Lanterns Episode 1 Reactions and Breakdown | Hal Jordan’s Death Changes Everything

Hal Jordan’s Shocking Ending

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Imagine waiting years and years to see Hal Jordan on the screen again after Ryan Reynolds blunder, only to find him cold and in the snow. Lifeless, rigid, dead. Brash, episode one of Lanterns that dropped a bomb on us. Thoughts on that end?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

On the end specifically?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Yeah, yeah. Definitely definitely a controversial one. You're pretty much killing off like one of the most famous Green Lan in the first episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Absolutely. He's not only is he most famous, he's probably most beloved. Everybody had an opinion on his casting, especially with Kyle Chandler getting the role. They all saw that he was going to be older. And the showrunners kind of looked at that and they were purposefully looking at what they were going to do with his character in terms of the arc that he was going to take. But leaving him dead at the end of episode one was an extremely bold choice by the writers of this show. We have Tom King, Damon Lindelof, and Chris Mundy, who are very famous TV showrunners in their own right. So we're in good hands with the Lantern TV show after episode one. But uh yeah, very bold choice to kill off Hal Jordan in the very first episode. And you know, having it fly back to the moment where we saw him earlier, back in 2006, where he's sitting on the same bleachers in the same position in the same way, looking at the same field. So he's obviously got some connection to Rushville in Nebraska, and yeah, Hal Jordan no more.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, well, with that ending too, when you see uh Jon Stewart driving to the stadium. You do see him drive past the Mac on property.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

And everything's destroyed. Yeah. So my burnt down and destroyed, yeah, right? Yeah. So my my sort of thing is possibly, and because Chef Kerry's still there and meets John, and they're actually pretty familiar. They embrace each other and everything like that. I actually have a feeling that and I think a few other people have the same feeling that I've noticed that it's possible that's how settles down with Kerry.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Well, he did make that comment earlier on where he says he's interested in her, and then John replies, she hates your guts, and then he goes, Yeah, but it's the way she hates my guts.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yes, we hates it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, which is perfect, Hal Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, yeah. So there's a bit of playfulness sort of between them, more so on Hal's side of their interactions, but I reckon it's a very possible that after the fallout of the whatever happens at the Mac on manor, that it's possible that uh Hal sort of settles with Kerry. And because there's whole that whole thing that Kerry was saying about he has no fear after he's lost his dad, but in saying that he also has no fear because he's hasn't opened himself to love anything else to have that.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, he's become emotionally distant as well. I think the Macons have more of a story to play in this, and there's definitely some mysterious business going on on that ranch, and there's some bad blood between the lanterns and the macons now after episode one's events, but we'll get into all of that in this episode of the Phantom Portals podcast.

Welcome And Why Hal Works

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Welcome to the Phantom Portals Podcast, a show that proves that the biggest pop culture movies have something to teach you. I'm Aaron, a teacher and a film fan, and today we're breaking down episode one of lanterns. I'm joined by Brash. How are you today, Brash?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I am very good. A little tired.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

