Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for Lanterns S1E4, “The Weenie” (written by Breannah Gibson Kelly and directed by Geeta Vasant Patel)
As Episode 4 of Lanterns—“The Weenie”—gets us back to 2016 and the increasingly fractured working relationship between Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), I couldn’t help but think about them in comparison to some other famous television partnerships that have defined the idea of complex and fragile-trust relationships.
Television has a long history of putting two very different people together, throwing them into dangerous situations, and then asking us to watch as their relationship deteriorates under the weight of personality and philosophy. But sometimes, these are the best television relationships to watch. They’re built on the uncomfortable realization that two people who don’t particularly understand each other, and may not even like each other, might still need one another. Whether Hal and John need each other becomes a central theme of this episode
Think about Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us. Their relationship begins with necessity rather than respect, and you constantly have Joel’s hardened worldview conflicting with Ellie’s independence and increasingly strong doubt of Joel’s motivations. Or what about Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, perhaps television’s most toxic example of an older mentor and younger protégé whose relationship becomes a combination of manipulation, resentment, and (at times) genuine affection? In both cases, the older character believes his experience gives him the answers, while the younger character gradually begins to question whether that experience is actually getting them to the desired result.
Sound at all like Hal Jordan and John Stewart?
Then there are characters like Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in True Detective, a partnership built not on one with experience and another with naivete, but on different worldviews. Rust and Marty couldn’t be more different in how they see the world, yet their differences are precisely what make them effective and make their relationship so interesting. The more time they spend together, the more obvious it becomes that their professional partnership is held together by a common goal, and not because they are like-minded.
How do those compare to Hal and John? What makes their relationship so compelling isn’t simply that they’re different, or that Hal is older and more experienced while John is younger and thinks Hal’s time has come and gone (especially after we see what John went through in Episode 3). It’s that neither seems convinced the other has something to teach him. Like Joel and Ellie, Walter and Jesse, and Rust and Marty, they are two people who may be incompatible in some ways but are bound together by circumstances that make walking away impossible.
“The Weenie” takes us deeper into the cracks forming between them, and the question becomes less about whether Hal and John can work together and more about whether they can or should trust someone they may have every reason not to.
The episode begins where Episode 2 left off, with Hal traveling off-world to visit his imprisoned former mentor, Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), hoping to learn more about the Manhunters. Instead of divulging that information, Sinestro immediately turns the conversation toward John. He knows Hal well enough to recognize that the Manhunter isn’t actually the biggest threat on Hal’s mind. It’s John.
Sinestro draws out what Hal has been unwilling to admit. John has been brought in to be his replacement, and the Guardians are already preparing for the day when Hal is no longer the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. Sinestro even suggests that Hal will eventually have to kill John. Hal insists he won’t because he’s “not evil,” but the conversation plants another dangerous idea in Hal’s mind. If John isn’t simply his trainee, that means he is competition. And what does a superhero do to his competition?
Back in Rushville, Nebraska, John is conducting surveillance on William Macon’s (Garrett Dillahunt) compound when Hal arrives. John has identified a mysterious central structure—a “weenie,” an architectural term that Walt Disney used for a prominent landmark designed to draw attention—and believes that’s where they’ll find the Manhunter. The four watchtowers surrounding it all have clear lines of sight to the structure, while a helicopter arrives there every morning.
With only 36 hours before Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) and his alien hit squad threaten to destroy Rushville, Hal and John bring Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald) into the investigation. They believe the Manhunter crashed with Abin Sur and therefore couldn’t have records predating its arrival on Earth. Their theory is that it assumed a human identity and has been hiding in Rushville ever since, perhaps as Macon’s mysterious benefactor. Hal has already cleared the sheriff as a possibility, so it’s time to look at the Macon compound.
They decide to make their move at night, so it’s back to the motel to kill a few hours. Before they go, however, Guardian Lianna (Laura Linney) visits John. The Guardians want to accelerate the removal of Hal, and once John puts on the ring and recites the oath, he will officially become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.
She even uses the same psychological tactics John’s mother has used, suggesting that perhaps the Guardians made a mistake in choosing him. Having successfully had his abilities and selection challenged, John responds with a confidence that says plenty about how he views Hal. John believes he will be a better Green Lantern than Hal Jordan ever was. Hal is not worthy of the “massive power” of the ring.
