Alright, the boys are baaaack baybeeee. Week 2 with Hal Jordan training John Stewart to become the next Green Lantern.
Sort of.
The day begins with Hal challenging John to use his ring and fly.
John does not fly.
Instead, John Stewart spends the day nursing a mental lantern Ring construct of a bird, as one does, rummaging through Hal’s barren home, fingering a pocket dimension in search of his charger.
Didn’t take long for opps to arrive—the aliens disguised as humans in Nebraska are in Coast City—all bald as hell, ready to throw hands.
John and an alien have a sick fist fight inside the back of a moving van. A reminder that any day living in a superhero universe could result in your car totaled in a highway pile-up as a Green Lantern trainee sprints from the wreckage into oncoming traffic with a little fucking green bird. You won’t be going to work today. Alien fight.
The leader of these disguised aliens, Antaan, explains the show’s plot to John Stewart, telling him a manhunter also wearing human skin lives in Rushville, giving John and the Lantern Corps 48 hours to find and stop that manhunter before Antaan and the boys blow up the entire town.
To urge Jon, Antaan implants the memories and emotions of the genocide of his people at the Manhunters’ hands, very Odysseus hearing the sirens’ song with it.
Aaron Pierre is batting .350 so far. When DC inevitably forms their Justice League, Aaron Pierre should be the character whose lens we see the rest of the heroes. He’s the most human of all the gods and freaks in the league. Just a horny dude that wants to be successful. Whomst amongst us?
Meanwhile, Hal, fueled by gut feelings, gumption and spite, mutilates some alien corpses to end up in a hospital bed with a bullet wound, space cop trespassing, Sheriff Kerry Kane at his bedside to inform him of his passionate cries for Sinestro in his sleep. Exes, amirite??
The best scene of the show so far comes at the end—Hal and John in that dusty motel parking lot, Jon pissed Hal wouldn’t even acknowledge John’s feat of keeping that bird alive all day. Hal seemingly jealous of how quickly John’s picking up the ring. Saturn wanting to devour his son before his son devours him.
As I wrote in the episode 1 review, I trust Daion Lindelof with TV. I know by the end of this series I will be weeping when Hal Jordan passes away.
[RELATED: Lester’s Reviews: Lanterns Episode 1—Jon Stewart Humps]
Biggest unanswered questions going forward
How does Sinestro know Jon Stewart?
Lanterns episode 2 ends with Hal, donning the iconic uniform, flying back to Oa to visit his sleep paralysis demon Sinestro—asking him about the Manhunters. Sinestro offers his knowledge in exchange for information on John Stewart.
But how does Sinestro know about John Stewart and when are these two men going to punch each other with cartoonishly large ring-constructed fists?
Who is the Manhunter?
Zoe Macon, the wife Jon Stewart’s sleeping with, is the obvious answer. Like in the Justice League TV show, John Stewart inadvertently humping the villain is his bag, yo.
How did Jon Stewart get that bird through TSA?
John had to take a commercial flight to Coast City. How did he even get a bird into the airport, let alone through security? We’ve got aliens exploding small towns. DC comics TSA needs to step it up. Must be budget cuts.
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