But ready to talk about lanterns all the same. Glad you could join us, man. That's it. We were talking before about Hal Jordan and his death. Obviously recharge my battery, yeah. At the lantern, at the battery. Gotta say the oath. Don't do it. Anyway. Yeah, we were talking about Hal's death and how it was a bit of a bold choice by the writers. And I think it was especially poignant because not only is that character really well loved, but in this particular episode of Lanterns, throughout the runtime, he became my favorite character in the show. They've made him really, really likable really early on. And in saying that as well, he wasn't likable because he was nice and really heroic and awesome to me. He was nice because he was kind of, for lack of a better word, arrogant and a little bit like he knew his job very, very well. He definitely fit the role of a Green Lantern, and he was not very keen to pass that mantle on to John, or at least not in the 2006 flashback and the 2016 flashback that we got to have a look at them through.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I have a very different opinion to you. Really? That's what's your opinion of Hal? I well uh I sorry, it's not a different opinion of like how you how Hal's portrayed and how's gonna go through. But I think his motivations and why he is how he is right now isn't because of the fact that he doesn't want to give up being a Green Lantern or anything like that. I think it's because he's had a falling out with the Guardians.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Well, that's not uncommon from the comic books at all. He's constantly at odds with the Guardians of Oa. And I think he even scoffs, correct me if I'm wrong, when John says that he was appointed by the Guardians or asked to take over from him by the Guardians, and then that's when obviously Carl Chandler's Hal Jordan mentions the fact that he was chosen, tells the story about Avansur and how that sort of came about for him with the ring. But yeah, it's a very interesting sort of premise, and I don't know how I how I'd take it if I was working a job for a really long time and then was asked to train my very own replacement by my my uppers.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, so that might say a little bit of map too, but well and and that's the thing, like in the comics it was the same though. It was a little bit different because the the the guy's like, oh um, and but how was still fully with the Guardians fully with the the corp and everything like that with the Green Lantern Corps, but um yeah, he also in the comics was like they asked him to train and John Sword and is like this is gonna fail, he's gonna fail, and then Jon Stewart quickly doesn't fail, and then how Jordan and Jon Stewart become really good friends, yeah. So I think they're they're trying to travel in that same vein, and the thing I'm see, because this is a murder murder mystery TV show. Yeah, murder mystery, it's got my murder mystery um juices flying. Um so I think there's um great conspiracies like besides what we've been sort of exposed to, exposed to and what we've been what has been zoomed in on. Like the greater thing, like uh when Abin Sur was uh wouldn't how got the ring from Abinsur, and he's like, Oh, I I I really he got the ring, like he was given the ring and all of a sudden couldn't understand the language. He's like, Oh, I found it really hard to hear what he said next, blah blah blah. And it sort of played off as a joke. I don't think that was a joke. I think he did that, he said that intentionally.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Because he didn't want to share what Aben Sur said to him next.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Because I think it's something to do with the corpse. I think it's something to do with the um guardians. And then because and because John was picked by the Guardians, and I think even like in the comics, the guardians were observing him, and then they were like, oh, suddenly spraying on John, hey, you're gonna be when he was sort of already in his like like 20s, hey, you're gonna be a guardian. Whereas this time he well he's been picked and he's in his 20s now, but from the reveal of how his dad, seemingly like nearly every night or every once a week, would go out and shoot an apple off of his head, yeah. I think his being picked from birth.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

I would say that that's pretty accurate as well. But remember as well, Hal said that the Guardians and everybody in Sector 4-2, whatever it was, they they don't want anything really to do with Earth. It's like a backwater, backwards planet. So the fact that Abonsor crashed on this planet possibly purposefully, the farthest away from any Guardian's eye, and then chooses Hal to take over his lantern ring, asking him if he's afraid. Perhaps he knew that a mission would be in the works where he would come up against the Guardians and possibly have to clash with them as well. But back to your point about Jon Stewart being chosen and then clashing as well, he is represented in this show as someone who's quite rigid, who is trusting of authority and trusting of procedures and processes. We see that when they're investigating the murder at the football fields, he obviously withdraws himself and lets the jurisdiction of the local police take over that sort of position, but he's also very eager to go in and and and act, prove himself, as it were. Very, very similarly in the comics, however, there is a small difference because Jon Stewart, when introduced in the comics, was seemingly adversarial towards authority figures, and that's kind of why he clashed with Hal Jordan a little bit. But I think in the end that's going to be what bonds them because I feel like Hal has something to teach John in terms of being less rigid, and and Hal can learn something from John in terms of being able to trust somebody other than himself to do the jobs.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

So yeah, and I think that's how it's getting on the end, and I think the reason well this has been like there's been heaps of theories about Hal, and I'm not sure which one I like best now of what's gonna happen with Hal at the end. Like some people think he might come back as Spectre.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, I've heard that too, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, some people think that it's uh misdirected and that's actually a shapeshifting alien that not Hal.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I commented that on our threads, I was like, now stay with me here, guys. It's possibly aliens.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And then some people just think, nope, they're killing off Hal.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Well, um you know, I've watched the uh the podcast companion for The Lantern Show, and Tom King has actually said, you know, we have to look at the after effects of things that happen after Hal's death. And he's even gone on to say that Guy Gardner now has Hal Jordan's ring, and we know that only happens transferring over through death. But if anybody's gonna lie about the trajectory of the show, it's gonna be the showrunner. And keeps people engaged.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And and if he says um, and he says if he says Guy Gardner has Hal's ring, it doesn't mean that the ring that Guy Gardner is using is Hal's because realistically, Guy has already been a Green Lantern the years before Hal's death. Well, that's true. This has the death takes place after Superman.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