Later that night, the two work together to infiltrate Macon’s compound. John creates an underground digging machine with the ring (but decides not to recite the oath when he has it), allowing them to bypass the perimeter and emerge inside the compound. They find an armory filled with advanced alien weapons, but a pressure plate triggers an alarm. Soldiers capture them and take them to Macon, who responds to the situation in perhaps the strangest possible display of power I’ve ever seen.
He strips naked and asks John to draw him (William:John::Rose:Jack from Titanic, I guess). Through this encounter, though, Macon reveals something important. His mysterious benefactor cured his cancer, and in return Macon has provided protection. The same benefactor has apparently been caring for others in the community (and is why the hospital was completely empty and unused), creating a strange relationship of dependence and loyalty around the Manhunter.
Sheriff Kane rescues Hal and John after Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) alerts her to their situation, and Kane orders them to stand down while she investigates the Manhunter through the available records. John agrees, but his personal investigation continues. His relationship with Zoe takes another turn when she visits him and the two sleep together again. Afterwards, she tells him that it has to be the last time. John has a choice between leaving Rushville or getting killed. John refuses to leave because he wants the truth. Everyone, he says, is lying to him.
Does that include Zoe? John believes yes, which leads to what will later become the most important revelation of the episode.
When Zoe tells him that she can’t reveal what she knows because “everything will change,” John understands that she is the Manhunter, but that’s kept from the audience for a while longer. The revelation is the episode’s biggest twist, transforming Zoe from John’s romantic entanglement into the very creature they’ve been hunting.
Zoe attempts to leave, but her car is destroyed by a weapon fired from orbit. Hal identifies the attack as coming from a satellite owned by Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazabal) and Atlas, Inc., leading them to a slaughterhouse 95 miles away. There, Hal and John discover Hammond’s bizarre operation and eventually confront him. Hammond has rigged a dead-man’s trigger that threatens John’s home and parents unless Hector enters a code, forcing the Lanterns to play along. He also reveals that he has been listening to them and has heard John’s private conversation with Lianna about how he would be a better Green Lantern than Hal and that Hal isn’t worthy of the ring’s power.
Hal calls his bluff, however, and we learn Hector is actually Hector Gutierrez, a human who was given advanced alien technology by Macon in exchange for doing his bidding. He claims Macon is the Manhunter. It appears the mystery has been solved, but Hal doesn’t seem entirely convinced.
When they leave, it’s an awkward car ride, as you might imagine. John admits that he could have taken the ring and recited the oath, but chose not to. Hal tells him he doesn’t blame him and would have done the same thing. It feels, briefly, like one of those rare moments when the two men finally understand each other and seem like they might be cut from the same cloth.
But Hal notices something else. John’s reaction to Zoe’s apparent death doesn’t make sense when compared to his reaction to his parents coming close to death. John is too stoic, too controlled. Hal realizes that John had already suspected Zoe was the Manhunter and knew she may have survived the attack. Once again, John kept something from him right after opening up and giving Hal something true.
That brings “The Weenie” right back to the fractured relationship. Every time Hal and John seem to make progress, another secret opens another crack between them. John doesn’t trust Hal enough to tell him everything, and Hal increasingly interprets John’s secrecy as evidence that John is working against him. Sinestro has already convinced Hal that John is a threat, while the Guardians have given John every reason to believe that Hal’s time is coming to an end.
So when Hal asks John to contact Antaan’s alien hit squad and invite them to Rushville, it isn’t really an act of trust. It’s a test. Hal realizes Zoe is the Manhunter and has decided that John knows more than he’s saying, and instead of confronting him, he chooses to act on that suspicion (and as Hal already said earlier in the episode, “I’m never wrong.”). On the drive back, Hal suddenly jumps from the car, leaving John inside as it crashes violently into a pole. Hal doesn’t technically kill John, but he knowingly puts him in a situation where he could have died; an escalation for a man who had just insisted to Sinestro that he wasn’t evil.
Despite any progress between them in “The Weenie,” Hal and John may now be farther apart than ever. They still don’t trust each other. And if Lanterns is borrowing from the great television partnerships that came before it, that’s what makes Hal and John’s relationship so compelling. The question isn’t whether they’ll eventually become friends or even allies. It’s whether they can survive each other long enough to decide who should be the Green Lantern.
