Lanterns Ep 6 Breakdown: Hal's Death & Sinestro's Escape — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] This episode of Lanterns confirms Batman, Carol Ferris, and the Phantom Zone, but it also told us exactly who killed Hal Jordan, did you notice? Welcome back to the New Rockstars, I'm Aaron Voss, and this is a breakdown of DC Studios' Lanterns Episode 6, Bad Optics.

[00:14] Let's go through this episode scene by scene for over 150 details you might have missed. And for any specialization or theories that could accidentally reveal too much about future episodes, we will save all of that for our final segment, No Theories That'll Escape My Sight.

[00:27] My new favorite shirt is this design, this grog-meat-a-brew, available exclusively at our merch store, nerdride.com. We love it when our supporters wear our shirts out in the world, post selfies, and tag us like this hero.

[00:40] Thank you so much! Episode 6 opens in 2026 in Midway City, the fictional DC Universe city in northern Michigan, home to the Stewart family, as we saw from the Midway City Panthers graffiti in episode 3. For this opening shot, they actually used a real-life shot of downtown Detroit, as seen from the Detroit River,

[00:56] but similar to the shot of downtown Los Angeles that they used for Coast City in Episode 1, here they erased some of the taller skyscrapers from the Detroit skyline. This show using altered forms of well-known skylines from two great American cities makes me wonder if the DCU isn't going to have fictional versions of Detroit, Los Angeles, as well as New York, Chicago, etc.,

[01:13] like James Gunn at one point suggested he would, alongside these fictional DC cities like Metropolis, Gotham, Midway City, and Coast City. I'm actually going from a shot in a recent Clayface trailer that established actor Matt Hagen as blowing up in Coast City, not in Los Angeles, where Hollywood is.

[01:27] I mean, all of this would be a little odd because it would suggest that the Harry Potter films had their premieres in Coast City, and maybe even the 1996 Set It Off movie referenced in episode 4 was a heist movie in Coast City, not Los Angeles. Hey, I'm only overthinking all of this because this whole episode, and really this opening scene,

[01:42] drew a lot of things to make us think about the exact borders of canonicity in the DCU. In 2026, Jon Stewart is pitching to the Midway City Comptroller to reallocate federal funds to he and his brother Marcus' architectural project. Jon says that the city receives $30 billion in federal funds to buy guns?

[01:58] Whoa! Now, Mr. Comptroller will say that all ultimate approvals have to be run through the military, but either way, this sounds like an insane way to run city defenses. But it does tell us that in the DCU, cities are far more likely to be targeted by these fantastical threats,

[02:11] and cities, more than the states that they're contained within, have some outsized political heft in this world. I think it does speak to super cities like Metropolis and Gotham kind of operating as their own kingdom. But it's interesting that Midway City got $30 billion allocated to them, despite no attacks that we know of.

[02:26] Whereas it sounds like Rushville, Nebraska, which was attacked, was left behind to decay. Probably because they're filled with racists. But John says, we all saw what happened in Metropolis, right? But our city doesn't have a Superman. Sounds like he's referring to what went down the previous year in 2025.

[02:40] Lex Luthor's axolotl kaiju stomping around Metropolis. Though perhaps he's also referring to the bigger calamity of the pocket dimension expanding and tearing the city in half. John continues, So it's understandable that our response to intergalactic threats or whatever giant starfish comes sliding out of the ocean next is firepower.

[02:57] Whoa! So this is a reference to James Gunn's 2021 The Suicide Squad, which featured the giant Starro, the Conqueror, attacking Cortoma Pesci. Now that movie occupied a somewhat uncertain status of canonicity in James Gunn's new DCU.

[03:09] Steve James Gunn made that movie before he got the job as co-head of DC Studios, and the film uses many returning characters from the 2016 Suicide Squad movie, which is definitely in the DCEU of Zack Snyder. Now, Gunn's Peacemaker series was a spinoff following Chris Smith from that 2021 movie,

[03:24] but Gunn has repeatedly said that everything in Season 2 of Peacemaker is DCU canon. That's why the Season 2 premiere retconned who was there at the farm in the Season 1 finale from the DCEU Justice League to the DCU Justice Gang.

[03:37] For his 2021 The Suicide Squad, John has called it an imperfect memory of history when it pertains to Peacemaker. But I think this line from John is just a reference to sorrow and some shit that went down in Court of Montezzi. And not a firm adoption of everything and everyone in that 2021 movie as DCU canon.

[03:53] Like, I don't think he's saying that, hey, there's a Harley Quinn who exists in this universe and she's played by Margot Robbie. But we see how in the years since the Rushville attack and giving up the rings, John had reapplied his artistic talents to start this architecture firm with his brother Marcus,

[04:05] who is the middle brother of a family, the one who seemed less bothered by him being chosen by his parents back in episode 3. The plan? High-grade, impenetrable panic rooms. In a world like this, this kind of business would be booming.