That's correct, yeah. And Superman made his first debut appearance in 2022, canonically in the DCU. So Guy has been active prior to that with a Green Lantern ring. So yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

He he would have had his own ring or unless Guy Gardner intercepted the ring and is now keeping it contained so it can't travel to John or something. What kind of reasons that we're gonna find out?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

I just think it's too cookie-cutter and clean for these showrunners who are responsible for things like True Detective and Ozark and all those kind of murder mystery shows for them to be like it all cookie-cutter fits in the end because John gets a ring and Hal gets his ring, and they both get their rings together and they can both share the space and they learn to get along. And I I just don't think that's what we're in for with these people at the helm. I think it's going to be a little bit more dark.

Conspiracies Guardians And Misdirection

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I honestly truly believe that Hal is dead, and we're going to be living in a 2026 and beyond through Man of Tomorrow, with Jon Stewart, Aaron Pierre as our lantern going forward.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

And which um and John Stewart was like the main the main lantern for like in the early 2000s.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, for a generation, absolutely. In comic books and in Justice League as well, the cartoon. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Which is fine. Like I I grew up more with Hal. Hal's always sort of been my my favourite Green Lantern. Persist is because of who I that's who I grew up with. And like he's always he's always ultimately besides that, like the animated series and the Kokom series, that new generation, Hal was always being one with the founding members of the Justice League. Yeah. As well. But so I'd be really sad if Hal's just dead gone after this series and speak no more of it. That's gonna be really sad for me because well Hal's my favourite Green Lantern, and he's already fucking gone from the gone from the universe. Like gone from the universe not coming back. So and then we're stuck with uh oh then we got John uh great, we got John Stewart, but then we're stuck with also Guy Guy Cardinal. But then also the possibilities of them uh bringing which one was it? Um Jessica Cruz Jessica Cruz, Jessica Cruz, bringing Jessica Cruz in, which would be really cool because uh the most I've seen of Jessica Cruz is not a lot. Yeah. Um I you see her in the Green Lantern new newest script La Latest or whatever the latest Green Lantern movie was, she was in it, I believe. Pretty sure I'll sorry, yeah. And then other than that, you that she was in that TV show DC Superheroins or something like that, where it's like all the female sort of heroes, it's all about the female heroes, um, and they're still to high school and they'll go to high school together, and that's when they meet, and they create their own little group and stuff. Actually, that's actually it's actually a pretty good watch. But Jessica Cruz is in that as well, uh like one of the primary characters that with along with like One Woman, Supergirl, and Bat Batgirl and stuff like that, and that's and Bumblebee, and um that's a really good show. Yeah, uh, but uh that's the most I've seen of Jessica Cruz, and um I think even in comic books like with some of the recent comic books, Jessica Cruz is actually the the head Earth Greenland.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So yeah, I'm not familiar with the latest, but yeah, that would be interesting to see as well. I think going forward, their plans are pretty secure with Aaron Pierre, but you know, Guy Gardner has also been in every DC project so far, pretty much. So he's like the tethering tying force between every every project so far through James Gunn's continuation, at least. I think the did he appear in the Suicide Squad, the most recent one. I'm not sure if he did or not, but yeah, he's definitely the the tethering force. And I think look, I really, really enjoyed the way that Kyle Chandler played this, and and not only was he just really sort of charismatic in an arrogant way, but you could tell that he had some history that you could dive into as well, because we saw him in 1996 through the hologram, and he was obviously more optimistic, he was more open to mentoring John. He was also very questioning of his now more curious enclosed self, which I found interesting as well. And I really liked that the showrunners gave us that glimpse of him because that gave us the imprint that we could then compare everything that came through Hal to. So we'd look back and say, okay, so why isn't he like that anymore? He's not as chipper. What's happened in the process between that 1996 and 2016?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Well, our reckon what happened in that 1996 and a week later in that span of a week because they're meant to uh because it's it's I think it's weekly, they're meant to update their AI avatar person in the ring. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Well something happened to me. I think it was weekly doing it and checking in.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Exactly. So something in that week from when he or something in that week from when he created that AI and moving forward, he stopped updating that AI with information.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So that's somewhere like a going dark or turning off the surveillance kind of deal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

