Lanterns Hides a Yellow Lantern Clue in Its Logo, but Episode 4's Hector Hammond Fakeout Falls Flat

Episode 4 of Lanterns confirms that Zoe is the Manhunter, and the show had me fooled right up until the moment it wanted me to figure it out. There are some goodies this week, though, including a clue that has been hiding in plain sight since the very beginning: there is a yellow light buried deep inside the ring in the show's own logo, and I believe it means the yellow lanterns are coming.

Before I get to that, I also want to talk about why the Manhunter storyline is my least favourite part of this season, and why I think the Hector Hammond fakeout is very bad writing.

Zoe gave herself away as the Manhunter in bed with John Stewart

Some of you figured out ridiculously early that Zoe is the Manhunter. I did not. I wonder if that is the difference between bingeing something and following it week to week. With a binge you are in the flow, but week to week you have a moment to think about it.

For me, the moment came when Zoe and John are lying in bed and she tells him he has it the wrong way around: Will did not save her, she saved him. She adds that if she tells him certain things, it will change everything for them. I immediately wondered if she was the Manhunter, and I think you can see it on John's face too. That is when he gets his hunch, but he does not want to believe it.

That is also why, later, when Hal says Manhunters are programmed to take over, John says almost under his breath that this means they cannot control it. He is trying to come up with any excuse he can for the horrible things Zoe has done as the Manhunter. Remember, she is a genocidal maniac. But that is her programming.

The Manhunters work as a brilliant parallel for spies

On this show, the Manhunters and the aliens are a brilliant parallel for spies. The show says Manhunters are not aliens, but it does not really say what they are. Because they are hidden on Earth, the parallel is spies, and the show uses a lot of real life spy tactics for the aliens, like the interrogation in the first episode.

Throughout history, spies have often used intimacy to get closer to their targets and get information. All types of spies could use that tactic, but typically it has been the femme fatale, and that is exactly what Zoe has done with John. The show talks about looking for the weaker part to infiltrate, and I wonder why she went after John and not Hal. Perhaps it is because she knew Hal had a thing for the sheriff, and perhaps there were other reasons at play as well.

Speaking of Hal and the sheriff, he is not in the clear either. He is compromised by those feelings. He does check her back records in Gotham to establish that she is not the Manhunter, although the show points out someone could easily pay to create records like that. I think she is still a blind spot for him, because he is very trusting of her.

Plenty of you spotted Zoe from the start

I think it was episode 1 or 2 when the show introduced the Manhunter, and I have seen these episodes so many times for this coverage that I forget which. As soon as it happened, a bunch of people pointed straight at Zoe, and I could not believe it. There goes that reveal.

You do that a lot. There will be things I think will make a great reveal later on, and you pick them up from the very beginning. Sometimes I know it is leaks, but sometimes it is not. I always find it fascinating, and I am sure it is very frustrating to writers who were hoping for that slow burn. Luckily, this show has a lot of other stuff going on. Again, it might be the difference between those of us who get to binge it and those who follow it week to week as it is released.

The Manhunter storyline is where Lanterns is most CW

To me, the Manhunter part of this season is the least interesting part. I do not like this storyline because I think it is pretty generic, and it is where the show is at its most CW. I know some of you want me to show the CW some respect, and it had a good run, but it was very limited. This is HBO, and I expect HBO quality storytelling.

This is also where the show's excruciatingly low budget really comes into play. We are four episodes in and we have not seen one nonhumanoid alien from the front. We saw the Guardian from the back for a few seconds, but for a character like Green Lantern, who is so rooted in space, with so many aliens and species that are not humanoid, this is a little ridiculous and frustrating. Even Sinestro, as many of you say, just looks sunburned. They did not do anything with his eyes, the way the comics and the Ryan Reynolds live action movie did.

Another reason I do not care for this storyline is that I do not think the actor playing Will is really making much of the part. I like that actor, but I think he is a little bland here. I also do not like the actress playing Zoe; I think she is not nearly as dynamic as the actors playing Hal, John and even the sheriff, whose actress I like a lot.

Unfortunately, episodes 4 and 5 are the main Manhunter episodes. A lot of people and a lot of other critics really liked episode 5, and it has some action, but keep your expectations low for action. Without giving anything away, I found it very frustrating that it broadens what the episode is about without the budget to match. My favourite episodes of the seven I have seen, and I have not seen the last one, are episode 3, which most of you loved last week, and then 6 and 7. That is when this show gets to a whole new level. It is really incredible, and I cannot wait to see how episode 8 plays out.