[04:17] And it says something about John's outlook that he would walk away from Rushville in 2016 and think that the best way to adapt would be to stick his head in the sand, to burrow underground, to imprison oneself. John shows in a 3D model of this pitch a subterranean panic room structure,

[04:31] something like an ant or termite colony composed of crates the size of shipping containers that's ultimately the size of a football field that can hold 20,000 people. John says that with $30 billion, he can build 40 of these. So at 800,000 people, that's 20% of Midway City's population of 4 million.

[04:46] John calls this 40 arcs. But again, the real calamity of Metropolis the previous year was a citywide bigger that would have torn apart any underground structure as well. I'm rooting for John, but this is an ineffective proposal for these kind of threats that DCU City face.

[04:59] But later on, he does tell Kerry that ultimately it's just a precautionary measure sold to the super rich. Mr. Comptroller brings up John's history as a Green Lantern candidate, and John says, I'm a Marine, sir. Yeah, good on John for using present tense.

[05:11] Marines typically use present tense even after their service ends. Once a Marine, always Marines. But even in the case of John's dishonorable discharge, something that's a legal equivalent of a felony, I like that he still uses present tense. All John has to do now is pitch a Colonel Draycott and

[05:23] we'll be building whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life. Building whatever you want for the rest of your life is something that a wearer of a Green Lantern Marine could do. Now, there are a lot of shots in this episode of John's missed calls and voicemails on his phone.

[05:35] Here we see four calls from their mother, Bernadette, with two unanswered ones from the previous Monday, and two separate calls from Comfort Cove, that's the elderly home where they put their father, and one unknown call. I assume that unknown call might have been Hal Jordan trying to get in touch with him.

[05:49] Bernadette, that's what John now calls his mother instead of mom? Ugh, dude, that is a serious sign of disrespect there. But he calls her this after the fallout from him refusing the lantern ring in episode 5. Bernadette reveals that she spoke with Hal Jordan while he was in prison, and a few times since he got out.

[06:04] John drives back to the Rushville Cafe, and out front sits the server, Maggie, who gives John a look. We find out later that she was the girl that John tried to comfort in the motel party model that survived. He lost her father, giving her the Tweety Bird watch and saying, I'm sorry.

[06:17] But inside, John sits with Hal. Now, you have to look closely at Hal Jordan's hand this entire scene. The way Hal Jordan positions his hand, and the way the shot often puts it either behind a coffee cup or behind his own arm, and when he gets hit and turns over, we do not fully see this finger on John's right hand.

[06:32] But briefly right here, there is one moment where you can see his hand pull away from the coffee cup and there is something shining off of his hand that catches in the moonlight. Of course, this would not be the Green Lantern ring. Guy Garter says it was decommissioned and is currently locked up on the O.A.

[06:45] But there is something on Hal's hand in this scene, and I think it is that something that John checks on the corpse later. Is it a different kind of ring, or is it just the kind of section of his hand that just is calloused and worn down from wearing the ring in the past? We find out that Bernadette lied about Hal wanting to apologize.

[06:59] And now as we look back at this episode, since this seems to be the last conversation that John and Hal have when Hal is still alive, or at least alive in this form, for what purpose did Bernadette want John to talk to Hal? Did Hal know he was going to die here and he wanted one last sit down with John?

[07:14] I'm pretty sure Hal did know. I'm just wondering what exactly Bernadette's angle was. This is just now several episodes in a row in which Bernadette and John Sr. are heard over the phone with some unclear objectives for their son. Hal lowers his voice to say he took the fall and did the time, and that should make them square,

[07:29] whereas John says Hal fucked up and got people killed. I don't know what your thoughts on this are, but I find it to be a serious miscarriage of justice, at least at the federal level, for Hal Jordan to do several years for a mass casualty event

[07:41] that would have been confirmed at this point to be perpetrated by an extraterrestrial manhunter and other extraterrestrials trying to kill him. I mean, I get why the town of Rushville would hold Hal responsible. He did stick their nose in their business, and he really forced the Manhunter Zoe's hand to respond in such an extreme way,

[07:55] ruining the good thing that was going. But Anton's suicide bomber aliens were coming either way. The alternative was everyone in Rushville died from that nuclear blast. And one would think that the feds of this world would say, suck it up, Nebraskans.

[08:07] That's really what you get for sheltering a war criminal in secret. How Jordan did what he did to minimize the damage. But I think ultimately these civilian casualties were so devastating that, with Zoe's death and the aliens of Anton's group vaporized, that the authorities just needed someone to hold responsible.

[08:20] In this play, we have some nice parallel scapegoating. We have Hal being scapegoated for this, while John was scapegoated for the international incident of the Gray Wolf. In episode three, Hal chuckles at how the gym teacher, Guy Gardner, rescued some pandas from China to California in a green bubble.

[08:35] I thought at first Hal was going to say the poor pandas suffocated on that trip across the Pacific, but Hal also makes fun of Guy's constructs being a deeper shade of green than his constructs have been on this series. Hal Jordan also makes fun of Guy's lantern signals.

[08:47] I'm going to toss that bat guy over and toss him a kiss. The bad guy saying his name. I mean, of course, this was already assumed, but it is nice to hear that in 2026, there is a DCU Batman over in Gotham City using a bad signal.

