00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, X-Ray Vision listeners. This recap of Lanterns will include a discussion of suicidal ideation and people who struggle with it.
00:00:26
Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion. And I'm Rosie Knight. And welcome back to X-Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture coming to you from our heart, where we're bringing you three episodes a week.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: Plus news! In today's episode, we are talking about lanterns. Can you believe it? Episode seven. Do we know how this season is going to end? Is there enough time, Jason? Nobody knows, but we're excited. It's a crazy episode. It's another emotional episode. So let's get into it.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: We open in the year 1975. Young Hal Jordan is in the school office getting yelled at by his baseball coach. He's in his little baseball uniform. He's still clutching the game ball. His dad, test pilot, Air Force test pilot, shows up and is like, what's going on? Hal, we learn, is in trouble because it was late in the game, his team winning, no men on base, and the coach asked Hal, on the cusp of the no-hitter, to give up the ball to some reliever kid, whoever he was. And Hal was like, no, I'm not going to do it as I only have to strike out two more guys and I'm done. And I have a no hitter. He refused to do it. He ended up fighting, physically fighting with multiple members of the team. His dad hears this and is actually, is actually kind of impressed. You can tell. And the coach is like, listen, obviously this is a hiccup, but we can sort this out. All Hal has to do is apologize to the team. And then, of course, he's going to ride the bench for a few days. And then he'll be right back at it. And dad mulls this over for a second. And he's like, let me get this straight. No men on? Like, ninth inning? That was stupid. Why did you pull my son? And then dad and the baseball coach get in a physical fight.
00:02:36
Speaker 1: And we see where Hal gets it.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: We see where Hal gets it. Later, they're sitting at the hangar at the Air Force base, watching the jets fly overhead. Hal is still holding onto the ball. Dad pulls a key on a chain off of his neck and holds it out to his son and says, are you scared? And Hal says he's not. And so Hal puts on the chain with the key on it. And dad tells him the story of his father, Hal's grandfather. and how excited he was to go to war. We assume this is World War II and that he was fearless, but you can be fearless or not. You don't always have control of the things that are going to happen to you. And so Hal's grandfather went off to war and he didn't come back and he gave Hal's dad a key to his safe. And the stuff in his safe is like the things that he wanted to pass on to his son. And they are things that stayed between Hal's father and Hal's grandfather. And just like them, the things in Hal's father's safe that are for Hal will stay between them. What about mom, Hal says. She's not a part of this.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's a red flag for me. Don't be keeping those secrets, bro.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: It's always us. I agree, but this is what's going on in the Jordan family. And dad promises, though, that he's going to be around for a long time. This is just a thing that the Jordan boys do. But, of course, Hal's dad passes away shortly thereafter in a fiery crash. The comics tell us and Hal tells us, although we are to understand the truth later.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Before that happens, though, as they're sitting there on the tarmac. Dad is like, Hal, you can let go of the ball now. Just throw it as far as you can. Throw it away. So Hal lets it rip. He's got a great arm. And then later we do see the funeral that Hal and his mom are at. We go to 2026. Jon Stewart and the Halogram are standing over Hal's grave. And Jon is explaining to AI Hal. who he is again and what's gone. You remember me, right? You know, like we met briefly when I wore the ring, when Hal was training me and I didn't know how to fly yet. You remember that? Halogram is very disappointed to see that he's been murdered.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: So you were right, by the way, you absolutely called that. I thought it was more like the cranky Hal back, but it's this Halogram who doesn't know anything about where they're at because he hasn't been spoken to for so long. It's so much fun. I like this. I like this dynamic. It's fun to get to play with a different Hal and Jon dynamic.
00:05:30
Speaker 2: And he doesn't know, you know, he's, he's obviously devastated that Hal's been killed. He's angry. He's disappointed that Hal is no longer the Green Lantern. Jon Stewart's like, well, I'm not the Green Lantern either. It's like, why are you wearing the ring? It's like, that's a long story. We'll get to that. What do you want? I just want to solve his murder, Jon Stewart tells him. And he tells Hal.
00:05:56
Speaker 2: I need help with Hal's vault. He has this safe that I need to open. And Halagram is immediately suspicious. He changed the subject. Tell me about the funeral. Jon Stewart's like, oh, it was fucking, it was a big deal.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: Really?
00:06:14
Speaker 2: Oh, that's great to hear. It was a big deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole core was there. All the luminaries from across the galaxy. Yeah. All the top mucky mucks in the U.S. government, the squirrel guy. Was Mogo there? Yeah, Mogo was even there. Mogo is a planet. So now Hal knows that Jon Stewart is lying to him. Oh. And he disappears. Put him back in the ring. Get back in the ring. Jon Stewart gets in his car. He calls Aaron and is like, I need that $ 300, 000 because of, you know, he doesn't say, but because he's being blackmailed by Maggie. Marcus is on there also as like a conference call. Crazy. That was kind of weird, right?
00:06:57
Speaker 1: I know.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: You know what I think it is, is like maybe old, you know, remember in like Mean Girls, there's a trick American girls would do when they had three phones where one would be like waiting. I wonder if they had somehow already had him on the call. That was a bit confusing, but you know what? Who knows what's going on with Jon Stewart's phone plan or the way that his family talked to each other. None of us understand it.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: The phone issue is very confusing. Anyway. So, you know, Marcus gets on there as well. And Jon Stewart has to explain to everybody what's going on. He's like, listen, I'm being blackmailed flat out. Like, I need to pay a blackmail payment because Hal Jordan's been killed and they might think I did it or whatever. Aaron says he'll think about wiring the payment and hangs up.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: Doesn't he pay for everything in Aaron's life? That's what I want to know.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: It's not even your money, Aaron.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: Send the $ 300, 000, bruv.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: Send it. John arrives at the vault at the Fortress of Storage and conjures Halligram, shows him the keychain with the bird on it and is like, listen. Hal knew that birds were my thing. This is a message to me that this is important, that I have to open this. And of course, understanding what we understand from the cold open, this is very meaningful to Hal. Hal would feel that, you know, this vault... Jordan's leaving a safe for somebody else is a very, very intimate. Yeah, it's a very intimate thing. And it wouldn't he has to make sure that it's really for John, because if it's not, that's a real violation of everything kind of Hal knows about.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: So.
00:08:42
Speaker 2: Hal is clearly suspicious. He interrogates John Stewart. Who's Mark Allen? Who's he?
00:08:49
Speaker 1: Oh, so you want him back.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: In the ring. Immediately, very interesting. And we were, we should note, we were kind of right so far about Jon Stewart's abilities affecting AI Hal, making him more real, more corporeal.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: More able to stay out of the ring, it seems.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: A persistent consciousness outside of the power of the ring. Because how would he have heard that from inside the ring? So apparently he makes this statement about how he wasn't put away all the way and that if John is thinking about him, he's still around. Very interesting.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: Okay, that also kind of implies that there's some potential for a sort of Firestorm-esque Hal in John's body at some point. Like this idea that Hal is kind of John's interior voice.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: I will just point out that it's possible that Hal... in real life, how Jordan understood this. And John did wear the ring several times. He wore the ring during training. He wore the ring when he conjured the boring machine. The drilling machine.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: The little bird, Hal was always shocked by how long it stayed alive. So he probably had this same consideration about the AI.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: He then went to talk to Sinestro several times. What I'm saying is in real life, Hal might have... understood, perhaps even more than Jon, what Jon's effect on the ring and its lifelike manifestations were capable of. And we'll just leave that there because it's, you know, again, Jon wore the ring several times and then Hallegram was conjured.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: And now he's kind of staying, it seems, or a little bit more cheeky and sentient than you would expect.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: So it might have been that there was a previous version of Halogram, the one, the century version of Hal that Hal had in real life, Hal had flying around the town that was, I don't know, more lifelike, much more alive because Jon Stewart wore the ring at one point. And could they have switched places? We don't know. That's for later.
00:11:03
Speaker 1: We don't know.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Let's move on. Jon Stewart does his best to convince AI Hal that he really, really, really wants to solve Hal's murder and that's it. Halogram is like, well, what if you killed me? And it's a fair question.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: He's like, there must be a law enforcement person in town who's investigating the murder. I want to talk to them.
00:11:23
Speaker 1: Babe, she's the most likely to have killed you, actually.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: So let's keep that off the- Let's get into that in a bit. Jon Stewart says, no, no, no, no way. Here's the issue. You and the sheriff had a romance and you kind of really fucked up the town a lot. You fucked up her life. It would be very traumatic for her to see you again as not yourself, as like an AI version of you. That would be like really, really crazy. Also, Hal was in jail for a number of years because of how fucked up his last mission in this town was. Like, I don't want to go into that. And it's a whole can of worms. You don't want to do that. Hal was shocked to learn that he was in love with somebody.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he went to jail. Both were equally shocking.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, wait a second. I was in love? He's like, yeah, basically. He's like, I don't open this vault until I talk to the sheriff, period. And he disappears. Next day, John Stewart's driving into town. His mom's calling. But before he can answer, Halligram shows up and is like, who's Bernadette? Is that your wife? John Stewart takes the ring off. to make him disappear, but he doesn't disappear. And AI Hal is like high key amazed. He's like, Whoa, holy shit. This is incredible. I'm still here. You don't have the ring on. How are you doing this? This is incredible. Like, Hey, I could never do this. I didn't have, I was very powerful, but I didn't have the ability to do this. This is wild. Congratulations. That's a big deal. And John is like, man, this is crazy. Like real life Hal never complimented me before. And you're being so effusive. This is a different Hal Jordan. A less cynical, you know, a less road beaten Hal Jordan. They arrive at the sheriff's station. There's a note on the door saying that the sheriff is at the hat ceremony for, you know, Noah's on the football team. It's a big deal. She's there. Hal is like, what's that? Sees the Green Lantern signal and goes over there. And, of course, the memorial is over there with all the names of all the people who perished during the Manhunter incident. And Jon Stewart is like, listen, there's a Manhunter down here. And Hal and I, you know, kind of had to take it down. AI Hal is like, wait a second. They're all extinct. He's like, no, there was one left. And when we were down here taking it down, a lot went wrong and a lot of people died and it was a big deal. Hal is like, oh, I get it. You were in love with the Manhunter, weren't you? That's how they work. These Manhunters, they, they get into, they get involved with you and you fall in love with them and they seduce you. And then Hal as you know, under his authority as a green lantern and a peace officer. Took down this Manhunter and now you're mad at him and that's why you killed Hal, isn't it? And that's why you hate him. And he's like, no, that's not what happened.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: John's like, nah.
