Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another review/reaction of this week’s episode of Lanterns, “Bad Optics.” If you want to see our thoughts on last week’s episode, “Lights Out,” here’s a link to that review. This week’s episode of Lanterns marks Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner’s first appearance. Oh! Spoiler alert is in effect for the rest of this post. “Bad Optics” does a lot of heavy lifting, as in a ton of playing catch up between the 2016 storyline and 2026 (which was hinted at in the series’ pilot). It’s a tall order, but “Bad Optics” does a decent job playing catch up. I still question Lanterns‘ ability to finish strong.
Let’s start with Lanterns “Bad Optics'” playing catch up. In the ten years after the Manhunter (2016), Hal Jordan goes to jail, Hal serves almost ten years in prison, Rushville’s sheriff gets a divorce, Hal and the sheriff get together, John Stewart mends fences with one of his brothers (Marcus), the two Stewart brothers launch an architect firm (that constructs panic rooms), John’s other brother (Aaron) still resents him but gladly accepts John’s financial support to start a music business, John and his mother are estranged, John’s father is in assisted living, Hal’s ring gets decommissioned, the Guardians forge a new ring, Sinestro flees prison, and Guy Gardner becomes Earth’s new Green Lantern. And that’s an abridged list. A lot has happened in a decade.
“Bad Optics” features plenty of talking during meals. Oh! One thing I missed was John’s mother having a relationship with Hal behind John’s back. She lies and says Hal wants to apologize for the Manhunter debacle. One of the meals was when John meets Hal at Rushville’s diner. When Hal doesn’t give John the apology he’s looking for, John punches him in the face. I vaguely remembered Hal’s nose bleeding in the closing minutes of the Lanterns‘ pilot. Like I said, there’s a lot that’s happened in ten years. Whenever someone writes a story like this, they risk info dumping (unloading a ton of information all at once with the characters doing little but talking). This happens a lot in “Bad Optics.”
But the show sprinkles in some action, breaking up these long stretches of info dumping. I especially liked the moment when John makes multiple phone calls while driving. Despite a lot of info dumping occurring, this gave the scene some forward momentum. All the issues (Aaron refusing to deal with their dad, Marcus pleading with John to come home, and the call between John and the nursing home) built on each other. John was halfway on his way home when he runs into a Rushville resident extorting him for money. (John didn’t tell the sheriff he met Hal before he died.) This latest development forces John to stay in Rushville. That and John wants Hal’s ring. He wants the ring bad enough to dig up Hal’s grave and retrieve it. And that’s where we leave Lanterns this week. John has the ring. He summons Hal’s projected self. My guess is John will use the projection to open Hal’s voice-locked safe.
Lanterns is looking a lot like Luke Cage season one, which I mentioned last week. We’re seeing it play out in this episode. The show takes a step back to set up the final confrontation (and a second villain). The Manhunter wasn’t the final confrontation. The show only has three episodes to piece together a compelling villain. I don’t know if it has enough time.
One of our commentors from last week’s post (about “Lights Out”) mentioned that they grow tired of mystery box storytelling. Fair. Lost popularized mystery box storytelling. The failures of Lost stem from the show not resolving most of its story threads, asking more questions than it ever answered. That’s the danger of mystery box storytelling. This storytelling method works like the trick I played on my spouse one Christmas. I bought them a ring and placed the ring’s small box inside four or five bigger boxes. The multiple boxes my spouse had to open served as mystery boxes. Mystery box storytelling can be fun. It fails when you open all the boxes and don’t find a gift. You want more than an empty box.
Lanterns has time to turn this around, but not much. Momentum has all but died with “Bad Optics.” The story threads I would like answered before Lanterns wraps up its first season are the following:
Who freed Sinestro?
Who killed Hal?
How does John and/or Guy deal with this threat?
How will John and/or Guy deal with Sinestro?
What happens to Hal’s spare ring that John now wears?
What happens to John?
The being who freed Sinestro and killed Hal could be, and probably is, the same being. John and/or Guy dealing with this threat could, and should, occur in the season finale. And personally, I’d like to see two Green Lanterns from Earth, but I could see the Guardians going in a different direction. Lianna (the Guardian who recruited John Stewart) could be behind some or all of the machinations, but it is a bit of a stretch. In the comics, Guardians have gone rogue. Lanterns hasn’t shown us too many characters who could’ve freed Sinestro and killed Hal Jordan. Bernadette (John’s mother) could’ve killed Hal. But why would she frame her son for murder?
I could be missing something, but Lanterns doesn’t have a lot of options (for who’s behind this) that won’t sound like it came out of nowhere. Parallax could be the one behind everything. Parallax is a huge villain in the DC Comics Universe, but they haven’t been set up in Lanterns. Fine. Sinestro wields the yellow power ring (which we have yet to see in the show), yellow power rings are fueled by fear, and Parallax is DC Comics’ embodiment of fear, but the show hasn’t developed Parallax as a concept. Yet. Introducing Parallax in the final two episodes could feel like a gotcha moment.
Notice how I didn’t say John and/or Guy defeat Sinestro (or even the other threat). They just need to deal with him in some manner. I wouldn’t mind Lanterns season one pulling a page from Star Wars: A New Hope. The Deathstar is destroyed, and Darth Vader’s Tie-Fighter careens into space. Vader isn’t confirmed dead. It makes sense for him to return in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Down but not out. I expect Sinestro to return in Lanterns season two, but this season needs a satisfying ending. We need that ring inside the multiple empty boxes. Wait. I just realized my analogy involved a ring. I even gave my spouse an emerald ring. Is my spouse a Green Lantern? They are fearless.
I’ve enjoyed most of Lanterns season one. “Outkast” (John’s backstory) and this week’s “Bad Optics” marked time because of the season’s construction and trying to backfill years of character development. Despite the inclusion of Fillion’s Guy Gardner, “Bad Optics” didn’t fair as well as “Outkast.” I love me some Nathan Fillion. I’d like to see more of Guy Gardner. But we have several questions that need answered before Lanterns season one wraps. Lanterns has armed John with an item he can use to unearth who killed Hal. Quick Note: I like how Hal’s ring has a limited charge; too often, storytellers make things too easy for their protagonists and give them exactly what they need with few to no limitations.
Those are my thoughts on Lanterns “Bad Optics.” Let us know yours in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.
