Lanterns Episodes 5 to 8 reviews

 

Episode Five- Lights Out

This episode is the best yet at balancing the series’ more thoughtful scenes with it’s action ones. As the town comes under threat from the aliens searching for the Manhunter and Hal leaves John for dead, emotions are running high. The 2007 opening flashback depicts Kerry’s arrival in town, pursued by killers and shows how Zoe helped her- for a price. It’s a fitting beginning to an episode where several characters have to make an important choice as to what to do. If the sometimes tongue tied dialogue makes it harder to work out what people’s motivations are then this episode suggests everyone is looking after themselves.

Spoilers after the break...

Though there are three more episodes to go, this feels like a finale. Rushville is half destroyed by the Manhunter’s red rays which is imagery right out of classic pulp sci fi comic art. I was hoping they might even have a silver flying saucer. Yet this threat is not met by the sort of brave superhero response you’d expect. Hal is determined to hold on to the ring, John to have it, yet what motivates both of them in their aims is muddier, deliberately so I think.

It leads to the last scene where, having finally prised the object away from Hal, John declines to keep it saying he doesn’t know why he wanted it in the first place. Its fitting that after all their clashes, John has come to understand something of the pressures of having that ring and, seeing the sort of person it’s turned Hal into, chooses to walk away from it. It still doesn’t answer the quandry of why everyone seems to dislike Hal and why the Guardians can’t just take the ring back themselves if they think he’s a poor choice.

The last time I saw two superheroes pitted against each other in the infamous Batman vs Superman film it had no real tension or believability. It was a grudge fuelled by other characters rather than the sort of moral disagreement that might divide people who should be allies. If not perfect, Lanterns does address such a scenario with considerably more thought even if Hal is an awkward character to understand. It is satisfying though to see John turn the tables, tricking Zoe into a position where he is able to kill her- and it looks like she is dead this time. Mind you for a series in which two characters have survived being blown up in a car, you never know!

Beyond the conceptual there’s plenty of action to satisfy those who feel the series has up till now been too slow. Alongside some medical wonders- a finger being replaced, a wholly burned body being cleansed and restored- there are some more basic thrills as director Geeta Vasent Patel’s cameras glide and screech with the speeding cars, flying bullets and death rays. Considering the seroes would not have anything like the budget of a movie, it’s convincingly done.

Possible weird things? How come Zoe’s grandson is so casual about impending doom- and what are those things she has told him? Why did Macon thank Zoe for the “gift of time” in their final call? I was thinking how little we know about his background. Like several aspects of the series I wonder if quite a bit of material has been cut as matters do seem to leap ahead erratically.

 

Episode Six – Bad Optics

An intriguing and more thoughtful episode that, save for one incident, focusses on dialogue and character. In keeping with the finale feel of the previous episode, this does sometimes seem like the start of another season. It’s the present day and John is a successful architect in a company run with his older brother. As the episode opens, he is pitching to build multiple safe buildings; equipped with panic rooms, to mitigate the collateral damage of any future superhero slapdowns. Yet somehow he can’t leave Rushville behind. An unexpected call brings him for a terse meeting with Hal. The latter has been imprisoned for part of the decade since the events of 2006 and on release moved back to the town seemingly repentant for what happened. Only this is not the mood John finds him in; it only takes a brief exchange for his abrasive personality to surface and he ends up being hit on the nose by John. Soon after Hal is found dead meaning John has to go back to Rushville again; this time when he should be finalising that property deal.

The image of Hal frozen on the bleachers in heavy snow was shown earlier in the series so now we know why he had blood on his face though this was not the cause of death. In a town that more or less unanimously hated him, his killer will not be easy to find. And when John activates the beacon to summon the current Green Lantern- the strangely bequiffed Guy Gardiner – he gets into more trouble.

The episode sometimes reminds me of Twin Peaks with local prejudices and behaviour as important as the main plot. Rather that pursue the obvious plotline of `who killed Hal Jordan?` it’s almost comical how all concerned want to literally and metaphorically bury him as soon as they can. The sparsely attended funeral is another sequence that brings dry humour to a sombre occasion as unsurprisingly perhaps Hal had written his own eulogy. The latter imagines dignitaries, presidents and crowds of hundreds turning out to see him off which shows his overinflated sense of importance. As it happens only three people are there.

If the narrative has a weakness it’s the somewhat blanket dislike of Hal even though he must surely have saved some people. The script tries to compensate for that in introducing a development wherein Hal and Kerry had an affair when he returned but it doesn’t really fly especially when we see Hal hasn’t really changed that much. I assume his supposed caring side – rejected by the townsfolk- was performative. The episode’s title fits in with that when Gardiner won’t stay for his predecessor’s funeral as he thinks it is “bad optics”.