[09:00] And I appreciate that this Lantern Show has given us about one Gotham City reference per episode. In last week's trailer breakdown video, I broke down everything we know about the DCU Gotham so far, and when I think they'll release the DCU Batman movie, and a crazy theory about Harambe in the DCU.

[09:13] Meanwhile, I think Kyle Taylor deserves an Emmy just for the emotive beast he goes through right here, after saying there are two killers at this table.

[09:28] Holy shit Hal believes John gave up the ring because he was scared I absolutely fucking dare. I mean, I don't want to sound too insane, but every time Hal Jordan explicitly brings up fear on the show,

[09:40] there seems to be some flash of the color yellow in frame. Here is the pot and sunflowers positioned right behind John's head. We see now through the window that it's starting to snow, making this the night when it happened. I just have to say how weird it is the following day and every other shot of 2026 Rushville in trailers,

[09:55] it never snows that heavily. Look, I've been in cold weather states, I know that snow can be that unpredictable, but it honestly seems like a perfectly comfortable spring or fall day. Something odd was happening about the weather on the night of Hal's death that I don't think is just aesthetics.

[10:08] But then Hal says what might be the most important line of this episode. Don't tell anyone you're here. Please. No, why? Why did he say that?

[10:20] Why was he so scared in this moment? Well, I think Hal Jordan says this because he knows he is going to be murdered tonight. And Jon Stewart just left a wound on his face that's going to implicate Jon in the crime. And that's not what he wanted from meeting Jon like this. So what does it say that Hal Jordan knows he was going to die tonight?

[10:34] Why does he know that? How does he know that? Well, obviously, it's a big question there that we'll get into in the theory section. Jon drives all the way back home tonight. On his shelf in his home is a trophy with North Carolina architecture on the base. I don't know if John now lives in North Carolina, or if that just might be where one of his past contracts was,

[10:50] but after getting the call, John drives all the way back to Rushville this same night. Whether it's back and forth between Rushville and Midway City, or Rushville and North Carolina, that's a long-ass drive to do back and forth, and John never really seems to be that hungry or sleepy in this episode.

[11:03] What gives? As John brushes the snow from Hal's hand, notice that a tear trickles down his nose. He must regret their final conversation being as nasty as it was. Carrie assumes that whoever broke Hal's nose is the one who shot him. John knows that this isn't true, and I kind of feel like Carrie knows that it isn't true either.

[11:18] Meanwhile, Carrie certainly feels guilty herself. She came back for me. Now, we did see some flashes of Hal flirting with Carrie in episodes 1 and 2 and 4, and now Carrie explains how she and Billy made a divorce, and how Hal's really just kept on that charm offensive until she just found him endearing and gave in.

[11:33] Interesting that this whole conversation happens while the guy they're talking about is just a stiff corpse sitting on the bleachers in the background the whole time they're walking across the snowy field. Cary says that it started with letters from prison, and then he ended up moving to Rushville,

[11:45] knocking on doors, offering to make amends by helping mow lawns or whatever chores that it took. But ultimately, the people of Rushville slammed doors in his face. Was Hal really just offering to mow lawns and do chores and favors to win them over? Would the Hal Jordan we know actually give a shit about how the people of Rushville saw him?

[12:00] Was he actually trying to interrogate everyone left in Rushville to see if any of them gave him that gut instinct as a Manhunter left behind? Also, I have no problem in saying that all 1,001 people in Rushville, or however many

[12:12] hundred are left, suck. Hal and John saved them from getting nuked by Anton, and from their own precious Manhunter's shitty laser beam. And before that, all of these assholes in this town received ridiculously unfair perks

[12:25] for 30 years that they kept a secret, including cures to cancer that they didn't share with anyone else in this world. Which means, you know, there are probably some kids suffering with leukemia in Gotham city, while this fucking boomer in Rushville

[12:37] didn't have to worry about arthritis. So Dr. Bitsy, Maggie, all of you are the worst. John doesn't remember that the town motel was obliterated, and learns that Rushville never really bothered fully rebuilding, never expecting or really wanting out-of-towners to visit ever again. So

[12:50] John stays in the house that Hal Jordan rented, a run-down spot with a busted fence. The advice to go in the back door was because Hal Jordan rigged up a shotgun booby trap on the front door. I love how this house interior has a bunch of live-lap love decor.

[13:02] All of it looks like stuff Carrie might have bought for the place to liven it up. When John purchased the house, he hoped to stop it. His eyes of the barrel would be aligned with his eyes. The sharp shooter always wants to prioritize his aim, but instead he just finds Earl, Hal Jordan's

[13:14] carnivorous plant from episode two. The question I have, who said Earl while Hal Jordan was in prison? Is that what the letters to Carrie were initially for? Did ex-girlfriend Carol Barris stop by the mansion in Coast City? Marcus calls while

[13:26] John sees Earl. Sure. Why are you back there? I know you did. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know. Oh, Ken understands English, apparently.