A yellow light hidden in the Lanterns logo points to Parallax

Just because I did not love episode 4 does not mean there are no goodies here. One of them has been hiding in plain sight since the very beginning. At first I assumed it was bad colour grading, and with this show I have good reason to assume that. But because of the Sinestro theory I came up with last week, I asked myself this week whether it was yellow.

I checked, and when the light is used within the actual show, it is very green inside the ring. In the logo for the show, though, there is a yellow light deep inside the ring. That mirrors Parallax in the comics, hidden deep within the central Green Lantern battery on the planet Oa. As I discussed last week, Parallax is the fear parasite that takes over Hal Jordan in the comics, which has not happened on the show yet, so that Sinestro can create the yellow lantern core powered by fear.

I cannot believe I have only realised it now, but the evidence has been there the whole time whenever the logo plays. "The yellow lanterns are coming." I suspect that is the true purpose of season 1, which would be great, because it would mean more story for Hal and would make it more likely he is not actually dead or not going to stay dead. I have not seen the last episode, so I do not know, but if anything could bring him back or be the reason for a fakeout, it would be Parallax. That is also why the show is called Lanterns and not Green Lantern.

Alas, there are no red lanterns just yet. "Sometimes a red laser is just a red laser." Sorry, Atrocitus fans. I realise last week I called him atrocious. I am only just getting into Green Lantern, and I knew who he was visually, but when I looked at the word I just saw atrocious. It is seared into my brain now.

Sinestro did not plan for John Stewart, and that is why he cares

Last week I shared one of the two theories I have for this show: that Sinestro has been sowing fear in Hal Jordan and the Guardians this whole time. As for the Manhunter, I think that is just good timing for Sinestro. I do not think he planned it or has anything to do with it, but it is certainly fortuitous.

I think the same goes for John Stewart. The show keeps saying how unusual this is. The Guardians have never brought in somebody the ring has not chosen, and there have never been two lanterns in the same sector. There are trainees, the way Sinestro trained Hal, but from different sectors, and nobody has a backup lantern. There has also never been another human lantern. So John Stewart is a potentially unpredictable variable in Sinestro's potential plans, and I think that is why Sinestro is so interested in him.

There is a great line reading when Hal starts to brush the subject aside and Sinestro cuts him off with "I care, Hal." Full on Hannibal Lecter vibes. It is a very telling moment, not only because John is of importance to Sinestro, who remarks that John is from Earth's military, but because it shows the emotional hold Sinestro still has over Hal. I think Hal still respects Sinestro in some ways, just as John respects Hal. That is a true teacher and student relationship, which Hal and John have never really had.

In that moment, Hal still does not know very much about John and never bothered to find out. He might have been trained by Sinestro, but Sinestro did not create a mini me. Hal has a lot of faults, I think partially by Sinestro's design, although Hal still beat him, unless Sinestro always wanted to be captured and imprisoned on Oa. Either way, Sinestro is relying on Hal for information on John, and Hal cannot paint a complete picture.

Hal and John give each other good lessons in hurtful ways

It is not until later in the episode, after talking to Sinestro, that Hal learns about John's art background. In his report to the Guardians, which they share with John to work him up, Hal says John lacks creativity. Remember, Hal was not at all impressed with the bubble wrap construct John came up with in the car crash lesson in episode 1, a car crash that comes back full circle in this episode.

I love how well written this show is. It is unusual for something to be this well written. With all due respect to Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof, who are also very good writers, I think only Tom King, when he is truly in the zone, and he is often not, can construct such perfect layers and callbacks like this.

John's parents worked very hard to train him to be a Green Lantern, and they never considered his artistic abilities part of that training, so I do not think John did either. When he hears Hal's criticism, he protests that he is very creative. It is a sad thing, because Hal actually gives him good training, but since they have been pitted against each other, it has to happen in a hurtful way behind John's back. It was a really good lesson, though.

Likewise, John has constructive feedback for Hal, but the Guardians goad it out of him. What a low blow to suggest that Hal perhaps has his father's weakness in him after all, and then letting him know that Hal was still lying to him about going to see Sinestro, and all the hurtful things he had said about him. So John's feedback was also delivered in a hurtful way behind Hal's back.