So sorry, going dark, and I think more so removing himself. That that that was him sort of stepping back and sort of removing himself from the guardians.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah. And maybe it has something to do with Sinestro in terms of their treatment of Sinestro, because obviously we know from the comic book Sinestro is a mentor of Hal. He's still conversing with Hal through the prison. We know that from the trailer as well, which we've broken down as well. And you can get that in the show notes below and through the title card here if you want to go and look at our reaction trailers for lanterns. But yeah, I'm I'll be interested to see how the relationship with Hal and Sinestro develops through this and whether that has anything to do with his change in demeanor, we'll say.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah. Another thing I'm I'm kind of a little bit interested in now, like I it sort of sparked as a little bit interested in me is if say if he was to go dark in 1996, he could potentially and eventually, when the guy's found out that he went dark, could have been cut off from the Green Lanterns. Meaning he has a lantern with a because the lanterns have a charge. Yeah, that once you're gonna be able to do that powdered battery, once the lat lantern's empty, they have to go back to ore to recharge the lantern. Hal has been very careful with the what the the amount of energy he uses for his constructors. John's been like, oh, I want you to do this, why don't you do this? He's like, no, you have to be, and that's when it he's like, you have to be smarter, work smarter and harder. We think so. He made like a a tweet old bill, enough amount of energy to do to get Jubox to play music over and over again to get himself caught to go to prison to try and talk to the prisoner. Alien. Yeah. Alien. A bottle a bottle cap, that was just him being cheeky. That was just like a bottle of the thing. But he hasn't, besides protecting everyone from the explosion, he hasn't used his ring for anything big. And I I possibly think that's because he's been cut off from Oa. Well he doesn't he can't return or doesn't want to return to Oa. So the energy he had from the last time he's charged that lantern from 1996, and it's why he's still famous, but no news reports or nothing has had him doing anything big. Or strenuous towards or strenuous, and we've got Guy Gardner now as the Green as Green Lantern, not how Jordan.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

I think he's cut himself off from the from thing, has a limited amount of energy, and I think that's why when when the alien that is the prisoner is like, oh, it's been 48 hours since you've been here. How much charge you got left in your ring? I think that concern wasn't for, oh she's right, yeah, I'd be for 48 hours, my ring's running out. I think it's more of like a Cassidy's eye saying he possibly like, yes, I am very stressed in right now, yeah, and having to stop this explosion is going to be It's gonna take a lot. It'll take a lot, but also I think he also also didn't put a lot of energy into protecting Ace Motion because there was that shockwave that came out from that.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

He also sort of backed it up by moving his own body in to stop it as well, because he obviously with a Green Lantern ring, you can contain that absolutely and completely. But he kind of did back it up with his body there. And also when he was commenting when that alien was saying you haven't charged your ring in a while, he was kind of cold, and it looked like he wasn't trying to show any emotion to the extraterrestrial, but maybe he was reflecting on the fact that, hey, I actually can't recharge my ring, but I don't want you to know that. So he was being kind of cold with his delivery there. So yeah, maybe that is the reason why we're not seeing too much of the ring being played with, you could say. In that same instance as well, I feel like it's a narrative device because when you've got this, I'll say grounded sort of mystery tale, and you've got characters that can fly and shoot laser beams and create any sort of construct they want with their mind out of this Green Lantern ring, the audience is gonna be sitting there whenever they face a problem saying, Why don't you just use the ring to get out of this? Why don't you just fly away? Why don't you just use a big green disc to levitate the people off of that burning building? You know, they're gonna be thinking that in their chairs as they're watching this TV show. So it was very smart of the showrunners to say that this is a limited resource that these characters need to be careful with, but also you can think of it as these rings are treated like a like a like a deadly mass destruction. Exactly, which is what they are, you know. I've heard it some people say a police officer has a gun attached to their hip all the time, but they don't draw it every day. It's almost like you you pick and choose when you use that force and what you use