00:14:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Hal says, now listen, you may think that Hal killed this Manhunter, but you don't know Hal Jordan. We don't kill. That's not what we do. He would never kill. So now I got to tell you, Rosie, I'm thinking that that whole killing Zoe thing is some sort of ruse by Hal to protect the real man, Hunter, who you put your finger on it. Is it fucking Carrie?
00:15:07
Speaker 1: Is it Carrie or is it Noah? I think the Manhunter might be Noah now and Carrie is doing everything she is to protect him. And because he loves Carrie, he's doing that too.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: That's like my thing.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: Carrie is the one who did seduce somebody. Hal Jordan did fall in love with her. Carrie did be seducing. And every time you look at things that have happened, when Hal and John were... taken captive by Will Macon, and Will Macon was making John sketch his nuts, his testicles.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: That was very strange.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Sheriff Carey walked right in and snatched them out. When John was getting, you know, in the big fight with Billy Macon, she arrested him and managed to squash that. When later... Billy Macon and John get into it at the hat ceremony. She's just like, go away, Billy. And then she, and Billy just goes away.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: I do think you're right. Cause actually as well, meta textually, it's a really interesting choice because the actress is most known for like grounded British police dramas. So this makes her, uh, expected fit for this so her actually playing the alien manhunter would be crazy also you know the only version of that story that we've heard is from her perspective so you're right we actually don't know what happened and also they said a manhunter would never welcome death but zoe welcomed death she did have a crystal heart obviously but that doesn't mean she was the only manhunter you know i'm very interested in where this goes because.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: It As one of our YouTube commenters have pointed out, MrAbdy111 on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube page, X-Ray Vision Pod. Carrie had access to a 9mm gun, is a person who Hal would let walk right up to him. And obviously it's the motive to protect Noah. I don't know. I'm beginning to wonder about her.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: I do think she killed Hal. I think she killed Hal. I am on that ship. I agree with Abdi111. This is, to me, the most likely suspect.
00:17:23
Speaker 2: Okay, so they drive over to the hat ceremony. Jon Stewart is explaining in the car about Guy Gardner. So who's the Green Lantern? He's this guy, Guy Gardner. Ex-gym teacher. He has got a gold tooth.
00:17:38
Speaker 1: He sucks. The gold tooth should be illegal.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: The bowl cut should be illegal. Yeah. Jon Stewart does not clearly want to explain why he is not the current Green Lantern, which Hal, Halogram is very, very curious about.
00:17:50
Speaker 1: I also thought this was actually really cute because after the Halogram incident where Hal compliments him, Jon doesn't really want to be like, well, I just chose not to be the Green Lantern because you suck.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. You know what I mean?
00:18:04
Speaker 1: There's this thing here where he's just kind of trying to avoid it because I think he's realizing there's a version of Hal he never met who maybe would have been a better mentor.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: I also think, and maybe this is reading too much into the personalities of both Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart, I think that there is a thing that happens to people who are raised in a very kind of like high-achieving, hard-driving, intense... atmosphere where they crave that you know compliments and they crave the acceptance of an authority figure but when they get it it's uncomfortable And so when John is hearing these compliments, I think he's, I think it means a lot to him, but he's also very put off. It's also very strange. Yeah.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: I think that that's really deep because there's also the other side of it, which is like, John doesn't really know how his parents feel about him and how probably feels that way too. So like, for John, it's that feeling of like, yeah, you're seeking, you know, people being kind to you, people acknowledging you, people validating you. But then when they do it, you're like, wait.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: I don't know how to deal with this. Nobody ever did it before.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I love that.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: So, you know, as Hal is like, wait a second, like you're so powerful. How are you not the green lantern? John just like flees from the topic.
00:19:25
Speaker 1: He's like, no, he.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Begins like focusing on music in order to basically make Hal disappear. Hal disappears.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Um, Again, showing how powerful John is because it really is about his will.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: So at the high school hat ceremony, Maggie just appears right at his truck window, his denial the window of his beautiful denali and is like motherfucker where my money where is it three hundred thousand dollars you blew up my town you got.
00:19:55
Speaker 1: Me obsessed with expensive watches give me some money for those expensive watches and if you don't have the money right now give me.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Your expensive watch give me your watch she makes john is like listen i'm getting the money wired to you He takes off his watch, which does look like a very nice watch.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do have to say I like the watch theme going through because one, very timely. Lots of people I know are obsessed with watches. But I think like the way that the watch was how John got his Green Lantern powers and then his first mission that failed so awfully, he gave a watch to this little girl and then she became obsessed with the watch. There's something very interesting in it. Also, a big part of me is like, why would he care to be blackmailed by her. She's not exactly like a reliable witness, blah, blah, blah. But I really think he just wants to give her the money because he feels guilty. That's why I think he's allowing himself to be blackmailed.
00:20:49
Speaker 2: And apparently that watch is some very fancy mucky muck watch that is worth, and I struggle to believe this is true, but watch people tell us that it's close to a million dollar watch. He just gave... Give me a million dollar watch!
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Big important question. Did John get that watch from the success of Stewart Brothers? Or can he just manifest the designer watch whenever he wants with the Green Lantern powers and it just stays around? Honestly, like he's just got hella Rolexes and like those like $ 10 million underwater watches.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: That's actually very funny. I'm sure it was some kind of thing from a government contract or something. Yeah. So he goes into the hat ceremony. You know, the football team is being lauded. Football here, huge deal. Everybody's cheering. They're announcing the players. Of course, Kerry is there. Bill Macon is there, you know, their son. Noah is the quarterback. And so he gets a place of honor. He gets introduced last, takes the mic, gets to make a little speech. He tells the town that, like, listen, I'm focused on the championship. That's what I care about. I know everybody's expecting me to make a decision about where I'm going to play college ball, but I want this town to heal. We've been through a lot over the last 10 years with the devastation of the town.
00:22:09
Speaker 1: He's a leader, cult leader.
00:22:10
Speaker 2: And I think what could heal this town is if we win the championship. So all I care about is the championship. I'm not looking past that. I know everybody was expecting me to make my decision today. I'm not thinking about that. I'll announce that later. I'm going to focus on the game. Kerry is clearly a little bit disappointed. The town may be a little disappointed too, but they're cheering.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I was going to say, the Noah-Kerry stuff is really interesting. And I do think, leans into your theory, that Kerry might be the one in charge. Because she seems disappointed. Like that was something he was supposed to say. I also want to say, guys... to the discord, to the Americans. I'm sorry for my cultural misunderstanding. I didn't think that somebody yelling at Noah going, what school are you going to pick was like supportive. But it is clear here that everybody in the town does support Noah and kind of worships him in a way that does lead to a little resentment, but not as much as I was originally reading. I get it. Americans celebrate successful kids differently. But yeah, I thought this carry Noah stuff was really interesting. Also makes me think, is Noah going to be an unexpected ally? Like, is this a destiny he didn't want that's going to put him on a different path?
00:23:36
Speaker 2: Billy sees Jon Stewart there and flips the fuck out. Carrie has to come over and breaks it up very easily. Go away. I had to arrest him after you guys got in a fight and he kicked your ass. You want to get your ass kicked again? Get out of here. There is some awkwardness for sure. She shoos Billy away and Billy says, hey, I'll see you at the big party at your house later. And they're having a big party for Noah where it was supposed to be his announcement of his college thing. But now it's just going to be a get together. She doesn't have time for whatever. John's like, I need to talk to you. She's like, I don't have time. There's that party at my house. There's a hundred people there. It's a big deal. He's like, listen, it's about how. She's like, meet me in the science lab in five minutes. On the way to the science lab, you know, he's walking over there before Carrie gets there and he gets a call. from his bank and he needs to basically okay the $ 315, 000 wire. And he's like, okay, you need to confirm this wire. He's like, yes, it's for me. Confirm the amount. He confirms the amount. He's trying to do it quietly because Kerry's walking up behind him. And it seems really weird to be like $ 350, 000. They go to the science lab and he explains, he tries to explain, like, listen, the person you're about to meet is not who you think he is, but it's going to look and sound, Just like Hal. It's not Hal. It's an AI reconstruct of his consciousness. Okay. But it's not him. And I understand this is going to be very weird and confusing. But Hal, meanwhile, has already appeared behind her. She turns, you know, with much trepidation and sees Jordan. And it's, you know, the heartbreak, the distress. Yes. is all over her face. Can this be real? It looks just like him, only a little over, obviously younger, you know, maybe 10, 15, maybe more, maybe 20 years younger at this point. And, and there's a long, long silence. She touches his face. She can feel him because, you know, the construct and also John Stewart making him more real. John tries to explain like, no, that's a construct. Hal takes over. It's like, don't, you're ruining the moment. Yeah. You're ruining the moment. He's like, um, You know, I'm not the Hal that you once knew, but I was Hal. And he asks her, were we close? And clearly they were very close in love. And he's like, was I open with you? And she says, we told each other everything. And he says, did we talk about my father? And she nods. And he says, do we talk about how he died? And she nods. And she said, and then he asks, so who killed me? And she says, could have been anyone, the whole town hated you.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: Hate to hear it, but he has to hear it once every episode.