John Stewart had to draw the digging machine before he could manifest it

Hal and John are so close to trusting each other, and there are glimmers of hope. I love their moments of camaraderie, when they click and you can see what they could be as partners and friends. I could not figure out which movie they are referencing with the landmine trap line. It seems very familiar, but I could not pin it down. Hal doing the guy version of Vicki Vale fudging her way to Batman was also very funny.

Then there is the Disneyland exchange, where John is speaking my language. He makes a great joke about himself, saying they did not let him into Disneyland because it is the happiest place on earth and they felt he would kill the vibe. It was hilarious. I hope he did actually get to go to Disneyland, but that is a different studio, so we will probably never know.

I do think they are using the Disney weenie term incorrectly. I can see why they used it, and it gave them some very funny callbacks, like the line about finding the weenie. But the Disney weenie draws you into the park, the way the castle draws you down Main Street. Why would anyone at the ranch want to draw attention to the secret weapon bunker? I would think a different building, like the house, would be the weenie to draw attention away from it. What is your understanding of the term?

John, that drawing was awful. Part of me wondered if he did it badly on purpose just to get at Hal. There is an illustration of his mother in the last episode that was pretty good, but I did not think his picture of Zoe was great either. I am sure the show thought it was good art, but it seems to me that John has trouble drawing people because he does not connect very well with people. He is great at drawing animals and inanimate objects like buildings and machines. How impressive was that fully operational digging machine? John had to draw it to understand it before he could manifest it. He manifested his father's watch because he knew it well, but here he says he did research online to work out what machine they needed and then got his own mind around it. I do not know how that will work in the field, but maybe he could make illustrations of useful things in his downtime. That would be interesting.

John's outside training is why he thinks outside the box

Hal learns that John is not just a Marine sniper but also an art student, and he cannot believe it. On paper, John really does have all the training needed to be the perfect Green Lantern. But there is an interesting distinction between them. Hal relied on Sinestro for his training with the ring, so he really only knows what the Guardians and Sinestro wanted him to know.

As difficult and cruel as John's parents might have been, I think it benefits him that he was trained from the age of five by parents who deep down had his best interests at heart, or at least wanted him to be a great Green Lantern, and who are outside the system. So even though Hal's lessons are pretty weak, John has technically been training since he was five from an outside rule book, which I think is one reason he thinks outside the box as a Green Lantern.

There is more. Sinestro hid his cruelty from Hal, although Hal is starting to work it out. When Sinestro says that if John truly has no fear he will be easy to control, Hal asks whether that is what he did with him, and Sinestro answers maybe. Hal is still talking to him, though. John's parents never hid what they were doing to their son, and in John's case I think it made him kinder. He is a machine with a heart, kind of like a Manhunter, which is maybe why he and Zoe are drawn together.

We also discover that Manhunters are given away by their hearts. If you pull out a Manhunter's heart, it will crystallise. It is a difficult test, because either way the human or the Manhunter will die, since both need the heart. That seems like a real design flaw on the Manhunters' part. I also love the gun shop exchange, where John wants the scope but not the gun, the tomato but not the ham, the harvested vegetable but not the dead animal. What a parallel and what a great quick insight into how John works, and at the end he got what he wanted anyway. I really love that scene.

John Stewart refuses to steal Hal's ring

That is also why John finds it so hard to just take Hal's ring. He learns the Guardians are hiding behind him. He thought they would tell Hal his time was done and hand the ring to John. Instead, they want John to recite the oath the next time he uses it, so it instantly becomes his. They want him to steal it from Hal.

The Guardians are stepping up the timetable because they are afraid. Hal went to see Sinestro and did not tell anybody. You would think Hal might say he assumed they would find out and just did not want them stopping him first. It is pretty clear that while John has been checking in with the Guardians through a pay phone patched in via his parents, which seems unnecessarily complicated, Hal apparently never reports in. That should have made him a little suspicious. I do not know why he is surprised he is getting a replacement when he apparently never checks in with his bosses.

This is more great writing, because it creates tension every time John takes the ring in this episode. Will he say the oath? John cannot. It would go against everything he stands for. He respects Hal, his childhood hero, and I think honour and justice are important to him, just as when he told his mom last episode that it was her turn to do the William Tell experiment. He does not want his Green Lantern identity built on a cruel moment of betrayal. That is not the Green Lantern or the man he wants to be. Look at how trustingly Hal hands him that ring all the time. That is why John Stewart is such a wonderful person, and I think Hal senses that.

