After spending the better part of five episodes discovering the past, Lanterns is now tackling the present. With the events of Rushville in 2016 behind us, the sixth episode of the season, “Bad Optics,” took place wholly in 2026. That means events from Superman are referenced. Events from The Suicide Squad are referenced. A certain Caped Crusader is referenced. But, most importantly, we can finally get back to those lingering questions from the very first episode: Who killed Hal Jordan, and is he even really dead in the first place? Let’s dig in.
The first scene of the episode gives us a ton of crucial information all in rapid-fire succession. We learn that in the past 10 years, John has given up his superhero aspirations, reconnected with his brothers, and even started a business with Marcus. They build high-end panic rooms to keep people safe from things like events in Metropolis (Superman reference) and giant starfish (The Suicide Squad reference) and he’s hoping to get a contract to build $30 billion worth. It’s looking pretty good.
John’s decision to not become the Green Lantern, though, is something people know about. The guys he pitches for his project know about it. And, clearly, his parents know about it. Over the course of the episode, we get a sense of how that decision drove a wedge between them, so when John gets a call from his mom, it’s a little surprising. It’s even more surprising that he calls her by her first name and that she tells him she’s been in touch with Hal Jordan all these years. Now that he’s out of jail, Hal wants to apologize to John. Or so Mom says.
As pissed as John is at Hal for everything that happened back in 2016, he seems even madder at his Mom for talking to him behind his back. So he drives to Rushville (it’s unclear how far Midway City is from there but, apparently, not that bad, as he goes back and forth a lot) and sits down with Hal at the cafe. No one is there except for a young waitress on her smoke break.
It turns out John’s mom lied. Hal doesn’t want to apologize. He’s actually very surprised to see John at all. We learn that Hal was basically blamed for all the destruction in Rushville and served 10 years in prison for it. He thinks that makes him and John square for everything, but John disagrees. They go back and forth about who is responsible for what and, at one point, Hal explains that a “gym teacher” is now Green Lantern and that he “ripped off that guy in Gotham” by putting a signal in the middle of town. Yes, in 2026, Batman exists in the DC Universe, though we won’t learn more than that here.
Hal continues to needle John, mainly about his strained relationship with his mother, until John punches him in the face. Hal accepts it and oddly makes a point of making sure John doesn’t tell anyone he’s there. Of course, we know a certain waitress knows, and that’ll come back later.
John goes home, pours a drink (which is significant because he didn’t drink for most of the story, up until after the Manhunter was dead), and gets a call. It’s Sheriff Kane, and we know why she’s calling. Hal Jordan is dead. We’ve finally made it back to that shocking conclusion of the pilot episode, where John and the Sheriff observe Hal frozen on the football bleachers. Now though, we have one crucial extra piece of information: John saw Hal soon before that.
As is the case throughout this episode, the conversation between John and the Sheriff is loaded with important information. She tells him that after he got out of prison, Hal moved back to Rushville and they started a relationship. When she went to work, he’d go door to door and offer to help people however he could, even though everyone hated him and blamed him for the death and destruction that happened back in 2016. The town is still recovering from it and, for the most part, has not rebuilt.
Hal’s death reawakens something in John. The mysteries of Rushville aren’t over, and he decides to stay at Hal’s old house for a bit to see what he can find out. This pisses off his brother Marcus because they have a crucial meeting about the $30 billion panic room project, but John assures him he’ll be able to do both.
Over coffee, the sheriff deputizes John so he can accompany her on the investigation. He’s still withholding that key piece of information about their late-night meeting, though, and the one person who knows, the waitress, winks at him as John and the Sheriff talk as if to say, “I got you.” It’s weird but, later, we learn she’s hoping to hold the information over John to blackmail him for over $300,000 in compensation for what he and Hal did to her family.
That happens later, though. For now, John and the sheriff go to the morgue to learn Hal was shot point-blank in the head. There was no struggle. The sheriff thinks Hal’s broken nose (which John gave him, but she doesn’t know that) is a clue, but the coroner disagrees. She also doesn’t really care, as we finally get to see just how much Hal was despised by everyone.
The coroner gives the sheriff Hal’s belongings, which include a key to a storage unit at “The Fortress of Storage.” There, they find an alien safe that can only be unlocked by Hal’s voice, in person. Which is a problem since he’s dead. The pair don’t know how to deal with that but decide to have a memorial for Hal the next day.
That night, on the way to dinner at the sheriff’s, John lights up the Green Lantern’s Bat-signal in the center of town. The act draws a bunch of townies, including the sheriff’s now ex-husband Billy. “The Green Lantern isn’t welcome here,” they say. He and his friends pick a fight with John, who beats the crap out of all of them, before heading to dinner, where he eats meatloaf. Yes, he drinks and eats meat now.
While at dinner, the sheriff gets a call about John’s actions and is forced to arrest him. He calls his brother to wire him bail money and, the next morning, gets a visitor. It’s Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion, Earth’s current Green Lantern and aforementioned “gym teacher.” We learn a bunch in his chat with John, such as the Guardians forged a new ring for him, the Rushville business made all the Lanterns look bad, and that someone has broken Sinestro out of “Space Azkaban.” Surely, that’s going to be important moving forward.
John called Guy to Rushville for a favor. He wants to bury Hal in Hal’s Green Lantern costume along with his decommissioned ring. Guy tells him those are in storage on the Guardians’ home planet of Oa, and getting them would get him in deep trouble with his bosses. John counters by saying Guy owes him because if he hadn’t said no to the ring, Guy wouldn’t have been the Lantern in the first place.
Once the bail money arrives, John gets out and has a ton of voicemails. His mom is worried, his brother is worried, his dad has been kicked out of his nursing home. John gets his other brother to, begrudgingly, take care of their father before arriving back at Hal’s house and the aforementioned blackmailing by the waitress. Yeah, it’s a lot.
Guy does end up getting Hal’s Green Lantern gear for the funeral, though, and there he’s greeted by one of Hal’s exes, Carol Ferris. She asks John to give the eulogy, which Hal wrote himself, and very sadly was written under the assumption that his death was going to be this massive, global event. Three people are there.
Once everyone leaves, John waits until dark and starts to dig up Hal’s body. As he does that, he screws up the business call he and his brother were waiting on, and his brother tells him that mentally, he’s been stuck in Rushville for the past 10 years and that he hopes it doesn’t kill him like it did Hal.
Why is John digging up Hal’s body? Well, because his ring still has a little juice left, and he uses it to resurrect Hal’s Sentry. He’s going to use Hal to help investigate Hal’s death.
With episode six of Lanterns, the whole season got a new pace, a new focus, and a slightly new story. We can really feel the weight of the events of the past decade, and while most people tried to forget it, John Stewart is going to have to figure it out.
What did you think about this new direction on Lanterns? Are you as intrigued by this as the Manhunter mystery? Let us know below.
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Source: Gizmodo