00:26:27
Speaker 2: And I gotta say, for someone who loved Hal so much, you'd think she'd be working 24 hours a day to figure out who killed him, right?
00:26:37
Speaker 1: She's not that bothered.
00:26:39
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem that curious.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: No.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: She's obviously heartbroken that he's gone.
00:26:44
Speaker 1: Throwing a lot of parties, which, honestly, I also respect. Like, I respect that a man dies and you throw a party, but, like, calm down, babe.
00:26:52
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem to be, like, burning the midnight oil to figure out who killed him. She's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, could have been anyone. Anyway, Hal says, well, what about him? What about Jon Stewart? Could he have killed me? And she's like, no. And she talks about how Hal, real life Hal, used to talk about Jon Stewart. He used to talk about Jon as like the football team that he loves and follows, but that always let him down. It was never getting to the level that he wanted to, but he watched it every Sunday. Because he never helped. Yeah. Well, yes. For maybe reasons that we don't understand, we'll fight. We'll figure it out. And basically, she says, Hal was a huge fan of Jon Stewart, despite the fact that Hal never told that to John. He didn't express it. feeling very awkward about this like it it it touches him but he doesn't know how to take it carrie learns that wait a second how did how did he get the ring john dug hal up and this is all about that vault john stewart is like yes it's about the vault let's go there now we gotta open.
00:28:08
Speaker 1: It again if somebody dug up my ex-boyfriend i would probably be a bit more pissed off Just saying.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: Just saying. Just saying.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: Look, she doesn't seem that bothered. I'm on Jordan's side on this one. I don't care if you dig up Hal Stewart. You have a right to do it. Yeah. But anyway, Hal is on our side anyway. He knows what's going on.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: Carrie is like, OK, I can go to the vault, but I got to at least make an appearance at my son's hat, you know, ceremony party where there's going to be 100 people there. Back in the truck, Hal immediately to Jon Stewart is like, I think she killed me. Yeah. The way she touched my face, how emotional she was. She didn't expect to see me. It was something loose.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: The gut check is saying she did it.
00:28:53
Speaker 2: The gut check is she did it. Let's go to the vault right fucking now. They go to the vault without Carrie. At the vault, Hal wonders what, you know, it's like, wait a second. What if I wasn't trying to keep someone out but keep something in too late now?
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Good question finally to ask, but you should have asked it like two episodes ago, babe.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: Way too late now. The vault opens. Inside the vault, it's not one of those pocket dimensions like we thought.
00:29:20
Speaker 1: Or it is, but it's like to a different place. It's like a portal to a place.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: So there is a backpack inside of which is a canteen, a poncho, some protein bars, and a gun. There's also one of those blob Einstein-Rosenbridge portals. Hal explains how it works. Hal isn't sure if in real life Life Hal was the one using it. There's no way to know that, but it goes to another place. He opens it up, peeks in real quick and is like, yeah, that's another world. But let's not do it here because the sheriff knows about this place. Let's go to some other abandoned place and then do it. So they drive off to some like water, deserted water tower. They go inside, they set up the portal. Hal, Jon Stewart tells Hal to ask him if he's afraid. Hal asks him and he's like, fuck no. They go through and it's just like this.
00:30:11
Speaker 1: I just want to say, Jon Stewart, go to therapy. I love you.
00:30:15
Speaker 2: But the fact you needed an adult man, everyone in this show, the fact you needed.
00:30:20
Speaker 1: An adult man to ask you that before you could do it, like it was like a ritual is like so fucked up. But I love it. I love these two together in this scene. Also as well, I'm not going to lie. I'm loving the nice Hal. I'm loving Halogram. I do. I know I'm always suspicious of a Hal and I'm not. for the most part in this case, but when he was like, oh, let's take the portal and go somewhere else so no one knows where we're using it, I was slightly like, okay, that's kind of giving red flag. It made me worry for Jon. Jon is in a situation where he has to trust Hallegram because there's no one else to trust, but it's still not the safest situation for Jon to be in, I don't think.
00:31:00
Speaker 2: For sure. So they go through and it's this absolutely wasted, deserted, destroyed planet, a yellow desert sands, eerie kind of gas, uh, low smoke that clean to the, to the ground and up above is like a destroyed city in the sky that like almost hangs upside down. John feels like he's been there before. And Hal is like, that's weird. Have you, you know, how has Hal been there here before? He's like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I've been a lot of places. I don't know. It's weird and echoey. John looks out in the distance. He spots like a lake, a huge lake. And there's an island with some kind of flashing light in the middle of it. And there's that city in the sky that we mentioned.
00:31:49
Speaker 1: It's kind of banging upside down.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: John can't fly up there. So Hal is like, okay, just construct me up there. He does. John, meanwhile, while Hal is up there looking around, you know, finds skeletons in the sand. And it's clear that everybody who was on this planet or lived in that city, they died. They died down here. Hal comes back and it's like that city's evacuated. There's no one there. He's like, yeah, because all the dead bodies are down here. And so John tells Hal about Anton. He's like, this is why I feel like I've been here. I met this alien named Anton. And Anton showed me The experience of his planet getting wiped out by the Manhunter. And this is that planet. And apparently they deployed, the Manhunter deployed some sort of gas that made the entire population murderous and kill each other and also kill themselves. Yeah, like a rage virus, basically. So they killed each other and they killed themselves. Yes. And, you know, the question is, what was real life Hal doing here? Jon Stewart says, let's go over towards that island in the lake. Let's go over towards that boat. That's probably where Hal is going. By the time they get on the lake and they're in a boat crossing the lake, it's nighttime. Hal is interrogating Jon Stewart about what's going on. Jon Stewart explains that, you know, why did you go back to Rushville?
00:33:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, why the fuck are you here anyway? Your whole life is great outside of this. You're like a millionaire, military contractor, an architect.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: And Jon is like, well, my mom called and said, Hal Jordan called her and said he wanted to apologize. So that's why I went there. But then Hal didn't know anything about that and started to fucking give me shit about a million different things. And so I punched him in the face. And I have good reason to punch him in the face because of this, that, and the other. He got me kicked out of the Marines. He is the reason I'm not the Green Lantern.
00:33:50
Speaker 1: That was... An implication that he was maybe fucking your mom. Like, I'm sorry, that was definitely there. Like, the dad doesn't live there anymore. They've been friends for 10 years, writing to each other. The notion that the mom would be the one who would let you know that Hal wants to apologize. And then Hal, the first thing he's doing being asking how your mom is. Like, he was playing on it, even if it wasn't happening. Jon Stewart was right to punch him.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: 100%. Hal apologizes for in real life, Hal. He's like, man, I'm sorry for all that stuff that in real life Hal did. But Jon Stewart doesn't want that from Hallegram. He wants it from in real life Hal, but in real life Hal is dead. So he's not going to get that. He's very frustrated. Jon is like, enough of this conversation. He manages to dispel Hal, again, by singing, focusing on music. Now it's raining. Downpour. Jon Stewart clearly should have brought the poncho, as Hallegram had said. He continues to row, but now he looks down, there's apples in the water. Lots of apples.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: Welcome to Derry moment, sir.
00:34:52
Speaker 2: His dad appears in the boat with the apple on his head and is like, are you scared? Shoot me. And then it's him. It's himself as a child with the apple on his head, accusing him of being too scared to be a lantern. he's John Stewart has the gun out. He's going to shoot this apparition, but then he's knocked overboard, overboard into the water and pulled back into the boat by hologram. Hologram is like, you had the gun to your head and you were going to shoot, I think. And you were screaming at things.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: I want to touch on this. So we see that the planet is yellow. They talk about this gas. But I also just wonder if this is where the yellow, the fear of yellow, the color yellow, like we know... that that is connected to the Yellow Lantern, connected to Sinestro potentially. I like the way that they visualize it here as if you're in kind of like a Pennywise-esque hallucination where they're playing on your greatest fears and your unresolved traumas. I thought this was a really cool way that we haven't really seen represented. And it's also been built up really well in the show because of how much we've talked about how that treatment impacted him or didn't impact him, right?
00:36:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker 1: And also we get more detective Jon Stewart here as he starts to kind of put together that clearly things are not good in the vault, in Antan's portal.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: Yes. So Jon Stewart figures out that in and around this lake, that murder gas is still active. It's in the water. It's in the rain that's falling on them. It's in the clouds. Hal is like, man, I told you the poncho, you should have worn it. They row out towards the island. They get there and, um, As they're pulling up to the island, Hal explains that, listen, my dad, the story is my dad died in a fiery plane crash, test pilot, heroic pilot, this, that, and the other. Actually, he killed himself. And a couple of months before he did that, he gave me the key to his safe. And in the, you know, there's cash, coins, some old photos. There was a note in there about why he did it. And it was, you know, this kind of typical, very sad story. thing where a person feels like their family would be better off without them. And it would be better if they were gone.