[13:38] This is news to him. At the cafe, Carrie questions Maggie on whether anyone joined Hal in his booth the night before, and Maggie covers for John, saying it was just Hal alone, and gives John a wink. But that wink's gonna cost him. In my Who Killed Hal video, I put Carrie Kane as my number one suspect,

[13:52] at least after episode 5, as to who did it. But these episodes keep addressing the questions in our heads as they come up. Carrie senses John's awkwardness and assumes that he's suspicious of her, when in reality, he's hiding the fact that he had a fight with Hal right before Hal died.

[14:05] When I'm watching and analyzing shows like this, my philosophy is, when the mystery box show gets ahead of your theory like this and takes the time to dispel it, they might just be giving you permission to move on and theorize elsewhere. But the fact that we got this scene and the episode 4 scene that spelled out that Carrie wasn't the Manhunter,

[14:20] you start to wonder if Zaldox might be protesting too much. Because there is a very big potential truth about Noah Macon that Carrie is not disclosing here that really keeps her as a suspect in my book. Specifically when John says this.

[14:33] You're too rude to say cry. Yeah, it's that look of sadness, or maybe even guilt there, on Carrie's face that almost says to me, you don't know me as well as you think, Mr. Stewart. Carrie deputizes John so that he can join her for the autopsy.

[14:47] By this power vested in me, you're fucking deputized. Yeah, it's a little odd that Carrie does a Catholic band across on her self, not like a kind of blessing that you do on someone else. One, this suggests to me that the Kane family might have been involved in the Gotham City crime family that's either an Italian family or an Irish family.

[15:04] But also, two, isn't this something that you do before a confession? On to the morgue, where we meet medical examiner Elizabeth Bitsy Kinsey, the same Bitsy that Zoe mentioned in 2007 in episode 5. Call Bitsy. Tell her we're going to the table for lunch.

[15:17] Bitsy can't help but call dead Hal Jordan a piece of shit in front of the woman mourning him, and calls this one black guy in town a piece of shit, too, and won't even let him off the hook when he tries to be understanding. I appreciate it. In honesty, thank you.

[15:30] You don't want my honesty, though. Lady, you had to keep the same steady job for over 19 years despite helping an alien war criminal cover up the bodies of random people she killed. So you know what? You kind of suck.

[15:42] Bitsy explains that Hal was killed point blank with a 9mm, someone standing directly in front of him, dead on, no signs of resistance. Yeah, John seriously must have anticipated getting shot. He knew all the way back in the diner.

[15:54] Bessie says she swabbed Hal's broken nose and sent it off to the FBI for any other DNA that wouldn't be his, with answers expected in four months. But as the easiest thing for her possible to carry, she agrees to wait to file the death certificates until after the weekend

[16:06] so that press won't flood the town right away and they can have some time to do a private funeral and burial. John finds among Hal's personal effects a storage locker key with a bird-dependent keychain, meaning this must have been a clue left for John to find.

[16:19] This bird must have been inspired from the bird that John conjured. Hal called his locker the Fortress of Stories, which of course is Hal making a reference to Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Now, some timeline questions here that I'm probably overthinking. Hal Jordan seemed to stop being Green Lantern in 2016 and went to prison at that point.

[16:35] Superman in the DCU did not become a public figure until three years before the events of that movie, a movie that took place in 2025, meaning 2022. Now, Kal-El likely did have the Fortress of Solitude before that point. I'm just trying to figure out if Hal Jordan ever crossed paths with Kal-El.

[16:49] My guess is no, but perhaps there was some reference to Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the media coverage of Superman that happened during and after the event's death film. Like Lex Luthor was all over the news, probably talking a lot about the Fortress of Solitude. Inside the storage locker, they find Hal's cube.

[17:03] What in the box? Well, this cube asks for Hal to verify his identity with his voice, and they try to fake it with a voice recording of Hal on Carrie's phone. Of a time when he settled on the nickname of Buttercup for her from the Foundation's Build Me a Buttercup song, which is a song about how a woman keeps blowing off the guy and making him work for it,

[17:18] which Hal identifies as Carrie's virtues. But the vault is programmed to not be fooled this way. If you are not Hal Jordan, do not attempt to access this vault again. This is your first and only one. This is the moment that John realizes he needs Hal Jordan's old ring to conjure the Halogram.

[17:33] He needs that Halogram's voice to open this box. Carrie invites John over for meatloaf, and it turns out he does eat meat again. So he went from eating cheeseburgers with his dad in the early days of his conditioning to having a breakthrough with his mom and becoming a vegan as part of his renewed discipline and his respect for his mother,

[17:49] now back to eating meat as he's distant from both parents. Part of what makes Lantern so fun is the sense of mystery that surrounds everything. Just when we think we've figured out what's next for Rushville, Hal, and John, the show tosses us a new clue or a curveball and we're back in the dark.

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[18:59] Go to getkickoff.com slash new rockstar and get started for as low as $1 your first month. While at the market, John sees a Sandy for Guy Garner-sponsored electro punch using the GLC lantern logo in his marketing.

