“Lanterns” has spent its first half of episodes dropping real DC names without explaining them. The A.V. Club published a piece sorting through the show’s secret seeds, and the show’s own critic cheerfully admits he had to step aside because he knows too much about what is coming next.
Withholding is the entire purpose of the production. It is a deliberate exercise, from start to finish.
The Seeds That Refuse to Sprout
“Bad Optics” drops at least two major characters from Green Lantern lore into Rushville. One was practically mandatory, the other fleetingly unexpected. But even in the surprise, Lanterns keeps the flashy space-swashbuckling stuff firmly off-screen.
The Manhunter storyline wrapped up in episode 5, and the 10-year time jump to “Bad Optics” makes clear there is still life after the ring. John is now a smooth architect for “rich people with too much money,” pitching Midway City on investing in his anti-superhero underground bunkers. He warns the city fathers that the “only move these days is to hide from superhero shit.”
John’s Time Away
John says he used to be one “for five minutes,” but coming back has hardly been easy. He now drinks and eats meat, and his business is prospering enough to outfit him with a stylish bachelor pad and a smart truck. Marcus works for him, while Aaron’s music career is bankrolled by John. Both brothers refer to him as “Chosen” in a not-quite friendly kind of teasing.
John’s parents are no longer together. His father, John Sr., is being cared for by others as an older man, while his mother, Bernadette, has been speaking with Hal, who has spent 10 years behind bars.
Hal’s Return
After ten years locked up on Earth, Hal returned to Rushville. He came back for Kerry, and he did. She is divorced, and she and Hal have become a couple of sorts, though not an entirely conventional one. Kerry tells John this over Hal’s dead body, and Hal leaves rascely voice messages on her phone.
Hal returned… to be a hero. No one actually uses that word, but he went door-to-door asking if he could assist. He offered to carry groceries, do yard work — anything to help. A shotgun trap at his front door shows how well that worked out. John finds Earl there warily, and the man offers up a playful bout of shadow-boxing to the bereft alien plant-creature.
The Fall That Made the Episode
Hal’s crimes stemmed from insecurity and buried trauma — he had been Earth’s first Green Lantern, glowingly interviewed and hounded for autographs. Now he is a tired-looking ex-con in his 60s, resentfully but honestly hoping someone he has wronged will accept his contrition.
Both Hal and John want to say sorry, according to Kerry, yet both deny having done anything wrong. Hal says it knowingly, “I took the fall,” and John answers coldly, “No, you didn’t take the fall—you fell. And people got killed.” John then hits Hal, and the broken nose found on Hal’s frozen body a short time later was the consequence.
Rushville’s Tempera
The cataclysmic fate that saw Hal stripped of his ring and identity is what defines Rushville throughout the episode. John refused the destiny he did not wish for. Kerry grieves the loss of her in-laws, one of whom was a secret killer-bot, along with the ruin of the town she vowed to defend ever since Zoe saved her life.
Hal’s decline is plain for all to see, even if its causes are tangled. His desire to regain his standing as both a man and a hero drove him, far beyond merely saving Rushville. Burning John up in a car came about mostly by chance.
Why Withholding Works
The show’s piecemeal exposition, with Hal’s nonchalant references to Mogo and Ch’p, is just as good as the full explanations. The audience has to do some of the work. That is a deliberate choice.
The A.V. Club’s piece is just one example of the speculative work readers have turned to. The show’s own critic admits he had to step aside because he is a “spoiled little screener boy.”
A Lesson in How to Seed a Universe
“Lanterns” is not just a good superhero show. It is a deliberate exercise in withholding, and the seeds are there, but they are subtle. The audience has to pay attention.
The purpose of holding something back is to make the world beyond the screen seem vast, and to make the people within it feel genuine.
A Short Comparison of Hal’s Falls
| Fall | Motivation | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Lanterns’ Hal | Insecurity, buried trauma | Stripped of ring, dead |
| Comics’ Hal | Saving Earth | Retconned years later |
The comics’ fall took the character years and editorial retconning to walk back. Lanterns’ fall is as undeniable as it is complex.
The program’s distinctive approach involves taking passages from other works and presenting them directly, without alteration. This method is a deliberate stylistic decision, and it proves effective.
Source material: “Lanterns remains an exercise in withholding while opening itself up to the wider DC Universe,” The A.V. Club.
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