As a protagonist, John Stewart is contradictory to say the least. One minute he has his new life together, very sure he made the right decision to reject the ring and all that came with it but by the episode’s end he is digging up the just buried coffin to retrieve Hal’s ring so he can summon the Halogram (love that name!). He can’t keep away from it! I wonder if that was the real reason he was so eager to come back after hearing of Hal’s death.

Aaron Pierre does a really strong job this episode, as Joh’ns priorities shift and change while he tries to juggle everything. At times he almost has a James Bond- like quality; unruffled yet occasionally mildly amused, honest yet also prone to omission, sympathetic yet also selfish. It may seem like a less showy role than many in the DC Universe but it will be one that reveals more depths if re watched I’m sure.

I really like the direction of this episode too. Stephen Williams draws clear delineation between John’s life in the city and the less sophisticated town of Rushville. Along with cinematographer Gregory Middleton the viewer is really drawn into the snowy locale, the old fashioned café and that shadowy cottage where John stays. A super sound mix enables us to hear the creaking wood and wily winds. For any series at this stage these are good optics!

 

Episode Seven: The Jordan Boys’ Legacy

Sooner or later most American stories get round to fathers and sons often with a baseball involved and so it is in this unusual episode we learn more about Hal’s background. Now back only as a hologram – yet still as awkward – Hal is not exactly being co-operative with John who is trying to find out if whatever is in a mysterious locked box hides a clue to Hal’s killer. As it turns out it is something much less expected- a portable wormhole to another planet.

Directed by Alik Sakharov with the poise of an intellectual science fiction tale, the episode mixes enigmatic conversations with some interesting visuals. In keeping with the shows’s down to earth aesthetic the planet, which turns out to be Antaan’s homeworld, is rendered as dark and stormy with a deserted city hanging in the sky above. Sinstro seems to be here but as other reviewers have pointed out within the context of this show the narrative hasn’t really explained much about him. Comic fans know but the rest of us are in the dark. Nonetheless the overall appearance of this episode reminds us how rarely we get sci-fi on tv that isn’t based solely on action sequences.

In the end the look of the episode surpasses the script’s reach even if the latter mediates on fatherhood and being able to cope with life. Its wrapped around a story of a young Hal and a match ball which becomes symbolically important after Jordan senior dies, seemingly at his own hand. This in turn brings up the interesting theory that Hal may have killed himself in a similar turn of events. That’s quite a dark storyline but there aren’t many suspects and it would certainly fit in with the Jordan Boys legacy that lends its name to the episode title. Lanterns definitely goes it’s own way and there’s absolutely no sense that this penultimate episode is building a head of steam for a finale.

 

Episode Eight: Dirt and Stars

There will be some who feel this closing episode is anticlimactic considering it plays against sci fi series type. Rather than some epic confrontation or perhaps something more emotionally draining, matters reach their conclusion largely by way of conversation, meaningful pauses and a fabulous sound mix that can run a football game in the background while not distracting from a foregrounded serious conversation. Any violence takes place mostly in flashbacks as we finally find out who murdered Hal and that Kerry’s son Noah is a manhunter.

The series has at times laboured over its plot points so I honestly can’t recall now if we knew this already but it leads to some excellent scenes in which John more or less talks Noah out of doing anything crazy and, later, John and Kerry discuss what has happened without it seeming like exposition. There’s some great, subtle acting and script choices here as the show’s signature slow dialogue finally pays off.

I was still waiting for some last-minute twist but it doesn’t really come unless you count John’s decision as to what to do with the ring and lantern he now has. Instead the lengthy dialogue scenes circle back to close most plot strands and end up back on the subject of fear, whether of danger or from parents looking after children. Characters reach an understanding and the results may lack the melodramatic finale fireworks people might expect yet satisfactorily show how thoroughly this narrative has been constructed. These last three episodes seem to have found the show’s signature beat giving it the tone of reading a book and it makes a refreshing change even if it does mean this episode must have the fewest special effects of any sci fi show! The three writers- Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King can be proud of this understated but well measured episode which is directed appropriately by Alik Sakharov.

So at the end John more or less appoints himself Green Lantern for the Earth much to Guy Gardner’s consternation. “You take the stars, I’ll take the dirt” John tells him hence the episode title. I’ve seen mixed reviews of this episode and indeed the series and I have to admit that looking back it has been somewhat uneven at times with some plot point being obviously stated while other matters remained vague. However, I do feel this has been a boldly experimental show that becomes more sure of itself and develops its own identity the more it progresses. While some episodes are better than others and it is quite a sonorous, slow watch, the style has elegance and more humour than you might imagine. Both Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre are excellent in these roles and if an avenue can be found for them to continue I’d welcome a second season.