[19:12] Power punch repeat, whatever that means. And I like how Guy posed for this photo with his lantern ring very prominently featured. I also love the detail that it's normally two for $6, but it's been even further marked down by the local sellers before for $6,

[19:26] which is practically giving it away, meaning that they're going to be taking a loss on these and really no one wants to buy them. But I just like how we are seeing how superheroes of the DCU are really commoditizing their brand. In 2025's Superman, we saw an ad meeting for Choco's Cookies

[19:39] that made it look like they were going to be pitching that ad to Martian Manhunter, which for my everyone here is not the same thing as the Manhunters on this series. Two different things in DC mythology. But this is a very post-modern take on superheroes that the boys very much embrace,

[19:51] and even the MCU has begun to touch on by making the New Avengers a brand on TV's boxes. But if we were to ask Guy what the hell this is, I'm sure he would say that he doesn't have time to hold down a normal job that pays his bills and needs to take on endorsement deals like this.

[20:03] This leads Sean outside to Guy Gardner's joystick-shaped lantern signal, the plaque reading, in darkest night summoning green lantern to your service. Notice how the beacon has been tagged with graffiti, including a dick. The way the beacon projects the lantern logo into clouds is, of course,

[20:16] exactly the way the Bat-Signal would work in Gotham City. One wonders if Guy also intends for it as a warning to all evildoers in Rushville to cut out their shit. This beacon was placed right by the old Rushville Cemetery, if you look closely at the sign,

[20:28] where we learn the local set up a memorial to those who died in 2016. And then within seconds, some local dudes roll up. John says of Guy, Okay, that gold tooth should be a fucking hate crime. Guy Gardner did have a gold tooth in Superman,

[20:40] but it wasn't as pronounced until Peacemaker Season 2. The gold tooth is not from the comics. It's an affect that Nathan Fillion adopted for the character. But then Billy Macon shows up. Billy, you look... Yeah, I think John was about to say, you look exactly the same like most of these people in 2016, including John.

[20:55] Whatever healthy diets the Manhunter put these Rushville folks on, they seem to largely still be on. They just look a little more tired. I'm pretty sure there's still a Manhunter in Rushville. John tells Billy, Think about your boy, Noah.

[21:07] keep my son's name out of your fucking mouth. I mean, depending on how pop culture unfolded, is Billy Macon making a reference to Will Smith at the Oscars? John has no problems ending the site before it can really even start.

[21:20] Taking down all four of these guys with no Lancer ring? And this is before he's had a GST dinner? And after he's done multiple cross-country road trips? I mean, our man's fit, but damn, not even a ruffle on his clothes or a bruise on his knuckles after this? Between this and our guy walking through a glass barefoot in episode 5,

[21:35] I think Manhunter Zoe preaches him with a tougher than usual new body. I mean, inciting this fight with the locals is just unnecessarily messy for John, who has a multi-billion dollar contract proposal with his brother,

[21:47] and was even on his way to a nice dinner in this moment. He really couldn't have gone to light the beacon after dinner, when Billy and these guys would be more likely to be asleep, if all he wanted was Guy Gardner to show up so that he can convince Guy to get Hal's ring from Ola. But as John's brother Marcus ports out throughout this episode,

[22:01] despite all the progress John seems to have made over these past 10 years, he never truly mentally left Rushville. He's a guy returning to his hometown, trying to get with an ex-girlfriend, and just can't let go and move on. And that's when we make our worst decisions. Now, Carrie serves her famous meatloaf.

[22:14] Another crazy theory I pitched for my episode 6 trailer breakdown video last week is that Atlas Inc. might have been in the business of cloning one perfectly fatty cow and slaughtering it over and over again to supply these people in Nebraska

[22:26] with some perfect cuts of beef. And that might be in the best meatloaf in Nebraska that Carrie serves here. John defends his work with panic rooms and how they're most valuable for his celebrity and politician clients to have peace of mind. In a way, John still works in the industry of fear and really fear control.

[22:41] Noah Macon, now 10 years older and now played by Shane Pritchard, wants a future in politics. Noah wants to be a senator. Come on, come on. He's stepping stones to the presidency, of course. Whoa, seriously? No, that's all good.

[22:53] Okay. Super polite all-state high school quarterback raised by a single mom has this whole plan laid out to be a senator and then the president? suspicious. We learn that Noah started a letter writing campaign to FEMA to come fix their high

[23:06] school and it worked. Naturally boring. Yeah, we'll see about that. Carrie realizes John stopped for a big ass kick in before meatloaf and has him locked up. I guess in addition to FEMA rebuilding

[23:19] the school, they also rebuilt the sheriff's department after Waylon's explosion. The motel though? Leave it. Also, another shot the following morning. We see the building across the street from The sheriff's department has also been left in a state of disrepair.

[23:31] The way Hal Jordan was incarcerated, now John finds himself behind bars, taunted by the green glow of Guy Gardner's ring. He talks about Hal Jordan's federal prison. The life is pickleball. I love that his gym coach would use this to judge the state of a prison,

[23:44] but also it sounds like Hal Jordan didn't exactly do hard time. While Guy Gardner was insulted when Hal Jordan told him to go climb a rope, now he's shocked to learn that Hal was murdered and says that he can't help John solve that murder. Battle of the Six. Guy Gardner can't afford to have bad PR if he keeps these endorsement deals.