The Hector Hammond fakeout is very bad writing

Now for the horrible Hector Hammond fakeout. I knew this was a bad idea the moment I saw it, and I am surprised no one told the writers. I hope the fallout is minimised, because the rest of the show is so good. But the show has more than a few haters, and they will jump on an opportunity like this to say the writing is bad. In this instance, they are right.

Hector Hammond is a main Green Lantern villain, so throwing him away on some lame cover story with a no name actor is nuts. This should have been a big reveal that plants a seed for the show's future. Maybe this guy will come back, but does anybody want him to? He is a really horrible Hector Hammond. It would be fine as a throwaway if nobody cared who he was, but the character has a name, so we are stuck with it.

It turns out he is just another person the Manhunter has won over by offering him everything he could want in success and health. The Manhunter is basically like a mobster offering protection, and has done that to the whole town. As Will says, they do not have a hospital, but they are all successful and healthy because they have sworn allegiance to the Manhunter. Fake Hammond thinks Will is the Manhunter, and I think Zoe has been sending Will out as her front man so it is harder to work out that she is the Manhunter, although plenty of you knew immediately.

Hal's experience lets him figure out that Zoe is probably alive

What matters about the scene with fake Hector Hammond is that this is how Hal figures out not only that Zoe is the real Manhunter, but that John already knows. It is pretty well established that John is better with the ring, both in what he can make and in how cleverly he thinks outside the box. But Hal has more experience. As I have said before, skill is one thing, but do not count out experience the way the newbie so often does. Experience has real value, and you do not realise it until you have it yourself. I think the show does a tremendous job of highlighting that.

There is a moment where Hal is honest with John and tells him this is a very lonely job, and you cannot get too attached to anyone, not only for your own sake but for theirs, because it puts them in danger. Over the years, Hal has learned to trust his gut. At first his gut notices that John is not that torn up about Zoe's death. Something is bothering John, but he is not devastated. Hal first thinks John may have buried those emotions or is just not very emotional; he did get rid of his bird pretty easily.

Then fake Hector Hammond puts John's parents in danger and John loses it. That is when Hal figures it out. He must have known Zoe probably was not dead and was trying to work out what happened to her and why. He gives John a chance to come clean on the car ride back, even telling John he forgives him for what he said and that John was right. But there is still too much fear between them, and I think one of those fears is that John does not trust what Hal might do to Zoe. So John lies and says it must be Will.

After having John set up a meet with the other group of alien assassins, Hal once again dives out of the car. This time it is not a lesson. The car crashes, and Hal does not leave a ring for John to protect himself with. I think this is going to be a really important moment in their relationship.

Hal's father, a missed Intergang tie in and the rest of episode 4

We learn a little more about Hal: both of his parents have died, the opposite of John. Describing his father, Hal says his dad was fearless, or at least that is what he wanted everyone to think. When John asks what his father was afraid of, Hal does not answer. The plot thickens.

Those high tech space weapons are a missed opportunity to tie into Intergang, and I still cannot believe they did not. Intergang is a gang in Metropolis supplied with weapons by an alien source, so this is basically a country Intergang, and it is nuts that the show makes no connection. One weapon was designed specifically for the Green Lanterns and creates total darkness. Are they suggesting a lantern cannot construct something they cannot see? What about memory? The episode made quite an effort to establish that John has an excellent memory.

Hal's takeoff looks great again, and it is another opportunity to show how different Hal and John are. Hal asks what direction something came from, John answers 45 degrees, and Hal tells him to just point. Hal's options for carrying John in flight were hilarious and, I think intentionally on Hal's part, very telling: carry John like a baby, which is what he is, or have John ride him like a horse, which is what John is doing to him. There are obviously other options, like the classic under the arm grip, which is how Superman carries Batman. Batman still seems uncomfortable, but it is acceptable.

The space slaughterhouse, I think, was added just to have a cool moment in the episode, and I do not buy that cutting meat is that easy, even with space lasers. I watched Dutton Ranch, and butchering takes real skill. That scene felt like it was there for the sake of being there, which is a little sloppy. There is some very good stuff in this episode, but I still do not find the Manhunter particularly interesting. I do have one theory left about the Manhunters that I have yet to share. I did not come up with it until episode 7, I kind of love it, and I do not know if it is true because I have not seen the final episode. If this was getting a little too CW for you, you will have to tough it out through episode 5, but the episode 3 brilliance is coming back in 6 and 7, and hopefully 8.

What do you think of the Manhunter aspect of this show?