00:37:11
Speaker 1: What we always say in like mental health circles, as someone who suffers with like a lot of different mental health stuff and whose family all did is like, the one thing you've got to remember is depression is a liar, right? And this is the classic lie. It tells you everyone would be bad. Everything. is happier without you you know I have to say I found this entire reveal about about Hal and his family incredibly well done because it explains so much about who he is Hal Jordan reminds me of my dad maybe that's why I don't like him he's a lot older than my dad but it comes up the cockiness and the self-assuredness and the spikiness comes from a place of great trauma Great insecurity. Great insecurity and fear of like, what about your worthiness? And also, I got to say, as somebody who has dealt with a lot of issues with my parents in my life, one of my biggest issues is like, did my parents like me? Did they love me? Did they reject me?
00:38:08
Speaker 2: Right.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: To have a parent who struggles with suicidal ideation and ultimately acts on it will always leave you feeling like you weren't enough.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: Yes. And there's it reframes Hal's fearlessness as well.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Completely.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: Because the fearlessness in this context might just be he wants to die a little bit. And he's therefore not afraid of it.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: I think like when I was very depressed or stressed or whatever, you know, I would say stuff like, Well, yeah, I can do scary stuff because I don't really value my life very much. You know, that was like my cynical teenage way of looking at it and how Jordan has that. It's like the fearlessness comes from the fact that he doesn't value it and he thinks he's going to die at some point anyway.
00:38:51
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:38:51
Speaker 1: You know, and that is really fucking powerful here.
00:38:55
Speaker 2: So Hal then tells John that, you know, this is something that, and this does happen, this runs in families. He's like, this is called the Jordan boys legacy. My grandfather, this cover story is that he died in World War II, but actually like he also killed himself. And he says, like, I'm not fearless because I'm fearless. I'm fearless because I'm broken. Hal wonders, therefore, this is all a means to basically stress to John that I wonder if Hal's note is somewhere connected to his vault. It wasn't in the vault, but is it supposed to lead us to his note?
00:39:39
Speaker 1: Like what if he did this himself?
00:39:41
Speaker 2: What if he did this himself or caused it to happen to himself?
00:39:45
Speaker 1: And allowed it to happen and Kerry just kind of like threw away the gun to kind of cover up. Because also, look, we can't lie. There is still a stigma around suicidal ideation, around suicide and stuff. So there is also like his legacy in the grander world. His legacy as a Green Lantern, his legacy as a hero. You know, so I think that Hologram is being very honest here, suggesting that this could be a version. And it's not like some honorable, cool, and a villain took you down, right? There is an honesty here that I think is like so fucking real.
00:40:19
Speaker 2: So, Jon Stewart apologizes for misunderstanding Hal. Nothing to apologize for. They arrive at the island. Jon Stewart realizes when he fell in the water, he lost the gun, so they don't have the gun. He does have the ring, the most powerful... weapon in the universe but there's like one percent charge.
00:40:37
Speaker 1: They've had it's been on like five percent since he dug up how so honestly the one percent charge it's giving good battery charge also john we know you don't need that lantern babe right because.
00:40:47
Speaker 2: John can just john can just keep.
00:40:50
Speaker 1: The constructs we're seeing it the constructs are going in.
00:40:54
Speaker 2: But he's probably not going to be able to manifest any sort of weapon or or beam or anything Anyway, they go in there and it's like this weird kind of like almost refinery tower with this kind of weird cauldron, lit kind of technological cauldron on the inside.
00:41:10
Speaker 1: Clearly some kind of evil lair is going on around here. There's an evil lair.
00:41:15
Speaker 2: As they walk in, someone grabs Halogram from behind, a hooded figure, and is like, give me your booger. I'll kill this guy. And Jon Stewart's like, you know, like you can kill him. I don't like him. I don't like him. I don't think it'll do anything. And Hal is like, that's our music, John, which is the signal to make him disappear by thinking about the music. So Hal disappears, and John throws a punch right at Hal's head. As Hal disappears, it goes through, punches the person. He's knocked down. It's Sinestro!
00:41:50
Speaker 1: Whoa! Whoa! Okay, and I have to say, I was wrong in this case, guys. I will say, I think I do get a bit of credit because there is a redemption here. I do feel like it is more for Halogram, but it's still for Hal. There is this great moment where he looks at John and just completely sincerely says, great arm, kid. And it's what John has wanted to hear all his fucking life from his parents. And in that moment, you go back and you see him throw the ball as a kid. And I was just like, oh, okay, they got me. This how fucking gets it. This how understands. And yeah, when he said that to him, I was just like, wow. Yes, my son punched Sinestro. I'm so proud of him. Thank you for acknowledging his work.
00:42:35
Speaker 2: I think it's also... Let's take a break and then we'll talk about this episode. Lots to talk about. And we're back. Okay, let's talk about this. So, you know, the thing that I immediately thought was this younger version... of Hal is a lot more open. It's obviously like a different, it's made, it's an AI construct and AI constructs, the last thing you wanna do is get into an argument with it.
00:43:13
Speaker 1: So it is much more- We know that, we know that.
00:43:15
Speaker 2: It is much more pliant. It is much more willing to go along with things that you say, although it is obviously he and John do have various arguments, but it's not the same as the real life person. It's going to open up a lot more willingly.
00:43:30
Speaker 1: Especially if we think of LLMs and the way that they're trained to work as we know them now.
00:43:35
Speaker 2: That said, I also got the feeling that when Hal turned this off, something had happened. And my feeling is, and I mean, this is there in the comics and it's ever since Jeff Johns kind of retconned Hal's backstory. Sinestra was his mentor. Sinestra was basically a father figure to Hal Jordan.
00:43:57
Speaker 1: Exactly, which they're playing into the dad stuff so much here.
00:44:00
Speaker 2: And whatever happened between them was a huge betrayal. Hal was left feeling unmoored by the reveal that Sinister was not the person that he thought he was. And so this is a different pre-that version of Hal who's much more willing to trust.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: Something that I find very interesting also is the fact that the way that Jon creates constructs and the way that Hal knocked... the cover of his ring. I think that those two things coming together are allowing Hal to not, or Halogram to not just be conscious or more physical, more structurally physical. I actually think that it's giving him more of an opinion, more of a consciousness. I don't think that he was manipulating John when he said great arm. I think that was like him coming out. That's his humanness. That's the actual legacy of, the boys is like that memory of his father and I thought that was really moving and I'm very interested to see where that goes because also like I said at some points I was suspicious of hologram this episode but by the end they emotionally sold me on it Jason how does this work for you as a penultimate episode of a season because it does feel like wait the finale unless it's two hours long stranger things style they're not going to be able to wrap everything up absolutely.
00:45:25
Speaker 2: They're Whatever's going on with Oa and the Guardians and Liana, Laura Linney, we're definitely not going to get to that. And whatever is going on with— Season two, big budget. Right. You know, Laura Linney, a.k.a. Liana's relationship with John and her heavy pressure on him, whatever that is, we're definitely not going to get into that. I guess they will crack the door open on that vis-a-vis Sinestro.
00:45:52
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:45:52
Speaker 2: But we will not get we will only solve the Hal Jordan piece, the Manhunter piece, I think. But I got here. So that's what I think.
00:46:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker 2: However. I have a I want to run this by you.
00:46:06
Speaker 1: Tell me.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Because I'm like, why are they on this planet? Thank you. Obviously Hal was investigating the connection between the Guardians and the Manhunters and what the Manhunters were up to. I wonder this. I do wonder if Carrie is the Manhunter. And I keep thinking about the way Anton was like, when Anton was interrogating Will Macon, who is pretending to be the Manhunter, and it's like, how many kids do we have? We couldn't conceive. What if.
00:46:40
Speaker 2: What if it was the Guardians trying to kill the Manhunter that destroyed this planet? They dropped the gas.
00:46:49
Speaker 1: I believe that.
00:46:49
Speaker 2: They dropped the gas. They dropped the gas to genocide everybody. To terrify the planet. And in actuality, the Manhunter did conceive. and has been trying to hid, because Noah's kind of old, like the ages don't match up. I was going to say, we don't, the whole like, who's the parent? Is Zoe Macon, Will Macon, Billy Macon's mom? Like all that stuff doesn't really make sense. So we're just kind of buying it. The Manhunter hid the child that conceived with Anton, escaped the planet, landed on earth and is trying to raise this child in secrecy, protecting that child. That is the most important thing. And that the secret of this planet is not that the Manhunter did it. It's that the Guardians genocided a whole planet.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: And that's why they're after the Manhunters who know.
00:47:46
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:47:46
Speaker 1: That's really smart, actually. And also there is a lot of going back and looking at the Anton stuff from this season. There is a lot of stuff where he's kind of just like, chopping and changing the histories and talking about the Guardians in one way and then talking about the enemy of my enemy is my friend and da-da-da-da-da. So, yeah, I definitely think The genocide is going to be a part of it. The gas is going to be a part of it. Sinestro is going to be a part of it. I mean, I would say my most simple theory for how they could explain this is simply going to be something about the color yellow and about Sinestro being, it's going to be something like he'd been told all his life not to harness it. It's the color of fear. It's so dangerous. It will make you weak. And then he was on a planet and he was able to harness it and he realized it made him strong or something like that. I think it might be quite back to basics on the, yellow lantern of it.
00:48:41
Speaker 2: All sinestro the greatest lantern of all time exactly.