[24:00] Now, we learned that the Guardians forged Guy Gardner a new ring while decommissioning Hal's ring, locking it away on Oa. This explains why Hal Jordan's ring is different from the all-green one that we saw Guy Gardner wearing in Superman and now. But then why did the Guardians imply that John would inherit that same ring that Hal Jordan was wearing directly?

[24:16] I think decommissioning the ring is not common, and the Guardians took Hal Jordan's ring out of circulation because it had some design flaws, like Hal's way of jailbreaking it with his hologram, and maybe the fact that there's just too much yellow

[24:28] and fear influence on that ring that's supposed to be all green. Either way, it sounds like the Guardians selecting this gym teacher with his bowl cut and his gold tooth, giving him a new ring, was their way of kind of limiting the damage from Sector 2814,

[24:40] with a less effective lantern who would be more likely to stay in his lane. John says, We get some cool parallelism between John Stewart's tenure and Hal Jordan, because everything Hal Jordan got

[24:53] is because Jon Stewart Sr. refused the call, and where Jon Jr. is now saying to Guy Garner. In Jon Sr.'s face, it's because he was genuinely afraid. In Jon Jr.'s case, it's because he didn't want to become what the ring would have turned him into. Guy reports,

[25:05] You hear what happens to Azkaban? It's Azkaban. It's Azkaban. Azkaban is the wizard prison in the Harry Potter world, where they block away the evil wizards, an island patrolled by Dementors. These lagers love

[25:17] their Harry Potter. I don't know if this was just Hal's nickname for the facility, or just something dumb that he told Guy Gardner and Guy believed it. But I really don't believe the guardians who run that facility actually call it Spazkabam. Guy reveals that someone busted Sinestro out of prison, and that he suspected Hal Jordan,

[25:32] but Hal seemed to have a decent alibi by being in prison on Earth. But when exactly did that breakout happen? Because Hal Jordan, it sounds like, has been out of jail for a while. It sounds like the Sinestro breakout was, like, breaking news that just happened.

[25:44] We'll talk about this more in the theory section. But Marcus posts a bail money, so Lopez lets him out. It's dead. You should have turned it off. John's phone couldn't make it through the night, but Hal's ring keeps his 5% charge for 10 years of being decommissioned. John realizes his phone has been blowing up with missed calls from his mom, Bernadette,

[25:58] and from Marcus and from Comfort Cove. But when he looks at his voicemails, there's also a 2-minute, 37-second voicemail from Mark at 5.01 a.m. and a 5-second voicemail from Kevin at 5.28 a.m. 2 minutes and 37 seconds is a long-ass voicemail.

[26:12] That's all I'm going to say. Comfort Cove was calling John to say his dad's situation's gotten worse, that he shot out a window, seeing that John Sr. snuck a firearm into this elderly care center, reverting back to his struggles when he was shooting out the TV in the late 80s.

[26:24] So John calls his oldest brother Aaron, that's the brother who is always the most jealous of John's chosen status in the family, and does not have the patience for Aaron's bullshit. It's all about you. Always has been, always will be. All right, Ben.

[26:36] You don't want to do me any more favors, I'll stop doing favors for you. So John's ready to pull the plug on Aaron's album that he's funding, that he doesn't go pick up their dad. I really do hope to see his release, his Aaron Stewart's album. I want to hear his tracks. Maggie greets John back at Hal's house.

[26:50] Hey, John. Yeah, John went from chosen in the previous scene to the nickname of killer in this scene. And I like the detail of before Maggie was pouring John the coffee, now John pours Maggie the coffee. Maggie says watch wearers tend to be more conscientious.

[27:03] Honest, honorable, scrupulous type. Hmm, would that rule also apply to John's father, whose wristwatch John conjured from his art school test? Either way, Maggie is reminding John of when he gave her the Tweety Bird watch. She's not wearing it now, but I think she's texting him to see if he remembers that moment.

[27:18] John says that he didn't tell Carrie he was with Hal the night before because the town hates him and because Hal warned him not to, and... Because I'm a black man and fucking rule Nebraska. Jesus, John. We're not racist.

[27:30] Hmm, and then what does this white girl proceed to ask for immediately after this? Reparations. Okay. Don't use that word for money you're trying to stake down from a black dude after you claim to not be racist. Rush, Will. You should have let them all get nuked by Anton.

[27:43] Maggie got the number of $314,536.27 as the exact damage that John Hal did to her life plus interest. I was trying to crunch the numbers to see how Maggie got to that amount.

[27:55] Maybe she priced her dad's life insurance policy that might have been denied worth $200,000 in 2016 at a 4.5% compound interest every 10 years. But really my question for Maggie is, is that number before or after the mini-fragile dad was losing from the motel?