Going Dark And Limited Ring Power

SPEAKER_00 20:50

it for and whether it's needed, and that was one of the lessons that Hal also instilled upon John at the bar, and he said, you know, it's really important to know when you use the weapon, Junior, is what he says. But yeah, I also think he's still got his usual natural sort of chick laid within there, too, because obviously he's got the money where he's trying to start a fight to get into the the prison, but he's also got the the obvious the bottle opener as well, which he uses as part of a charming device. So Hal's still in there, Hal's still Hallan, but I feel like he's definitely got some things left to share. But I just hope we see him open up a little bit to John because at the moment he's being very secretive.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah, because I then that's that's what makes me think that uh John is actually has been uh like John's father was approached probably by the guardians at some point and said, We want your son to be a guardian a green lantern. Well, yeah, but you have to you have to train him from birth to have no fear.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Hmm. Well, for lack of a better word as well, he's all he's almost kind of grooming that kid for the role as well, because he didn't do it to any of his other sons, did he? Yeah, two other sons there. He took John typically.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah. And you see the bullet holes were there's twenty, I think I think they said there's twenty six bullet holes.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

I didn't even know that, man. That's a good pickup.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

26 bull yards door and the garage door, and the smallest one is probably up to like them below his oh about the butt base of his neck.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Bro, that is a good pickup because that shows he's been doing it across the years. As he's been growing taller.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

And that's that interview with Green Lantern was the first interview with Green Lantern.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

And he actually said, so you know his name now, yeah. He was very curious. Man, you have summarized the heck out of this. That's a really good pickup.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah, so for years he's been trained because you don't train your son to have no view like that for no reason. No way. Especially if you've got two other kids that you aren't training like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah. And that father's also training him for an enemy, I'll put in quotes, that he himself doesn't know. So as a father, he's training him for a future that he's uncertain of. So he's just doing the most drastic stuff to try and stop him from being fearful.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And and yeah, and and this big his whole thing of the whole thing of like like Green Lantern, Green Lanterns are the bigs of hope.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Uh and their biggest enemy is fear. That leads me to believe that they're and because the dad said, like he's putting the gun and are you afraid? And John's like, no. And he shoots the apple. He wouldn't say that, like specifically, are you afraid?

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

If he didn't have prior knowledge of Green Lantern's what it is, or what it takes question, what it takes to be a Green Lantern. Yeah, exactly. So I think I think either there's a villainous villainous I have two theories. There's either a villainous, Lex Luthor-like company who is who knew about Green Lantern before Green Lantern became a thing, who have been tracking Green Lantern, and they have found out all this information about Green Lanterns to a point where they're like, ooh, we might be able to manufacture or create someone who will become a Green Lantern by training someone like a kid from birth to have no fear. But then that's a thing of then they also that means they've tricked the Guardians into also backing that person. Yeah. Which is a bit more convoluted than just the Guardians went to John Senior and went, Hey, you're about to have a son, we want you to train him to have no fear so he can be our next Green Lantern. I think that way we have Because they've had two lots of Green Lanterns. They've had the manhunters, and then they've had the the human lanterns.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Life forms we'll say the living, yeah, the living ones.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Just the the normal normal people lands.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

This way, someone bred from birth to be a perfect soldier is that sort of joining of still human, but programmable, yeah. Programmable as a a person to be that sort of perfect mixture of controllable but still able to distinguish themselves right from wrong, which was what the manhunters had an issue with. They knew that's against the law, that's not against the law, how do we fix that? We kill them all, and then that way no one's breaking the law to someone who's like, Alright, guardians are telling me to do something, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah. And I feel like John is that kind of or he's been presented to us as that rigid rule following individual. So you can see the alignment that they're going down in that pathway there with the manhunters, too. Yeah, I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

And then the fact that if Hal is dead and uh John didn't receive that ring, there's been something in there where I reckon that Hal and John have warmed up to each other, and John and Hal have both realized that oh shit, they're trying to manipulate John, and John's sort of been snapped out of it. And when he found out Hal's and Hal's probably, if he had settled down, he's been told about his death, and is like, well, I haven't seen oh shit what happened to his ring, and he's gone to see Body for himself because they may be now be aware that oh shit, John's not under as under our control as we thought. So now they're taking the ring and giving it someone else, whereas realistically he probably is deserving and probably should get Hal's Ring and now has to go find that ring because it's now probably getting put into the hands of someone who is their new corporate flunky for game.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

I want to know how they thought that someone like Guy Gardner was good enough to be the green light. Like he's a little bit of an idiot, we'll say, but also maybe that's the point, you know.