00:48:45
Speaker 1: You know and then he's kind of trapped on this planet and he's gonna i think he's gonna have to convince halogram and john stewart that obviously real hal put him there to protect him which we had guessed about abin sir but not about sinestro because we still don't know who broke out sinestro So there are these kind of questions. So I think that will maybe be the big thing. The big reveal could be we still have real Hal alive. I don't know, because we have talked about potential other holograms or, you know, Manhunters who can change shape, stuff like that. I would also say J. joelle put a great question in here which we've kind of alluded to this episode but let's break it down a bit more did the ring lose power at the end of the episode and if it did can john keep hologram conscious without the ring i think he can at this point i think that's what the episode will be is him keeping him alive.
00:49:39
Speaker 2: I think he can because, listen, the ring has been on some very sub-5% charge, very low charge for a long time now. And Hal, Halogram, has been doing a lot of things, running around, walking around, having full-fledged conversations with multiple people.
00:49:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:49:57
Speaker 2: And is existing outside of and without needing the power of the ring to keep him alive. So. Yeah. I think that that, I think hologram is here to stay. Agreed. regardless of whatever happens with the charge of the ring or whether Jon actually manages to do any Green Lantern stuff. That's an open question. Does he charge the ring at any point?
00:50:22
Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie, guys. I do think the one thing the finale does need, this has been a really fun show to cover. There's been crazy highs. It's been like really interesting to see the discourse around it. I will say, I think, not necessarily for me, and I love weird Green Lantern shit, but definitely a recurring theme I've seen in the Discord online. We've talked about the budgetary constraints, clearly. There hasn't been a lot of Green Lantern action. I think people would love to see a couple of Green Lanterns with the ring on making some constructs. I hope that they save a little bit of the budget for that in the finale. But I also, Jason... I don't know exactly the shape of it because I don't think about how that much, as we all know. But I do think there is something interesting about the idea that Hal was never dead or Hal was pretending to be dead. And then there's going to have to be some kind of showdown between is this really Hal or is it a Manhunter in Hal's shape and the hologram? I feel like there's going to be some connections between Jon Stewart and Hal, real Hal that's going to like prove. I feel like maybe even if it's just in this universe, I feel like we will get another Hal. I don't know if it's just hologram.
00:51:28
Speaker 2: Well, I think that there were potentially some very meaningful clues in this episode. When Hal Graham is so insistent that Hal Jordan would not kill. And we know that Hal was the bait that led to, yes, he did not pull the trigger on the Manhunter, but still was part of it. He was part of the plan. Right? You then begin to wonder if Carrie is the Manhunter and had either seduced or had sincerely fallen in love with Hal and Hal had fallen in love with her. Is... Was he part of something to protect her and her child to draw attention again away from her?
00:52:11
Speaker 1: I think you could be onto something. I think you could be onto something. Cause think about this, right? Hal went to prison for 10 years for some, like he didn't go to the OR. He didn't go to the guardians. He didn't go to the government. He didn't call in Carol. He just went to jail for 10 years and took the fall. I don't think he would have done that just for Jon Stewart. You know what I mean? Like I like that he would have done it partially for him. And also think about this. We, there is still that chunk of time where we just don't really know that Aside from, you know, the issues I have with the way that he treated John, we don't know what happened in that time. So I think that you are right. And also, if, you know, there is another Manhunter or Manhunter technology, it does feel like it would be possible for, you know, how.
00:53:01
Speaker 1: To have been in, yeah, I'm just very interested. I do, I hope that real Hal Jordan is dead because I love Hal O'Graham, Hal Jordan right now. But I do think that there is a version where all of this was a coverup for Sheriff Kerry and for Noah.
00:53:16
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you, can I ask you this?
00:53:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, go for it.
00:53:18
Speaker 2: Okay, we know that there is this gas that causes like mass psychosis and suicidal and murderous drive. amongst the population that causes it's capable of wiping out an entire planet. What if they use that, what if that was what happened I don't know. How much can we trust what happened in the town when the Manhunter thing happened? That's what I was going to say.
00:53:45
Speaker 1: Like, everyone was useless and just started, like, attacking each other. And there was a huge body count. But the plan didn't happen.
00:53:53
Speaker 2: Because I'm confused as to why Hal would go to jail. For what? He didn't. Jon Stewart shot the Manhunter. No, no, no.
00:54:02
Speaker 1: So I think the general— and this has been a big conversation in the Discord and online— I think from rewatching it a couple of times, and I think that what happened is nobody knows that Anton and his aliens went there and suicide bombed the town. They think Jon Stewart and how Jordan went there and how Jordan kind of fucked up and accidentally blew some shit up. And he was, remember, the guy that the American government would always be like, send him to a bar. Like, go in and do the last minute shit. And I think that... He just took the fall and was like, this went wrong. We can't say what it was. It was a training exercise, but a bunch of people died. But actually, I think you're very smart, Jason, because Rushville never made sense. They had had a militia that had been training for 25 years. They had had.
00:54:50
Speaker 1: Ample time to you know get all this high-tech gear they had the alien readers at the school but the moment the manhunter's turned up they just started like acting crazy like the moment anton and his killers turned up they couldn't do anything like i think there is something interesting to that suggestion.
00:55:07
Speaker 2: Right i think we at least need to uh hold in our minds the possibility that some of the stuff that we saw during that maybe didn't happen the way we think it did because of this.
00:55:18
Speaker 1: Or for the reasons.
00:55:19
Speaker 2: Or for the reasons. And now there's like, okay, so what is Sinestro's role in this, Rosie?
00:55:26
Speaker 1: Right? That's what I want to know. So where do we go? Because he's clearly not the antagonist. I doubt that they're suddenly going to rug pull and say he was behind all of this, like a Thanos-esque figure. That's not really his place, even though he is a cosmic level villain. I do wonder that. I wonder if he will become allied with them. I also wonder if maybe... John and Hala Graham will have to ally themselves with Sinestro and that will lead to some kind of conflict that will play into Superman 2. You know, I also wonder if this is a, like, making a choice that seems hard because you've got to save the planet and then Superman misunderstands the choice. You know, though saying that, you know, I will say I think that A lot of people haven't had the Justice League that they've wanted yet. We had the jokes with the Justice Gang. Jon Stewart has Justice League energy. So I'm hoping that the end of this, him and Superman, him and Corrin Sweat would be so great together. I'm hoping they don't end up in a conflict. I'm hoping he's a straight ally in Superman 2. But the Sinestro, if it all does confuse me, Jason, because are they setting him up? Maybe this would be my most simple Occam's Razor theory. He has actually lured them there because he knows how powerful Jon is. And now he's going to want him to make some construct. And he's going to argue that he has to do it for some reason. But the end of the season will be that they've accidentally unlocked the power of him to get the yellow ring or something. I don't know because I don't see how that's going to happen. But we got to know. Also, Jason, what are the odds if you were going to do sporting odds on, uh, Zalshi, our x-ray vision betting, Zalshi, um, reconciliation odds of Jon and his family. I feel like we've got to see Bernadette at least.
00:57:15
Speaker 2: Like, she's been such a recurring figure on the phone.
00:57:18
Speaker 1: We've got to see them on camera.
00:57:20
Speaker 2: We've got to see them on camera somehow. Um, I can't wait. It's, it feels like, again, too much to happen in one episode, but, uh, I can't wait. Send us that episode. Nobody's seen it. We need to see it. Coming up next on X-Ray Vision, we're revisiting Avengers Infinity War for our next episode of Abending Tuesday. Plus, more of the biggest news, movies, TV discussions, and of course, the finale of Lanterns next week. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
00:57:47
Speaker 1: Yes, and it will be a Lanterns finale roundtable.
00:57:51
Speaker 2: We will be living. X-Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
00:58:03
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Joelle Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
00:58:06
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
00:58:09
Speaker 1: Our producers are Carmen Laurent, Ian Johnson, and Bay Wang.
00:58:13
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kaufman.
00:58:17
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Sol Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi, our Discord moderator.
Speaker 1: Hello, X-Ray Vision listeners. This recap of Lanterns will include a discussion of suicidal ideation and people who struggle with it.
00:00:26
Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion. And I'm Rosie Knight. And welcome back to X-Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture coming to you from our heart, where we're bringing you three episodes a week.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: Plus news! In today's episode, we are talking about lanterns. Can you believe it? Episode seven. Do we know how this season is going to end? Is there enough time, Jason? Nobody knows, but we're excited. It's a crazy episode. It's another emotional episode. So let's get into it.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: We open in the year 1975. Young Hal Jordan is in the school office getting yelled at by his baseball coach. He's in his little baseball uniform. He's still clutching the game ball. His dad, test pilot, Air Force test pilot, shows up and is like, what's going on? Hal, we learn, is in trouble because it was late in the game, his team winning, no men on base, and the coach asked Hal, on the cusp of the no-hitter, to give up the ball to some reliever kid, whoever he was. And Hal was like, no, I'm not going to do it as I only have to strike out two more guys and I'm done. And I have a no hitter. He refused to do it. He ended up fighting, physically fighting with multiple members of the team. His dad hears this and is actually, is actually kind of impressed. You can tell. And the coach is like, listen, obviously this is a hiccup, but we can sort this out. All Hal has to do is apologize to the team. And then, of course, he's going to ride the bench for a few days. And then he'll be right back at it. And dad mulls this over for a second. And he's like, let me get this straight. No men on? Like, ninth inning? That was stupid. Why did you pull my son? And then dad and the baseball coach get in a physical fight.
