Lanterns: The Last Manhunter
In episode 2, John has a surprising alien encounter while Hal continues his investigation in Rushville.
John Stewart’s next Green Lantern lesson—if you can even call it that—does not go well. Standing outside the motel where they slept overnight, Hal hands John his ring and tells him to fly. For Hal, a former pilot, this action is instinctual, but John can’t even get himself off the ground. Instead, he accidentally manifests a bird out of Green Lantern energy, embodying flight in a different way. John is understandably frustrated, but he’s also exhibiting an impressive command over the ring’s powers. Even after he returns the ring to Hal, the bird keeps flying around, which simply should not be possible.
What, exactly, does this mean? Hal has no idea, but he has other priorities, starting with the fact that his ring is running out of juice. It needs to be recharged every few days using a lantern-shaped battery, so Hal orders John to travel to Coast City and retrieve the lantern from his house. In a training exercise that Hal invents on the spot, he also tells John to keep the bird construct alive throughout his trip. Conveniently, this sidequest gets John out of the way so Hal can continue the investigation in Rushville alone, starting with a plan that involves stealing several fresh corpses from the morgue.
In Coast City, John discovers that Hal lives in a colossal, gleaming McMansion, almost entirely unfurnished. His bedroom resembles one of the more concerning images from r/malelivingspace, but when John phones Hal and asks him when he’s planning to properly move in, Hal reveals that he’s been living here for eight years. In all that time, he never bothered to install any furniture aside from a bed, a folding chair, and some photos of himself with dignitaries like the Pope. The house itself was a gift from a rich guy, thanking Hal for saving his son’s life. Green Lanterns don’t get paid much (if anything), and this empty mansion is another signal that without the ring, he’s got nothing. (We also have to wonder how John is supporting himself through what basically amounts to an indefinite unpaid internship. Maybe he has a military pension, but either way, he’s putting his life on hold for a job that may never materialize.)
Retrieving the lantern from a safe in Hal’s bedroom, John lingers by a wardrobe containing three identical Green Lantern uniforms—all, naturally, with the subdued color palette and generic body armor design you’d expect in a gritty adult superhero show. John peruses the uniforms with a reverent expression, holding one up in front of the mirror and asking Hal whether he should bring it back to Rushville. Hal says no, but John packs it anyway.
Back in episode 1, Hal claimed that he rarely wears the suit anymore because he’s already earned the public’s respect, implying that wearing a superhero costume all the time would be a bit of a try-hard move. But you may wonder if there’s something deeper going on here, with Hal making excuses to distance himself from the Green Lantern Corps and the heroic image of his 1990s heyday. It’s not quite as drastic as the contrast between the two eras of Matthew McConnaughey in True Detective (i.e., clean-cut detective vs. alcoholic burnout), but it certainly feels like another point of inspiration.
