026 storylines and delay the epic battle in Rushville till later in the season. To be fair, I can only imagine the extra challenges that would impose on the writers. How do you dig deeper into 2026 without overtly spoiling what happens in 2016?
And as it stands, it sounds like Episode 5 was originally intended to be Episode 7, so there was certainly some experimentation going on with the season's structure. It's just a difficult adjustment going from the spectacle and drama of Episode 5 to this quieter, more somber murder mystery in Episode 6. It's like riding a rollercoaster that peaks midway through.
The real problem with the 10-year jump forward, though, is that we lose out on the show's biggest selling point. Hal being dead means we don't get that all-important dynamic between the two Green Lanterns. Episode 6 only really has the one scene between them in the diner, taking place hours before Hal is mysteriously killed. It's a great scene, mind you, with Chandler delivering some of his best work on the series to date and really conveying the decade of emotional and physical hardship Hal has endured since the two last met. We even see him show genuine fear at the thought of John revealing that they met, which opens up all sorts of burning questions. Sadly, it's just not enough.
This episode tries to make up for the lack of Hal by establishing friction between John and various other characters. His relationships with his various family members have clearly frayed over the course of 10 years, and the episode is pretty elegant at conveying all that backstory without becoming overly expository. There's also the idea that John is wading into dangerous waters by returning to Rushville and implicating himself in Hal's murder. This is becoming a portrait of a man trying to prevent his carefully constructed, post-superhero life from falling apart.
But try as it might, Episode 6 doesn't fully hook me in that regard. Particuarly when it comes to the subplot involving the waitress Maggie (Hannah Christine Shetler) blackmailing John, it just feels like writers Justin Britt-Gibson and Damon Lindelof are adding character drama for the sake of it. I want the series to focus on the more pressing matters – the identity of Hal's killer, the whereabouts of Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), the question of how and why John finally embraces his destiny as the Green Lantern. Placing so much emphasis on John's legal troubles and efforts to salvage his architecture firm just comes across as a narrative diversion.
Apart from the early diner scene, Episode 6 mainly succeeds when it focuses more on the Green Lantern side of things. For one thing, we finally get that long-promised cameo from Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner. Guy helps fill that Hal-shaped hole in the series for a couple of scenes, quickly establishing a fun dynamic with John that I hope is explored more in Man of Tomorrow next year. This episode addresses some of the big questions regarding the Green Lantern successorship and why Guy, not Hal or John, was the designated Lantern in 2025's Superman.
The funeral sequence also works very well, serving as a bleakly amusing little tribute to Hal and an exploration of how far the character has fallen over the years. Hal assumed his funeral would be attended by dignitaries and celebrities both terrestrial and alien, and yet the only people who show up are two old girlfriends and one ex-colleague who hated his guts. On that note, it's a nice treat to see Carol Ferris (Amie MacKenzie) stop by and allude to her own tumultuous history with Hal. But as with a lot of the classic Green Lantern supporting characters in this show, we don't really get enough of Carol before she's gone.
All in all, Episode 6 is a fairly disappointing follow-up to the stellar "Lights Out," but I'm hopeful things will pick up in Episode 7. The fact that the Halogram is back in action means the show can get back to emphasizing the terrific chemistry between Pierre and Chandler. The series just needs to focus more on the story threads that truly matter.