00:02:36
Speaker 1: And we see where Hal gets it.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: We see where Hal gets it. Later, they're sitting at the hangar at the Air Force base, watching the jets fly overhead. Hal is still holding onto the ball. Dad pulls a key on a chain off of his neck and holds it out to his son and says, are you scared? And Hal says he's not. And so Hal puts on the chain with the key on it. And dad tells him the story of his father, Hal's grandfather. and how excited he was to go to war. We assume this is World War II and that he was fearless, but you can be fearless or not. You don't always have control of the things that are going to happen to you. And so Hal's grandfather went off to war and he didn't come back and he gave Hal's dad a key to his safe. And the stuff in his safe is like the things that he wanted to pass on to his son. And they are things that stayed between Hal's father and Hal's grandfather. And just like them, the things in Hal's father's safe that are for Hal will stay between them. What about mom, Hal says. She's not a part of this.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's a red flag for me. Don't be keeping those secrets, bro.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: It's always us. I agree, but this is what's going on in the Jordan family. And dad promises, though, that he's going to be around for a long time. This is just a thing that the Jordan boys do. But, of course, Hal's dad passes away shortly thereafter in a fiery crash. The comics tell us and Hal tells us, although we are to understand the truth later.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Before that happens, though, as they're sitting there on the tarmac. Dad is like, Hal, you can let go of the ball now. Just throw it as far as you can. Throw it away. So Hal lets it rip. He's got a great arm. And then later we do see the funeral that Hal and his mom are at. We go to 2026. Jon Stewart and the Halogram are standing over Hal's grave. And Jon is explaining to AI Hal. who he is again and what's gone. You remember me, right? You know, like we met briefly when I wore the ring, when Hal was training me and I didn't know how to fly yet. You remember that? Halogram is very disappointed to see that he's been murdered.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: So you were right, by the way, you absolutely called that. I thought it was more like the cranky Hal back, but it's this Halogram who doesn't know anything about where they're at because he hasn't been spoken to for so long. It's so much fun. I like this. I like this dynamic. It's fun to get to play with a different Hal and Jon dynamic.
00:05:30
Speaker 2: And he doesn't know, you know, he's, he's obviously devastated that Hal's been killed. He's angry. He's disappointed that Hal is no longer the Green Lantern. Jon Stewart's like, well, I'm not the Green Lantern either. It's like, why are you wearing the ring? It's like, that's a long story. We'll get to that. What do you want? I just want to solve his murder, Jon Stewart tells him. And he tells Hal.
00:05:56
Speaker 2: I need help with Hal's vault. He has this safe that I need to open. And Halagram is immediately suspicious. He changed the subject. Tell me about the funeral. Jon Stewart's like, oh, it was fucking, it was a big deal.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: Really?
00:06:14
Speaker 2: Oh, that's great to hear. It was a big deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole core was there. All the luminaries from across the galaxy. Yeah. All the top mucky mucks in the U.S. government, the squirrel guy. Was Mogo there? Yeah, Mogo was even there. Mogo is a planet. So now Hal knows that Jon Stewart is lying to him. Oh. And he disappears. Put him back in the ring. Get back in the ring. Jon Stewart gets in his car. He calls Aaron and is like, I need that $ 300, 000 because of, you know, he doesn't say, but because he's being blackmailed by Maggie. Marcus is on there also as like a conference call. Crazy. That was kind of weird, right?
00:06:57
Speaker 1: I know.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: You know what I think it is, is like maybe old, you know, remember in like Mean Girls, there's a trick American girls would do when they had three phones where one would be like waiting. I wonder if they had somehow already had him on the call. That was a bit confusing, but you know what? Who knows what's going on with Jon Stewart's phone plan or the way that his family talked to each other. None of us understand it.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: The phone issue is very confusing. Anyway. So, you know, Marcus gets on there as well. And Jon Stewart has to explain to everybody what's going on. He's like, listen, I'm being blackmailed flat out. Like, I need to pay a blackmail payment because Hal Jordan's been killed and they might think I did it or whatever. Aaron says he'll think about wiring the payment and hangs up.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: Doesn't he pay for everything in Aaron's life? That's what I want to know.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: It's not even your money, Aaron.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: Send the $ 300, 000, bruv.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: Send it. John arrives at the vault at the Fortress of Storage and conjures Halligram, shows him the keychain with the bird on it and is like, listen. Hal knew that birds were my thing. This is a message to me that this is important, that I have to open this. And of course, understanding what we understand from the cold open, this is very meaningful to Hal. Hal would feel that, you know, this vault... Jordan's leaving a safe for somebody else is a very, very intimate. Yeah, it's a very intimate thing. And it wouldn't he has to make sure that it's really for John, because if it's not, that's a real violation of everything kind of Hal knows about.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: So.
00:08:42
Speaker 2: Hal is clearly suspicious. He interrogates John Stewart. Who's Mark Allen? Who's he?
00:08:49
Speaker 1: Oh, so you want him back.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: In the ring. Immediately, very interesting. And we were, we should note, we were kind of right so far about Jon Stewart's abilities affecting AI Hal, making him more real, more corporeal.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: More able to stay out of the ring, it seems.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: A persistent consciousness outside of the power of the ring. Because how would he have heard that from inside the ring? So apparently he makes this statement about how he wasn't put away all the way and that if John is thinking about him, he's still around. Very interesting.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: Okay, that also kind of implies that there's some potential for a sort of Firestorm-esque Hal in John's body at some point. Like this idea that Hal is kind of John's interior voice.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: I will just point out that it's possible that Hal... in real life, how Jordan understood this. And John did wear the ring several times. He wore the ring during training. He wore the ring when he conjured the boring machine. The drilling machine.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: The little bird, Hal was always shocked by how long it stayed alive. So he probably had this same consideration about the AI.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: He then went to talk to Sinestro several times. What I'm saying is in real life, Hal might have... understood, perhaps even more than Jon, what Jon's effect on the ring and its lifelike manifestations were capable of. And we'll just leave that there because it's, you know, again, Jon wore the ring several times and then Hallegram was conjured.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: And now he's kind of staying, it seems, or a little bit more cheeky and sentient than you would expect.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: So it might have been that there was a previous version of Halogram, the one, the century version of Hal that Hal had in real life, Hal had flying around the town that was, I don't know, more lifelike, much more alive because Jon Stewart wore the ring at one point. And could they have switched places? We don't know. That's for later.
00:11:03
Speaker 1: We don't know.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Let's move on. Jon Stewart does his best to convince AI Hal that he really, really, really wants to solve Hal's murder and that's it. Halogram is like, well, what if you killed me? And it's a fair question.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: He's like, there must be a law enforcement person in town who's investigating the murder. I want to talk to them.
00:11:23
Speaker 1: Babe, she's the most likely to have killed you, actually.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: So let's keep that off the- Let's get into that in a bit. Jon Stewart says, no, no, no, no way. Here's the issue. You and the sheriff had a romance and you kind of really fucked up the town a lot. You fucked up her life. It would be very traumatic for her to see you again as not yourself, as like an AI version of you. That would be like really, really crazy. Also, Hal was in jail for a number of years because of how fucked up his last mission in this town was. Like, I don't want to go into that. And it's a whole can of worms. You don't want to do that. Hal was shocked to learn that he was in love with somebody.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he went to jail. Both were equally shocking.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, wait a second. I was in love? He's like, yeah, basically. He's like, I don't open this vault until I talk to the sheriff, period. And he disappears. Next day, John Stewart's driving into town. His mom's calling. But before he can answer, Halligram shows up and is like, who's Bernadette? Is that your wife? John Stewart takes the ring off. to make him disappear, but he doesn't disappear. And AI Hal is like high key amazed. He's like, Whoa, holy shit. This is incredible. I'm still here. You don't have the ring on. How are you doing this? This is incredible. Like, Hey, I could never do this. I didn't have, I was very powerful, but I didn't have the ability to do this. This is wild. Congratulations. That's a big deal. And John is like, man, this is crazy. Like real life Hal never complimented me before. And you're being so effusive. This is a different Hal Jordan. A less cynical, you know, a less road beaten Hal Jordan. They arrive at the sheriff's station. There's a note on the door saying that the sheriff is at the hat ceremony for, you know, Noah's on the football team. It's a big deal. She's there. Hal is like, what's that? Sees the Green Lantern signal and goes over there. And, of course, the memorial is over there with all the names of all the people who perished during the Manhunter incident. And Jon Stewart is like, listen, there's a Manhunter down here. And Hal and I, you know, kind of had to take it down. AI Hal is like, wait a second. They're all extinct. He's like, no, there was one left. And when we were down here taking it down, a lot went wrong and a lot of people died and it was a big deal. Hal is like, oh, I get it. You were in love with the Manhunter, weren't you? That's how they work. These Manhunters, they, they get into, they get involved with you and you fall in love with them and they seduce you. And then Hal as you know, under his authority as a green lantern and a peace officer. Took down this Manhunter and now you're mad at him and that's why you killed Hal, isn't it? And that's why you hate him. And he's like, no, that's not what happened.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: John's like, nah.
00:14:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Hal says, now listen, you may think that Hal killed this Manhunter, but you don't know Hal Jordan. We don't kill. That's not what we do. He would never kill. So now I got to tell you, Rosie, I'm thinking that that whole killing Zoe thing is some sort of ruse by Hal to protect the real man, Hunter, who you put your finger on it. Is it fucking Carrie?