Jon Stewart’s Fear Training Theory

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Maybe the point is that he's manipulatable in the way of being naive or ignorant. Yeah. Let's talk about how Jordan and Jon Stewart's relationship that we've been presented with in just episode one at the moment. So we meet them and they're pretty adversarial. John's obviously very respectful, and I liked the line when they were driving in the car where he says, How come every time you call me sir, it sounds like a fuck you? And I feel like that sums it up just really perfectly because Jon Stewart is that really respectful sort of lantern, and he's been raised that way, military background and an architect, and Hal is there trying to push his buttons, obviously putting him in very dangerous situations to try and coerce him to act on impulse, to assess a situation quickly, to make a choice, possibly without direction or without referral to any kind of manual or rule book. Like he drives a car off the cliff, for example, leaving your rings. Exactly, yeah. Quick hard lessons, straightaway lessons. And I feel like in the interrogation scene, when Sheriff is asking, you know, what do you see in him? What makes you like him? And he says he's fearless, and then Sheriff says, you know, no, he's lonely. I I think it's interesting to see what John views as fearlessness, because I think he's looking at a very surface-level version of what Hal is presenting in terms of why his fearlessness or the fearlessness that he's showing. Because on the surface, it looks like Hal is acting first, thinking later, preventing all of these massive things from happening to Earth, saving lots of people. He's adored by everybody. And I feel like that also contributes to Hal's self-fulfilling prophecy of arrogance as well, knowing that I know better and the results show for it. And I think Jon Stewart is perceiving that as a fearlessness, that is in the embodiment of that, are you afraid? No, I'm not, kind of mentality of the lanterns. So, what do you think of the relationship between the two?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, that's pretty spot on. One thing is I think his perception of Hal's fearlessness and how's fearlessness comes because he's lost his dad early, he followed in the same footsteps, he's been single-minded about following his dad in his dad's footsteps, becoming a pilot a test pilot as well. And he's done that, become a test pilot, and realistically, like I don't know, blow up smoke up a Air Force or anything like that, because they're a bit flyboys, but they they are usually perceived as pretty arrogant and like like what do you call it, like invincible, yeah, almost. And that's how like he's got sold a whole brand on there. Exactly, yeah, exactly. But and John's John was forced to sort of sort of almost forced to be um an admirer of House, I think, for this endgame of what uh John Stewart was meant to be and how he's raised by his father and everything like that. He was forced to be like, hey, who you who you admire the most? Relenton, is it because he's fearless? Look how fearless he is. And I think uh John's uh also fearlessness, I think uh he's gonna find out that he isn't as fearless as he thinks he is, uh purely because his fearlessness is manufactured.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, I see what you're saying. So everything that he's been trained for is manufactured through practice and repetition, whereas Hal's is through personal tragedy. So Hal's version to prevent this is to be fearless and in over.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Close himself, yeah, close himself off, show himself off. Yeah, single single-minded, I'm gonna be a test pilot like my dad and do crazy shit in a plane. Yeah, just like him. And I'm not gonna give a shit if I don't because what else have I got to live for? I've lost my dad, and I'm assuming he doesn't have his mum, I guess. I don't know. Because if like there's like, oh, ever since I lost my dad, I've been fearless. What about your mum? Yeah, but so maybe he maybe he lost his or he lost his mum, and then he loses his dad, and that means he loses lost everyone, and that's what forced him to become like, look, I don't give a shit anymore. I'm just gonna do what my dad did and be the best test pilot, better than my dad, and I'm gonna do crazy shit that like the same thing he's did and not die. Yeah, and blah blah, and he just and that's his fearlessness, and that also equates to as Kerry said, loneliness, because I I think I think at the start it was it was because you see him at the start, his interview, he's a lot more brash and uh boisterous and yeah um I'm almost prideful as well. My ego and yeah, what and everything like that. I got picked to be the Green Lantern because I'm fearless, blah blah blah. They asked me if I was afraid, and I said no, and that kind of stuff. And then when you see his 2006, 1996, 1996? 1996 was the easy to 2006.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

2000 2006.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Wait, when when was the hologram? Hologram.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

You see, everything goes everything is in 10 years, which is also a thing. A thing. Um, but uh yeah, in 2006, when you see the hologram, I I actually saw him as actually he seemed fearful to me.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Especially when he heard that the rain is falling in Rushville, Nebraska.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

But but he he even he's he's like oh no, he's like he's like, oh no, am I dead. Like rah uh and then he's and then he's like worried about his ring, he's like, wait, why have you uh foot why have you got my ring rah? He's he's still youngish and like lithe, but uh there's that I I just sense this like tone of like sort of that that sort of bravado the bravado he had in 1999 has dimmed to a point where he's a bit more sheepish in a way. Yeah, he's more toned down, he's more sheepish. It could be just from maturing, but for me it seemed it seemed like a lot more like shit's happened between 1996 and 2006 where he's not as confident in himself anymore. Yeah. And I think that's if we're gonna And that might be that might be because it's just an Astro.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah, and I think because if we're talking about that maturity as well and that manufactured fear that Jon Stewart has, that would have definitely made him grow up quicker or mature quicker to the point where so he's in his 20s or something when we first meet him in the uh yeah, 22. So he's he's gonna make some silly mistakes, and we kind of see that as he's going through and he picks up that woman from the bar and it ends up being McConn's wife, and then him and Hal have that interaction. That's one thing I was a bit you didn't like it.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

No, well, uh because I thought it was being John John would John, I I I know what they're how they're using it, they're using it for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

I think they do it that way. So John's child not childishness, but the fact that he's still a young person who can still make mistakes, even though he's being shown and portrayed as this rigid guy that follows the rules all the time, that may seem like he knows a lot of things, but he's still at heart just a man growing up in his early 20s who's trying to figure stuff out. And obviously he's succumbing to the impulses of a of a man in his early 20s, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, but uh for me, for me though, like that sort of I I I I find John Stewart to be more proper and yeah, like he doesn't seem like the type to just pick up a girl from the bar.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, well in the comic books, he's actually older than Hal Jordan, so I can see where that's sort of coming from, and every iteration that we've had of him has been that rigid sort of side of it. This is probably yeah, the youngest version of Jon Stewart that we've ever had, but I kind of like that they showed that he he still makes those little kind of mistakes that he he goes through and the consequences of those that he doesn't foresee in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

So I I saw it more, I saw it more as a storytelling trope. Trope. Something to move the storyline along. Whereas because he you see you see him make mistakes when you see him rush off and try and chase down the like he tries to go arrest the alien and he messes up. And like though, like I like seeing those.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

He knows that he's kind of got time on his side in terms of the fact that if that guy's caught, he's gonna be going to jail, and I can do what I need to do when he's in that place anyway. I don't need to talk to this guy right now. So that comes from investigating a lot of different sort of situations and knowing the the routines and the practices that you might need to manipulate in order to get what you want out of it. But we have a video on arrogance in regards to this episode as well with Hal Jordan. You can see it in his show notes and also in the title card as well. But we sort of talk about the fact that Hal Jordan in this space learns his arrogance through his success. So obviously he's emotionally closed off, but every time he's arrogant in in this episode at least, he's been correct. So it's been a self-fulfilling prophecy where he's like, I bet you that guy's an alien, I just have a hunch. And it ends up being absolutely true. But the nuance of the way he interrogated that alien is perfect because he's like, Really? You, Nebraskan from the Midwest, has no opinions on Barack Hussein Obama, and and he just starts to ask all this surface level questions and then goes deeper with the so he's very good at his job and to the point where he's developed this sense of arrogance, and it kind of makes him question you know, should I even listen to external forces when it's just wasting time? I kind of know what to do anyway. So, yeah, I want to see how that character develops and how his relationship with John develops over the course of the season. Sad that we're probably not gonna get him in any timeline after 2006, though. That's that's a bit of a shame. So uh 2016. Yeah, sorry, 2026 when he's frozen and dead. Final note.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

