Lanterns - Episode 6, "Bad Optics" - Review & Recap
⚠️ Spoiler Alert: This review may contains spoilers. ⚠️
I really should have seen this coming.
After the absolute batshit insanity that was “Lights Out,” I was so caught up in the excitement that I apparently forgot one important rule of storytelling: eventually, you have to let the audience breathe.
That is essentially what Lanterns Episode 6, “Bad Optics,” does. It's not a bad episode. Far from it. It's actually a pretty solid episode with some great character moments and an intriguing shift in the central mystery. But after Episode 5 delivered deaths, resurrections, Manhunters, satellite lasers and John Stewart beating the hell out of Hal Jordan, “Bad Optics” inevitably feels like someone slammed on the brakes.
And that's probably exactly what the show needed.
We jump ahead to 2026. How convenient, right?
John Stewart has left the Green Lantern life behind and entered the glamorous world of…insurance?
Well, sort of.
John and his brother are selling complexes designed to withstand just about every catastrophe imaginable, including, rather specifically, a Green Lantern-level event like the devastation that occurred in Rushville.
It's a clever way of showing us how dramatically John's life has changed. This is a guy who spent his entire life wanting a Green Lantern ring, finally got one, rejected everything it represented and is now making a living helping people survive the consequences of beings like Green Lantern.
John seems determined to move forward. Naturally, Hal Jordan screws that up.
John gets a call from his mother telling him Hal wants to meet. Apparently, Hal wants to apologize. John wants nothing to do with Hal, but eventually caves.
And the Hal Jordan he finds is a very different man. Hal served his time in prison. The world hates him. Rushville really hates him. Yet somehow, he returned to the exact town that became the site of his downfall. Even more surprisingly, Hal found love with Sheriff Kerry Kane.
For a moment, it looks like we might finally get some closure between Hal and John. And then Hal provokes John. No apology was ever going to happen. John punches Hal.
SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
John leaves, apparently ready to put Hal behind him once again. But before he can get out of town, Kerry calls.
And suddenly we're back where this entire story started. John and Kerry head to the football stadium and discover Hal sitting frozen in the stands. Dead. And as John confirms, no ring.
We have finally caught up with the cliffhanger from the end of Episode 1.
And just like that, Lanterns changes its central question. The hunt for the Manhunter is over. Now we need to know who killed Hal Jordan. There's just one problem: nobody wants anything to do with John, Hal or the Green Lantern Corps.
John's investigation eventually takes him into the center of Rushville, where he encounters an obnoxiously grand installation courtesy of Earth's current Green Lantern, Guy Gardner. It's essentially a Green Lantern version of the Bat-Signal. Because of course Guy Gardner made himself a signal.
John quickly finds himself surrounded by an angry mob led by Billy Macon, Kerry's now ex-husband. John's response? He kicks the shit out of them. Which, while satisfying in the moment, turns out to be a somewhat problematic investigative technique.
John is arrested for assaulting Rushville citizens, although Kerry admits putting him behind bars is as much about protecting John from the town as punishing him. And then Guy Gardner arrives. John activated the Lantern Signal, and Guy answered.
Their interaction is exactly what you'd expect. Guy is arrogant, dismissive and seemingly uninterested in getting involved with Hal's death beyond what is absolutely necessary. John asks him for two things.
Come to Hal's funeral.
And get Hal's ring back from the Corps so Hal can be buried with it.
Guy initially refuses both. He doesn't particularly want to attend the funeral, and he's definitely not interested in pissing off the Corps by stealing back Hal's ring. But John manages to get through to him. Whatever Hal became, whatever mistakes he made and whatever the world now thinks of him, Hal Jordan was still Earth's first Green Lantern and he did his best to fill that role. That deserves some respect. So Guy shows up.
Hal, naturally, wrote his own eulogy, although he clearly wrote it long before becoming an unpopular ex-con despised by much of the planet. The speech is everything you'd expect from Hal Jordan: grandiose, over-the-top, ridiculously self-important…and somehow surprisingly self-aware. What makes the funeral work, though, is how painfully small it is. For someone who once carried the Green Lantern ring and protected an entire planet, almost nobody comes to say goodbye.
It's a quietly sad ending for someone who once seemed larger than life.
But “Bad Optics” isn't finished planting seeds.
A waitress who has been paying particular attention to John turns out to be the little girl who survived the devastation caused by the Green Lantern/Manhunter disaster years earlier. She's grown up. And she wants retribution for losing her father and surviving hell. Worse for John, she knows something Kerry doesn't.
John lied by omission. He didn't tell her about meeting with Hal before Hal died. And John is the reason Hal had a black eye.
Now she has leverage.
Meanwhile, John and Kerry discover another breadcrumb Hal left behind. They discovered a key with a bird on the keychain, obviously meant for John. Following the clue leads them to a storage unit and a mysterious large box. There's only one problem. It requires Hal's voice to open. And Hal is currently very, very dead.
Luckily, John Stewart has never been particularly bothered by making questionable decisions in pursuit of an answer. He decides to dig up Hal's coffin. Remember that Green Lantern ring John asked Guy to retrieve from the Corps? Turns out John has another use for it.
The charge is still low, because apparently Hal's inability to keep his damn ring charged transcends death, but John manages to activate Hal's hologram using Hal's quick fix of slamming the ring onto a solid surface.
And we end with one of the episode's funniest and strangest images. Hologram Hal appears.
He looks down into the grave. And sees his own dead body staring back at him.
Personally speaking, no one but Kyle Chandler can produce the line "Goddamn it," with so much meaning. I have done zero research, but I feel like he uses this one quite a bit, whether it be Friday Night Lights, Bloodline, Game Night, or even The Rip and every time it's full of so much emotion even though it's delievered with very little inflection. Perhaps this is the first time Kyle has ever said it. Either way, it's the perfect way to end the episode.
“Bad Optics” was never going to match the sheer insanity of “Lights Out,” and I'm glad it doesn't try. Episode 5 was the explosion. Episode 6 is everyone walking through the wreckage afterward.
The time jump gives John and Hal's relationship room to change, Hal's death transforms the central mystery, and Guy Gardner's arrival adds exactly the kind of arrogance you'd expect him to bring. More importantly, the episode starts asking an interesting question about consequences.
Rushville hasn't forgotten what happened.
Neither has John.
And the people who lost everything certainly haven't.
After spending most of the season asking what happened in Rushville, Lanterns is now asking something different: What happens to the people who have to live with it?
“Bad Optics” isn't another “Lights Out,” but it doesn't need to be. It's a necessary breather, a solid character episode and, by the end, an effective setup for the next phase of the story.
And with only two episodes remaining, I have a feeling we're done breathing.
Check out the trailer for Lanterns:
