Lanterns Episode 5 Breakdown: Is Noah Secretly a Baby Manhunter?

Episode 5 of Lanterns is the one I initially called the weakest of the season, while other critics said it was their favorite, probably because they are CW fans, and there is nothing wrong with that. Rewatching it to break it down, I still stand by my original problems with it, but I was able to appreciate the raw, brutal emotion on display here, and there is a huge development: John takes the ring from Hal and then gives it back to the Guardians.

On top of that, some theories that have been building are really starting to gain traction, including one I am ready to talk about now: I think there is a real chance that Noah is also a Manhunter. I have not seen the season finale, so I do not know for sure if this theory is true, but the evidence rewatching this episode is strong enough that I wanted to get ahead of it before everyone starts noticing.

Why I Initially Disliked This Episode

Since I was binge watching the show, this episode felt like part of the reveal that Zoe is the Manhunter, and I do not like the actress in the role. I think she is one of the least interesting members of the cast, which makes the Manhunter storyline kind of meh for me. That was my first problem going in.

My second issue was too much tell, not enough show. We get a flashback to how Sheriff Kane came to Rushville, but no Abin Sur. The final moments of Abin Sur sparing the Manhunter's life, only for her to kill him and take Zoe's form, should have opened this episode, along with the ring picking Hal. Where did Zoe get her idea for a new identity? I wanted to see that instead of being told about it.

My third reason is that this is the most CW episode of the season. Hal never really shows what he can do as the Green Lantern, just some pew pew, some bubbles, some waves, when I wanted to see him go all out. In this big showdown we have been building to all season, Anton's alien group still never shows its true form, and when John cuts out Zoe's heart and it crystallizes to prove she is the Manhunter, I could not believe she did not shift into her true form, especially since Anton reveals she once looked like his own group of aliens. It annoyed me at first, but I got past all of it on a rewatch, and there is a lot of great material here to talk about.

Is Noah Secretly a Baby Manhunter?

This theory did not occur to me until episode 7, but rewatching episode 5, the evidence is strong enough that I think it is time to discuss it, even though I have not seen the finale and cannot confirm anything. Zoe seems to have a special bond with Noah, and she appears to be teaching him how to spy. She tells him that the most important thing his father can do is not help him in town, but protect him.

On the surface that sounds like normal parental concern. But when I rewatched Sheriff Kane telling Hal, "You can never understand what she gave me, a miracle," and then Hal says, "Get out of here, think of your son," and she replies, "I am thinking of my son," it hit differently. Sheriff Kane clearly does not like the Makin family, and certainly not her husband, so what would make her so loyal to Zoe, not just to live in town as sheriff but to live with a family she does not like? Maybe Zoe gave her the child she could not have.

If that is true, it would mean Zoe is not the last Manhunter after all, and that they can replicate and have children, which I described as being like the Purple Man meeting Secret Invasion. It also adds Noah to the suspect list of who killed Hal, since Hal is found on a football field, and Noah's mother says he has become the quarterback of the team.

The Yellow Lantern Corps Clues Keep Multiplying

As I pointed out last week, there was yellow within the ring of the show's logo sequence, and in the last few days someone on social media noticed the background of the title itself is getting more and more yellow. I love a show that rewards an invested audience like that.

Tensions are high in this episode, but so is fear, with Rushville becoming what I would call a powder keg of fear. Fear is exactly what feeds the Yellow Lantern Corps in the comics, the corps that Sinestro eventually starts and leads.

Sinestro's Plan and Why John Rejects Hal's Ring Out of Fear

Sinestro advised Hal to kill John Stewart, apprehend the Manhunter himself, and turn her over to the Guardians to win back their favor, and it seems Hal is trying to implement exactly that plan here. The plan blows up in his face, which makes me wonder if that was Sinestro's real intention all along, to get the ring off Hal's finger, whether for revenge or to prepare him to eventually host the Parallax fear parasite.

Fear is also what makes John reject the ring. It plays as a powerful moment of self-reflection and ownership, and it is, but there is fear underneath it too, fear of turning out like Hal, which is what he says, but also fear of turning into Zoe, into a Manhunter, a weapon with a defective heart programmed to kill. His parents did that to him, the Guardians did it to him, and now Zoe wants to do it to him too. It is a pattern.

John correctly guesses that Zoe killed Abin Sur because it was strategically necessary to protect her secret, and I think part of him realizes he would be tempted to do the same thing because of his own programming, even though Abin Sur had spared her life. Now Zoe wants John to betray and kill Hal the exact same way, despite Hal having almost killed him, seemingly by accident. But John is not willing to kill Hal, as much for Hal's sake as for his own, because he does not want to be that person. As he is being healed inside the Manhunter technology, he remembers every horrible thing that has been done to him throughout his life, and he decides to be his own man instead, though he now has Manhunter nanobots in him, which I wonder will come back into play.

Hal's Ring Use and the Halogram

While it is not much, this is still the most we have seen Hal use his ring so far, and I found that frustrating. He has made money and a bottle opener before, but here all he really does is a brief, simple shield, and he even calls John not creative, which might be the irony of it. I would have liked to see him do more.

The first time I watched this episode I missed that Hal breaks off a piece of his ring to leave his Halogram behind as a lookout, and we never see him put that piece back on. I love the Halogram, partly because it is more Kyle Chandler, and it is a happier version of Hal who actually likes John quite a bit, but mostly because of the banter of the Halogram catching up with how his life has turned out and not always being happy about it. When the Halogram asks, "We draw that?" and older Hal says, "No, the trainee," the Halogram replies, "I like that guy. Shouldn't he be here with us?" which gets older Hal so upset. Kudos to Kyle Chandler for playing that so well.

Zoe Turns Rushville's Fight Against Civilians

Sheriff Kane warned Hal that Zoe would not meet him head on, even though he still tries that, and that she would attack civilians instead to deplete the power in his ring so she can kill him. She does get him down to five percent, forcing him to fly a helicopter out of there.

This connects to a wider superhero discussion, particularly around DC after Man of Steel, about collateral damage, since Superman and Zod fought through the middle of Metropolis without ever trying to move the fight outside the city. Anton tells Hal that if he is lying, which he is, innocent civilians will die, and there is a long look on Hal's face that seems to show he is willing to accept that possibility. But I think there is something else there too, which is fear, fear of John taking his ring and becoming his enemy, with Sinestro stoking those fears.

Sheriff Kane also tells Hal point blank that he will have to take responsibility for what happens, and it makes me wonder why she is looking for him at the end of the episode. John, devastated by what Hal decides to do, gives a father's watch, the first thing he got in his test to become a Green Lantern, to a little girl whose father seems to have been killed by Hal's actions. Is Hal responsible for what happened? Zoe is the one who attacked civilians, but Hal is the one who insisted on elevating this into a fight, despite being warned by both Sheriff Kane and Anton, a fight he ultimately could not contain.

John Kills Zoe, Echoing His Past

John shoots and kills Zoe, just as he once put his own mother in the crosshairs after discovering she had been lying to him. It fits a pattern of everyone lying to John, his mother, Zoe, Leona, and it shows that all this time he has been holding back, until Hal, Zoe, and the Guardians pushed him too far.

I am sure Hal did not realize the car would burst into flames or that John could die from it, but that does not erase his culpability, and it parallels what happens to the town: even without intent, he still created the situation. If Zoe had not been there, John would have died, and it would have been Hal's fault, even if unintentional.

When Aaron Pierre gets upset in this episode, his British accent slips out, which has been fun to watch online, with even the HBO UK account joining in. I think there is pride in having a UK actor in a role becoming this iconic, and Aaron Pierre is doing an incredible job, especially in the scene of him on the phone with his father, which is as well written as it is well acted.