But I was gonna say, uh I'm just noticing this now in the actual Lantons poster, you see them walking side by side, but there's like a massive like gap in between them. So there's got Lanterns and then there's John Suit on one side of the poster, and Hal's like on the other side of the poster, and they're sort of just like just like facing each other, yeah, almost like they're like together but separate.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yep. Yep, there's a distance between them. That's a yeah, that's maybe and other ones as well. Yeah, other ones I've seen as well have Karl Chandler's Hal Jordan at the front, and also Aaron Pierre behind him looking over his shoulder, almost giving him like the devil's look, just leering him up and down. But I think my final thought for this was as much as it pains me to see Hal Jordan potentially dead, I did really love seeing Carl Chandler next to a football field again.

Ratings Predictions And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Um, just like he was in Friday Night Lads. I've as even if it's under these circumstances, I felt still think that's really good to see. So, final thoughts and rankings. For me, I reckon it's a good start to the TV series. It definitely kept me engaged through the episode, and that ending scene really bowled from the filmmakers and showrunners, and I think that's gonna entice a lot of people to stick around and see what's actually happened to Hal Jordan because that's the buy-in that everybody needs for this whodunit investigation. Because prior to that, I was like, oh yeah, aliens, I want to see how this sort of pans out in a Green Lantern intergalactic way in corn fed, Nebraska. But when Hal Jordan dies at the end, that's when everybody, I think, was just like, okay, we need to see what happens to this guy now. So for me, I'll probably give it a 4.25, I'll say, as a season opener. What about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Yeah, I know because it's it's like it I wouldn't say it dragged, that there was enough in between to keep it going. Yep. But there were like the were sort of the scenes where I was like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah, yeah, move on.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Um, but yeah, I think I think that's I think that's what the first episode needed, though. The first episode sort of needed to get all like the sort of yeah, yeah, Lord Ops and get some of that yeah ick stuff off before now bang at the very end, the hard-hitting Hal's Dead 2020, Hal's Dead, what happens? Now it's become the more engaging thing where it's like, yes, okay, sweet. Now invested into seeing what happened to Hal. Some some part of me because I'm seething mad and they've killed off like my favorite Green Lenton. So I don't know, I don't know why. Give me the reason why you're doing this.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

You saw that. I was like, what? Like yeah, they did it. And I was like, nah, he's not dead, he's just and and then there's a there's a bullet wound. I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Yeah, I I went straight, I went straight to the um to the delusion of like that's not him.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

It was disbelief.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

That's not him. Alien shape shifting alien for sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

There's there's no way, there's no way.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Well, that's a good audience reaction. That's two for two on this podcast, so yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Um but but yeah, so but uh um all in all, great. And with with his death, I'm interested in seeing what happens between 2016-2026, and then also interested in now and happy because I have a feel like once I saw it, I'm like, oh, they may end the season at catching up to where they ended it on the first episode. So you catch up to 2026, and so you sort of know the backstory up to 2026, and then maybe the next season is about them finding out who killed Roger Rabbit. Yeah, yeah. So, but it looks like it makes more sense now that they're actually still gonna tap into 2026 and uncover what happened to him in this season, which will also be really good, I want to see. So I'm getting a four out of five.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Very good. So really good score. But yeah, to add on to that, just before we we sign off, Damon Lindelof, the showrunner for this one, one of the writers, he wrote Lost. And we know Lost was really good at doing those time jumps before and after. So I think we're going to experience a little bit of that going forward as well, where we're jumping through '96, 2006, 2016, and then eventually 2026 at the very end. How they piece that together in a puzzle, it's called a a differing narrative structure, is how we teach it to primary school students. So they're definitely using that, we'll say. But all right.

Subscribe And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 41:29

In our sign-offs, thank you so much for joining us here on the Phantom Portals breakdown of episode one of Lanterns. We'll be here next week with episode two with our breakdowns as well. Please feel free to subscribe to our YouTube. And also, if you would prefer to listen to this, we are on all podcasting platforms, specifically Spotify and Apple. That is where you'll find our lovely voices and our amazing show. Please feel free to follow those there as well. All right, thank you, everybody. This is Aaron signing off. Keep learning, keep growing, keep loving phantoms, and we'll see you in the next portal. Bye. Bye.