00:15:07
Speaker 1: Is it Carrie or is it Noah? I think the Manhunter might be Noah now and Carrie is doing everything she is to protect him. And because he loves Carrie, he's doing that too.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: That's like my thing.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: Carrie is the one who did seduce somebody. Hal Jordan did fall in love with her. Carrie did be seducing. And every time you look at things that have happened, when Hal and John were... taken captive by Will Macon, and Will Macon was making John sketch his nuts, his testicles.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: That was very strange.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Sheriff Carey walked right in and snatched them out. When John was getting, you know, in the big fight with Billy Macon, she arrested him and managed to squash that. When later... Billy Macon and John get into it at the hat ceremony. She's just like, go away, Billy. And then she, and Billy just goes away.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: I do think you're right. Cause actually as well, meta textually, it's a really interesting choice because the actress is most known for like grounded British police dramas. So this makes her, uh, expected fit for this so her actually playing the alien manhunter would be crazy also you know the only version of that story that we've heard is from her perspective so you're right we actually don't know what happened and also they said a manhunter would never welcome death but zoe welcomed death she did have a crystal heart obviously but that doesn't mean she was the only manhunter you know i'm very interested in where this goes because.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: It As one of our YouTube commenters have pointed out, MrAbdy111 on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube page, X-Ray Vision Pod. Carrie had access to a 9mm gun, is a person who Hal would let walk right up to him. And obviously it's the motive to protect Noah. I don't know. I'm beginning to wonder about her.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: I do think she killed Hal. I think she killed Hal. I am on that ship. I agree with Abdi111. This is, to me, the most likely suspect.
00:17:23
Speaker 2: Okay, so they drive over to the hat ceremony. Jon Stewart is explaining in the car about Guy Gardner. So who's the Green Lantern? He's this guy, Guy Gardner. Ex-gym teacher. He has got a gold tooth.
00:17:38
Speaker 1: He sucks. The gold tooth should be illegal.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: The bowl cut should be illegal. Yeah. Jon Stewart does not clearly want to explain why he is not the current Green Lantern, which Hal, Halogram is very, very curious about.
00:17:50
Speaker 1: I also thought this was actually really cute because after the Halogram incident where Hal compliments him, Jon doesn't really want to be like, well, I just chose not to be the Green Lantern because you suck.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. You know what I mean?
00:18:04
Speaker 1: There's this thing here where he's just kind of trying to avoid it because I think he's realizing there's a version of Hal he never met who maybe would have been a better mentor.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: I also think, and maybe this is reading too much into the personalities of both Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart, I think that there is a thing that happens to people who are raised in a very kind of like high-achieving, hard-driving, intense... atmosphere where they crave that you know compliments and they crave the acceptance of an authority figure but when they get it it's uncomfortable And so when John is hearing these compliments, I think he's, I think it means a lot to him, but he's also very put off. It's also very strange. Yeah.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: I think that that's really deep because there's also the other side of it, which is like, John doesn't really know how his parents feel about him and how probably feels that way too. So like, for John, it's that feeling of like, yeah, you're seeking, you know, people being kind to you, people acknowledging you, people validating you. But then when they do it, you're like, wait.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: I don't know how to deal with this. Nobody ever did it before.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I love that.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: So, you know, as Hal is like, wait a second, like you're so powerful. How are you not the green lantern? John just like flees from the topic.
00:19:25
Speaker 1: He's like, no, he.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Begins like focusing on music in order to basically make Hal disappear. Hal disappears.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Um, Again, showing how powerful John is because it really is about his will.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: So at the high school hat ceremony, Maggie just appears right at his truck window, his denial the window of his beautiful denali and is like motherfucker where my money where is it three hundred thousand dollars you blew up my town you got.
00:19:55
Speaker 1: Me obsessed with expensive watches give me some money for those expensive watches and if you don't have the money right now give me.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Your expensive watch give me your watch she makes john is like listen i'm getting the money wired to you He takes off his watch, which does look like a very nice watch.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do have to say I like the watch theme going through because one, very timely. Lots of people I know are obsessed with watches. But I think like the way that the watch was how John got his Green Lantern powers and then his first mission that failed so awfully, he gave a watch to this little girl and then she became obsessed with the watch. There's something very interesting in it. Also, a big part of me is like, why would he care to be blackmailed by her. She's not exactly like a reliable witness, blah, blah, blah. But I really think he just wants to give her the money because he feels guilty. That's why I think he's allowing himself to be blackmailed.
00:20:49
Speaker 2: And apparently that watch is some very fancy mucky muck watch that is worth, and I struggle to believe this is true, but watch people tell us that it's close to a million dollar watch. He just gave... Give me a million dollar watch!
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Big important question. Did John get that watch from the success of Stewart Brothers? Or can he just manifest the designer watch whenever he wants with the Green Lantern powers and it just stays around? Honestly, like he's just got hella Rolexes and like those like $ 10 million underwater watches.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: That's actually very funny. I'm sure it was some kind of thing from a government contract or something. Yeah. So he goes into the hat ceremony. You know, the football team is being lauded. Football here, huge deal. Everybody's cheering. They're announcing the players. Of course, Kerry is there. Bill Macon is there, you know, their son. Noah is the quarterback. And so he gets a place of honor. He gets introduced last, takes the mic, gets to make a little speech. He tells the town that, like, listen, I'm focused on the championship. That's what I care about. I know everybody's expecting me to make a decision about where I'm going to play college ball, but I want this town to heal. We've been through a lot over the last 10 years with the devastation of the town.
00:22:09
Speaker 1: He's a leader, cult leader.
00:22:10
Speaker 2: And I think what could heal this town is if we win the championship. So all I care about is the championship. I'm not looking past that. I know everybody was expecting me to make my decision today. I'm not thinking about that. I'll announce that later. I'm going to focus on the game. Kerry is clearly a little bit disappointed. The town may be a little disappointed too, but they're cheering.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I was going to say, the Noah-Kerry stuff is really interesting. And I do think, leans into your theory, that Kerry might be the one in charge. Because she seems disappointed. Like that was something he was supposed to say. I also want to say, guys... to the discord, to the Americans. I'm sorry for my cultural misunderstanding. I didn't think that somebody yelling at Noah going, what school are you going to pick was like supportive. But it is clear here that everybody in the town does support Noah and kind of worships him in a way that does lead to a little resentment, but not as much as I was originally reading. I get it. Americans celebrate successful kids differently. But yeah, I thought this carry Noah stuff was really interesting. Also makes me think, is Noah going to be an unexpected ally? Like, is this a destiny he didn't want that's going to put him on a different path?
00:23:36
Speaker 2: Billy sees Jon Stewart there and flips the fuck out. Carrie has to come over and breaks it up very easily. Go away. I had to arrest him after you guys got in a fight and he kicked your ass. You want to get your ass kicked again? Get out of here. There is some awkwardness for sure. She shoos Billy away and Billy says, hey, I'll see you at the big party at your house later. And they're having a big party for Noah where it was supposed to be his announcement of his college thing. But now it's just going to be a get together. She doesn't have time for whatever. John's like, I need to talk to you. She's like, I don't have time. There's that party at my house. There's a hundred people there. It's a big deal. He's like, listen, it's about how. She's like, meet me in the science lab in five minutes. On the way to the science lab, you know, he's walking over there before Carrie gets there and he gets a call. from his bank and he needs to basically okay the $ 315, 000 wire. And he's like, okay, you need to confirm this wire. He's like, yes, it's for me. Confirm the amount. He confirms the amount. He's trying to do it quietly because Kerry's walking up behind him. And it seems really weird to be like $ 350, 000. They go to the science lab and he explains, he tries to explain, like, listen, the person you're about to meet is not who you think he is, but it's going to look and sound, Just like Hal. It's not Hal. It's an AI reconstruct of his consciousness. Okay. But it's not him. And I understand this is going to be very weird and confusing. But Hal, meanwhile, has already appeared behind her. She turns, you know, with much trepidation and sees Jordan. And it's, you know, the heartbreak, the distress. Yes. is all over her face. Can this be real? It looks just like him, only a little over, obviously younger, you know, maybe 10, 15, maybe more, maybe 20 years younger at this point. And, and there's a long, long silence. She touches his face. She can feel him because, you know, the construct and also John Stewart making him more real. John tries to explain like, no, that's a construct. Hal takes over. It's like, don't, you're ruining the moment. Yeah. You're ruining the moment. He's like, um, You know, I'm not the Hal that you once knew, but I was Hal. And he asks her, were we close? And clearly they were very close in love. And he's like, was I open with you? And she says, we told each other everything. And he says, did we talk about my father? And she nods. And he says, do we talk about how he died? And she nods. And she said, and then he asks, so who killed me? And she says, could have been anyone, the whole town hated you.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: Hate to hear it, but he has to hear it once every episode.
00:26:27
Speaker 2: And I gotta say, for someone who loved Hal so much, you'd think she'd be working 24 hours a day to figure out who killed him, right?
00:26:37
Speaker 1: She's not that bothered.
00:26:39
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem that curious.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: No.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: She's obviously heartbroken that he's gone.
00:26:44
Speaker 1: Throwing a lot of parties, which, honestly, I also respect. Like, I respect that a man dies and you throw a party, but, like, calm down, babe.
00:26:52
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem to be, like, burning the midnight oil to figure out who killed him. She's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, could have been anyone. Anyway, Hal says, well, what about him? What about Jon Stewart? Could he have killed me? And she's like, no. And she talks about how Hal, real life Hal, used to talk about Jon Stewart. He used to talk about Jon as like the football team that he loves and follows, but that always let him down. It was never getting to the level that he wanted to, but he watched it every Sunday. Because he never helped. Yeah. Well, yes. For maybe reasons that we don't understand, we'll fight. We'll figure it out. And basically, she says, Hal was a huge fan of Jon Stewart, despite the fact that Hal never told that to John. He didn't express it. feeling very awkward about this like it it it touches him but he doesn't know how to take it carrie learns that wait a second how did how did he get the ring john dug hal up and this is all about that vault john stewart is like yes it's about the vault let's go there now we gotta open.