The Motel Fight Ends With John Taking Hal's Ring

Hal lands a helicopter at a motel because he desperately needs to recharge, but before he can fully recharge, he and John have a raw, brutal fight where John is clearly stronger and a better fighter, but Hal is scrappy and manages to hold his own for a while.

Just as John is winning, Zoe moves to kill them both, despite what she told John, maybe because she assumed he would have the ring by then and be able to protect himself. But Hal still has it, and he uses it to save both of them, even after yelling that John is never going to replace him. I think that shows the kind of man Hal still is, even though he got innocent people killed and almost killed John himself, and there is still a bond there.

Injured in the rubble, John uses Hal as bait to lure Zoe into the kill zone, and Hal knows exactly what he is doing. Then John comes back and takes the ring, and it is just as ugly and horrible as John thought it would be. I am glad the show did not shy away from that. I think even then John knew deep down he was not going to keep the ring, but he needed to get it off Hal after everything that happened and felt he was the only one responsible enough to do it. Hal was not dead, which is presumably why the ring did not transfer to someone else, an interesting question mark some viewers may bring up.

The Ending: "They Replaced Me. They'll Replace You."

Hal's last words to John in this sequence are, "They replaced me. They'll replace you," and then the music kicks in as John walks away and a lone wolf crosses his path. It is an incredible sequence, and credit goes to everyone involved, particularly the writers and actors.

One of the things I love most about this show is that it conveys the kind of storytelling comic book readers have always known the medium was capable of, storytelling that has long been unique to comics and that even the best comic book movies and shows have not been able to capture. I think that finally comes through here, in part because a comic book writer, Tom King, is actually involved. Lanterns is only going to get better from here.

Loose Threads: Sheriff Kane's Secret, the Manhunter "Debt," and That Coitus Conversation

We get Sheriff Kane's origin story of how she came to Rushville, including seeing her with bangs, which is cute, but it is frustrating that the show teases her father snitching on a Gotham villain without giving any hint of who that villain was. It is also unclear whether he simply snitched or turned state's evidence, which is presumably why his daughter became a sheriff, going from bad guys to good guys. With plenty of rogues to choose from in Gotham, I really dislike that they would not commit to naming one, though maybe they did not want to commit before knowing how popular the show would become.

We also see that the Manhunter has turned Rushville into a giant protection racket, saving people from health threats or people threats in exchange for their blind loyalty and protection. Will Makin willingly sacrifices himself to pay what Sheriff Kane describes as a debt, and their final conversation felt surprisingly poignant to me, since their relationship had seemed very transactional until then. He thanks her for the extra time after being sick and says he loved every minute of it, a line beautifully delivered.

Manhunters, including Zoe, use coitus to gain power, control, and loyalty, and if there were more time I think it would be interesting to explore love versus lust, since coitus is not always about lust. I do feel love in this episode, especially on a second watch, both between Zoe and John and between Zoe and Will, and I think it is genuine rather than pure lust, at least once you get past the beginning with John.

That leads into a very funny conversation between Hal and Anton, where Anton reveals Manhunters go after the alpha, which he himself once was, and it seems the Manhunter saw John as the alpha here. Hal's ego kicks in and he argues that John might have had a little coitus, but he had the most. Anton points out that Hal has always presented as heterosexual, and Hal counters that in space it is not always about preference but sometimes more about availability, a line I cannot wait to see the internet react to. Green Lantern fans have not always embraced playing with these characters this way, but this is the most popular Green Lantern has ever been in the mainstream, so I think it is worth riding that wave. Elsewhere, Anton's group attacks the ranch, and one alien rolling out of a car straight into a run looked pretty cool, but overall I would say Anton's group was not very effective, and neither was Hal, which might frustrate some viewers, though I would again urge watching the episode a second time to appreciate it fully.

Was Hal right to force this fight to a head, and is Noah really being raised as a Manhunter in the making?