"Evil cannot create anything new; they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made."
Inspired by Tolkien's Middle Earth Lore
The season is done, though my interest in James Gunn/Chris Mundy's Lanterns pretty much died after Episode 3. (Yeah, Episode 4, the "weenie" one, was a decent bump up, but the putridity of the prior installment was so strong, so cutting, that it eclipsed the rebound's potential.)
The season started off as subdued as I suspected, but (surprise surprise) entrenched with Hal Jordan left shot-in-the-head dead. We then got the flashback (time-tripping) thing to fill in the gaps, wrapped in a confined, DC blanket, in sync with the gentle-flowing Smallville, enhanced by a Streets of San Francisco/The Greatest American Hero/Wonder Man teacher/friend/mentor bent. Okay, fine. Swell. This would pave the way for John Stewart's ascent, I presumed, but it didn't take long before things had to go and get cute, and nothing was quite the same after that, no matter how earnest, offbeat, consoling or noble the murder mystery got.
The big snag struck when Stewart's dad lost his ring-bearing chance by confessing his fear, and that admittance was twisted into another big-time, self-righteous blame game, which under any other circumstances may have been acceptable, maybe even identifiable, but for Lanterns, it was nothin' short of blabberin', myth-bustin' bull. (The down-the-line "reconciliation" between Hal and John's mother, was, well, nice in an unforeseen way, but never detailed as well as it could've been to patch the wound.)
Stewart Sr. should've rebutted Laura Linney's Guardian Liana (i.e. her haughty rejection of his fear) by declaring that fear can be a means to an end, as long as one saddles up and gets the job done. It's something John Wayne once said, you know, and it makes sense, but instead we were dealt all this boo-hoo lament, laden with a shameless, Fear Strikes Out steal, as opposed to a lesson that weak-knees could savor.
It's a shame things swerved the way they did, since the casting here (in my humble estimation) hit the mark. Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan (whether accepted as genuine, a decoy or Automan ghost) and Aaron Pierre's Stewart Jr. (and his protective, uber-expensive, forty-arks proposal) felt right, even if the show's leads weren't all-the-way faithful to their traditional, comic-book counterparts.
And then we had Nathan Fillion/Guy Gardner's guest spots (still worth a mention, even if some will say they're not) and Ulrich Thomsen's Arkham-ish-imprisoned Sinestro, though the series needed more of both wayward personas to make their insertions count.
Sinestro, in particular, should've been at the constant, adversarial hub, instead of all that misdirecting, non-Martian Manhunters teasing, which to a degree was compelling, but alas, little was clarified or cemented to resonate at full throttle, even with Cary Christopher's big, Noah reveal and prior to such, Porna Jagannathan's Zoe swaggering in to rescue Kelly MacDonald's Kerry Kane. I mean, in a mere blink, even that strident turn went ka-boom! So much for the tiering clues and melodramatic motivation that would press a staggering finale, not to mention who the hell's good or bad, and damn it, folks, which end is up.
Ah, well. So comes and goes another controversial, live-action, DC ride and as luck would have it, right on the heels of the ill-fated Supergirl (2026). For now, I've no more to say on Lanterns, so I'll let the shrewd JesterBell (aka Female Bilbo Baggins) pick up the reins with one of her early, though still relevant, denouncements. Yep, she sure tells it like it is.🏮