[28:09] Noah stopped by to drop off a suit for John Stewart to wear to the funeral. Who suit is this Is that Billy Macon His grandfather Billy Macon Seeger Now there is something about Noah belt buckle his jeans and the bomber jacket that we should note that I talk about in the theory section

[28:23] John tells Noah that the only expectations he needs to clear are his own, and he just wants to give him an easier ride than he had. Now you're happy though, right? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, Noah Macon, you're getting a lot of screen time, my man. Guy Gardner came through on Hal Jordan's ring.

[28:36] Guardians of the Catchment. Someone will first seem to defend themselves. Confirmed! The Phantom Zone exists in the DCU! This Phantom Zone, of course, is the pocket dimension prison where people like General Zod are kept. A deleted scene from 2026's Supergirl would have mentioned it.

[28:49] Look, we find Krem, and you can tell him what's what, you know. Get a couple of licks in. Then, we call the Vanguard, and he gets sent to the Phantom Zone. Goodbye. Originally in the Woman of Tomorrow comic storyline that Supergirl was based on, Krem does live out his life in the Phantom Zone.

[29:04] Marcus calls, and John says he's going to have to close the deal over the phone. Outside, John meets the one other person Sheriff Carrie invited to the funeral. Carol Ferris, played in the series by Amy McKenzie. Carol Ferris is the prominent love interest to Hal Jordan in DC Comics.

[29:17] She was played by Blake Lively in the 2011 Green Lantern films, and she takes on the mantle of Star Sapphire. Based on the limited role of Carol Ferris in this episode, something tells me that DCU is not going to get into the Star Sapphire direction of the character here.

[29:29] Carol implies that things between her and Hal did not end well. Only friendship that stuck was the one on his finger. And we learn that Hal wrote his own eulogy for Carol Ferris to read, but she hands it over to John to read. And I love how at the top of the paper, written with a typewriter, is entitled The Brightest Day by Hal Jordan.

[29:46] Yes, he titled his own eulogy using part of the Green Ranger's oath, which I think is just kind of a joke that his death would be the brightest day for some of these people. I like how you can see how Hal phonetically wrote in black in the stage direction of Hold for Applause.

[29:59] He really thought this would be a standing room only event. I actually wonder how many people would have shown up had Bitsy filed the death certificate and Carrie and John had been able to make it a public event in Coast City. I mean, despite everyone in Rushville hating him and Hal not socializing with the other lanterns,

[30:13] I do think that George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Rupert Grint would have shown up. Not Daniel Radcliffe, though. This is a weeknight, and he was probably committed to a production of every brilliant thing. John reads Mr. slash Mrs. President and First Lady slash Gentleman.

[30:27] Yeah, this also shows how Jordan wrote this a long time ago, before meeting his successor, John Stewart, not knowing what state he would be in upon his death and where the country would be. Just a reminder that while Obama was president in the D.C. news through 2016, we don't know who won the 2016 election, and I believe Harambe is still alive.

[30:43] In this episode's making of featurette, you can see that they shot this cemetery on an outdoor set with a huge blue screen wall. Obviously, they didn't want any onlookers seeing Aaron Pierre and Kelly MacDonald at a funeral scene. And the director of this episode said that they shot this in Alphabeta, California, after the devastating fires that affected the Los Angeles suburb in January of 2025, which gave the scene a greater weight and importance.

[31:03] John continues to read, To the evildoers who would view my absence as a window of opportunity, you're shit out of luck. My ring has no doubt selected a brave son of a bitch, ready to continue my fight.

[31:15] And to that man or woman, but woman but probably a man, not that there would never be a female lantern, but I'm just playing the odds here. I'm guessing that Hal Jordan got this far in his hypheness as a typewriter and didn't want to retype it,

[31:28] so he just kind of left in his stream of consciousness thoughts about whether there could ever be a female lantern. And then John continues to read. The heavy burden, one that demands exceptional courage, sacrifice, and willpower.

[31:40] And sometimes even those won't get the job done. For even in the blackest of nights, I urge you to carry on. Blackest of nights uses the second line of the oath.

[31:54] And maybe John just can't help but chuckle at himself for feeling like the blackest of nights being urged to carry on. How he ends with an apology to those he hurts. Maybe it was just easier to fly than it was to stay on the ground.

[32:07] I hope I mattered. Chris Money credited Damon Lindelof with that final line of, I hope I mattered, when really more than anything, Hal Jordan just wanted to make a difference, at least more than his father apparently did. In the final scene of this episode, John Stewart digs up a grave using his truck headlights.

[32:21] Marcus calls for the colonel on the line, who hangs up before John can even begin his pitch. Marcus at least is understanding of his brother's distraction. You've been stuck on Rushville for ten years, and you ain't leaving until you finish whatever the hell it is. You and Hal motherfucking Jordan started out there.

[32:35] I just pray it don't kill you like it killed him. John did some Hal's grave, gnashes the ring, and gives it a little knock the same time that Hal gave it back in episode two. Ring charge, 5%.

[32:47] Ring charge, 5%. I mean, I guess if the ring wasn't used at all since it was decommissioned, it's fair that it could have stayed at 5% for 10 years. It's not like it has any open apps that are updated in the background using up the battery.

[32:59] The 2006 era hologram looks down at his own corpse in the grave and then back at the John. God damn it. Yes, the hologram's scene is confirmed to fear that he stared in his first spoken word to John all the way back in episode one.

[33:13] I'm like dead. This episode's title of Bad Optics, in addition to its public relations connotation, is also some wordplay literally meaning bad sight. The failure to see details and clues right in front of you.

[33:25] That's why I think this episode featured multiple characters really telling each other the truth to their faces and all of us dismissing it for being too obvious. So let us adjust our sights and end with our theory section, No Theory Shall Escape My Sight. Theory 1.

[33:37] Hal Jordan knew he was going to die. So who did he know was going to kill him? He must have known because that's why he warned John not to tell anyone he was there with him. You don't want to implicate John. I mean, really, this whole scene in the cafe reads like Hal Jordan was trying to sum up their entire brief relationship

[33:50] and then just plugged it up in the end and pissed off John. It sounds to me like Cass Stephen's father and son playing now. a blonde father unable to give his son the apology and the I was wrong that the son needs, the son being able to realize that the dad is really the one saying,

[34:03] I've got to go. But either way, this tells us that Hal already made plans to meet the person in the football bleachers who he knew was going to shoot him. Now, I broke down some suspects in last week's video, but we've got to revisit one here. In theory number two, Noah making Manhunter updates.

[34:17] And to me, this is a foregone conclusion. They're telegraphing it so hard. Carrie Kane talked about the miracle the Manhunter gave her in episode 5, the same episode where Zoe Megan told young Noah to see without being seen and remember everything she

[34:29] taught him, and now he has a fully sketched out plan to become a senator and then president? The most powerful non-superhero on Earth? I mean, that's following exactly what Hal and Anton told us Manhunter's were programmed to do. So I think after his prison time,

[34:41] Hal Jordan actually returned to Rushville to find the second Manhunter that he thinks is still in town. Him knocking door to door was actually to look in the face of everyone in town. I hate to say it, but maybe his relationship with Terry Kane could have even been

[34:53] to just keep a closer eye on Noah. That's why he brought up Noah's football practice, specifically in his voicemail to Carrie, that she saved on her phone. And on the subject of Manhunter Noah, that bomber jacket, the jeans, the belt buckle that we see Noah wearing in this episode,

[35:05] I'm pretty sure that's the same outfit of the lower half of the body that we see in last week's trailer shot showing how Jordan apparently cloned wearing the medical scrubs on the floor of the slaughterhouse of Atlas Inc. with a patch of skin removed from his arm, the same patch missing from Jon Stewart's arm

[35:19] when Manhunter Zoe reprinted his skin in episode five. So we're going to see some kind of Hal Jordan clone or reprint at some point in these final two episodes. So I think Hal Jordan's corpse could either be that reprint, or maybe it is the real Hal,

[35:32] but the reprint could have been doing something else, or maybe Noah ends up reprinting Hal from his corpse. I guess we'll see. But even though this episode explicitly dismisses it, I still think Sheriff Carrie is more involved with Hal's death than she's letting on.

[35:44] Either Noah Macon is the one who shot him and she covered it up, or maybe she shot Hal to protect her son Noah, and maybe she was angry that Hal was using her to investigate Noah, she certainly would shoot Hal to keep her son a secret.

[35:56] But there is also another way of looking at things, bringing us to Theory 3. Who freed Sinestro from Spazkaban? Another explanation could be that maybe Hal killed his own reprint, and then went to Spazkaban with one of those sludge portals

[36:09] in order to break out Sinestro. Again, we don't know when exactly Sinestro was broken out. But it does look like next episode we will see Hal, or maybe a hologram and Jon Stewart visiting this island structure where some other trailer shots have suggested

[36:21] they'll find Sinestro there. If Hal or the hologram leaves Jon there, some version of Hal would have to know where Sinestro is, and that would make Hal the likeliest person to have broken Sinestro out. Maybe a sludge portal is in that storage box.

[36:33] I mean, if Hal Jordan protected it with a key with a bird keychain, he clearly wants Jon to find it, and he must know that he needs a Hal Jordan voice to open the box, meaning that he's hoping Jon will connect with some living trace of his voice to open it.

[36:45] So this must somehow lead to John and Hologram to this exile island with this mysterious machinery where Sinestro is. Next episode is called The Jordan Boys Legacy. So we are going to get some answers about how Jordan's past, his relationships with his test pilot father,

[36:58] and it's all going to connect at this island where Sinestro is. Comment down below with your thoughts and theories. And a special thanks to one of our In Our Underground subscribers, Angered Flames, for supporting us at the executive producer level. You can get all of our exclusive bonus content by clicking the link in the description below

[37:11] or going to inourunderground.supercast.com. Big thanks to Studio Tech, Ryan Kim, New Rockstars editors, Trashman, Stephen Heard, and Abby Brio, and all of our supporting editors for their work on this video. Follow me at EAVox and hit that subscribe button.

[37:23] Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye!

[37:44] you