00:28:08
Speaker 1: It again if somebody dug up my ex-boyfriend i would probably be a bit more pissed off Just saying.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: Just saying. Just saying.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: Look, she doesn't seem that bothered. I'm on Jordan's side on this one. I don't care if you dig up Hal Stewart. You have a right to do it. Yeah. But anyway, Hal is on our side anyway. He knows what's going on.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: Carrie is like, OK, I can go to the vault, but I got to at least make an appearance at my son's hat, you know, ceremony party where there's going to be 100 people there. Back in the truck, Hal immediately to Jon Stewart is like, I think she killed me. Yeah. The way she touched my face, how emotional she was. She didn't expect to see me. It was something loose.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: The gut check is saying she did it.
00:28:53
Speaker 2: The gut check is she did it. Let's go to the vault right fucking now. They go to the vault without Carrie. At the vault, Hal wonders what, you know, it's like, wait a second. What if I wasn't trying to keep someone out but keep something in too late now?
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Good question finally to ask, but you should have asked it like two episodes ago, babe.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: Way too late now. The vault opens. Inside the vault, it's not one of those pocket dimensions like we thought.
00:29:20
Speaker 1: Or it is, but it's like to a different place. It's like a portal to a place.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: So there is a backpack inside of which is a canteen, a poncho, some protein bars, and a gun. There's also one of those blob Einstein-Rosenbridge portals. Hal explains how it works. Hal isn't sure if in real life Life Hal was the one using it. There's no way to know that, but it goes to another place. He opens it up, peeks in real quick and is like, yeah, that's another world. But let's not do it here because the sheriff knows about this place. Let's go to some other abandoned place and then do it. So they drive off to some like water, deserted water tower. They go inside, they set up the portal. Hal, Jon Stewart tells Hal to ask him if he's afraid. Hal asks him and he's like, fuck no. They go through and it's just like this.
00:30:11
Speaker 1: I just want to say, Jon Stewart, go to therapy. I love you.
00:30:15
Speaker 2: But the fact you needed an adult man, everyone in this show, the fact you needed.
00:30:20
Speaker 1: An adult man to ask you that before you could do it, like it was like a ritual is like so fucked up. But I love it. I love these two together in this scene. Also as well, I'm not going to lie. I'm loving the nice Hal. I'm loving Halogram. I do. I know I'm always suspicious of a Hal and I'm not. for the most part in this case, but when he was like, oh, let's take the portal and go somewhere else so no one knows where we're using it, I was slightly like, okay, that's kind of giving red flag. It made me worry for Jon. Jon is in a situation where he has to trust Hallegram because there's no one else to trust, but it's still not the safest situation for Jon to be in, I don't think.
00:31:00
Speaker 2: For sure. So they go through and it's this absolutely wasted, deserted, destroyed planet, a yellow desert sands, eerie kind of gas, uh, low smoke that clean to the, to the ground and up above is like a destroyed city in the sky that like almost hangs upside down. John feels like he's been there before. And Hal is like, that's weird. Have you, you know, how has Hal been there here before? He's like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I've been a lot of places. I don't know. It's weird and echoey. John looks out in the distance. He spots like a lake, a huge lake. And there's an island with some kind of flashing light in the middle of it. And there's that city in the sky that we mentioned.
00:31:49
Speaker 1: It's kind of banging upside down.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: John can't fly up there. So Hal is like, okay, just construct me up there. He does. John, meanwhile, while Hal is up there looking around, you know, finds skeletons in the sand. And it's clear that everybody who was on this planet or lived in that city, they died. They died down here. Hal comes back and it's like that city's evacuated. There's no one there. He's like, yeah, because all the dead bodies are down here. And so John tells Hal about Anton. He's like, this is why I feel like I've been here. I met this alien named Anton. And Anton showed me The experience of his planet getting wiped out by the Manhunter. And this is that planet. And apparently they deployed, the Manhunter deployed some sort of gas that made the entire population murderous and kill each other and also kill themselves. Yeah, like a rage virus, basically. So they killed each other and they killed themselves. Yes. And, you know, the question is, what was real life Hal doing here? Jon Stewart says, let's go over towards that island in the lake. Let's go over towards that boat. That's probably where Hal is going. By the time they get on the lake and they're in a boat crossing the lake, it's nighttime. Hal is interrogating Jon Stewart about what's going on. Jon Stewart explains that, you know, why did you go back to Rushville?
00:33:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, why the fuck are you here anyway? Your whole life is great outside of this. You're like a millionaire, military contractor, an architect.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: And Jon is like, well, my mom called and said, Hal Jordan called her and said he wanted to apologize. So that's why I went there. But then Hal didn't know anything about that and started to fucking give me shit about a million different things. And so I punched him in the face. And I have good reason to punch him in the face because of this, that, and the other. He got me kicked out of the Marines. He is the reason I'm not the Green Lantern.
00:33:50
Speaker 1: That was... An implication that he was maybe fucking your mom. Like, I'm sorry, that was definitely there. Like, the dad doesn't live there anymore. They've been friends for 10 years, writing to each other. The notion that the mom would be the one who would let you know that Hal wants to apologize. And then Hal, the first thing he's doing being asking how your mom is. Like, he was playing on it, even if it wasn't happening. Jon Stewart was right to punch him.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: 100%. Hal apologizes for in real life, Hal. He's like, man, I'm sorry for all that stuff that in real life Hal did. But Jon Stewart doesn't want that from Hallegram. He wants it from in real life Hal, but in real life Hal is dead. So he's not going to get that. He's very frustrated. Jon is like, enough of this conversation. He manages to dispel Hal, again, by singing, focusing on music. Now it's raining. Downpour. Jon Stewart clearly should have brought the poncho, as Hallegram had said. He continues to row, but now he looks down, there's apples in the water. Lots of apples.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: Welcome to Derry moment, sir.
00:34:52
Speaker 2: His dad appears in the boat with the apple on his head and is like, are you scared? Shoot me. And then it's him. It's himself as a child with the apple on his head, accusing him of being too scared to be a lantern. he's John Stewart has the gun out. He's going to shoot this apparition, but then he's knocked overboard, overboard into the water and pulled back into the boat by hologram. Hologram is like, you had the gun to your head and you were going to shoot, I think. And you were screaming at things.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: I want to touch on this. So we see that the planet is yellow. They talk about this gas. But I also just wonder if this is where the yellow, the fear of yellow, the color yellow, like we know... that that is connected to the Yellow Lantern, connected to Sinestro potentially. I like the way that they visualize it here as if you're in kind of like a Pennywise-esque hallucination where they're playing on your greatest fears and your unresolved traumas. I thought this was a really cool way that we haven't really seen represented. And it's also been built up really well in the show because of how much we've talked about how that treatment impacted him or didn't impact him, right?
00:36:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker 1: And also we get more detective Jon Stewart here as he starts to kind of put together that clearly things are not good in the vault, in Antan's portal.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: Yes. So Jon Stewart figures out that in and around this lake, that murder gas is still active. It's in the water. It's in the rain that's falling on them. It's in the clouds. Hal is like, man, I told you the poncho, you should have worn it. They row out towards the island. They get there and, um, As they're pulling up to the island, Hal explains that, listen, my dad, the story is my dad died in a fiery plane crash, test pilot, heroic pilot, this, that, and the other. Actually, he killed himself. And a couple of months before he did that, he gave me the key to his safe. And in the, you know, there's cash, coins, some old photos. There was a note in there about why he did it. And it was, you know, this kind of typical, very sad story. thing where a person feels like their family would be better off without them. And it would be better if they were gone.
00:37:11
Speaker 1: What we always say in like mental health circles, as someone who suffers with like a lot of different mental health stuff and whose family all did is like, the one thing you've got to remember is depression is a liar, right? And this is the classic lie. It tells you everyone would be bad. Everything. is happier without you you know I have to say I found this entire reveal about about Hal and his family incredibly well done because it explains so much about who he is Hal Jordan reminds me of my dad maybe that's why I don't like him he's a lot older than my dad but it comes up the cockiness and the self-assuredness and the spikiness comes from a place of great trauma Great insecurity. Great insecurity and fear of like, what about your worthiness? And also, I got to say, as somebody who has dealt with a lot of issues with my parents in my life, one of my biggest issues is like, did my parents like me? Did they love me? Did they reject me?
00:38:08
Speaker 2: Right.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: To have a parent who struggles with suicidal ideation and ultimately acts on it will always leave you feeling like you weren't enough.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: Yes. And there's it reframes Hal's fearlessness as well.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Completely.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: Because the fearlessness in this context might just be he wants to die a little bit. And he's therefore not afraid of it.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: I think like when I was very depressed or stressed or whatever, you know, I would say stuff like, Well, yeah, I can do scary stuff because I don't really value my life very much. You know, that was like my cynical teenage way of looking at it and how Jordan has that. It's like the fearlessness comes from the fact that he doesn't value it and he thinks he's going to die at some point anyway.
00:38:51
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:38:51
Speaker 1: You know, and that is really fucking powerful here.
00:38:55
Speaker 2: So Hal then tells John that, you know, this is something that, and this does happen, this runs in families. He's like, this is called the Jordan boys legacy. My grandfather, this cover story is that he died in World War II, but actually like he also killed himself. And he says, like, I'm not fearless because I'm fearless. I'm fearless because I'm broken. Hal wonders, therefore, this is all a means to basically stress to John that I wonder if Hal's note is somewhere connected to his vault. It wasn't in the vault, but is it supposed to lead us to his note?
00:39:39
Speaker 1: Like what if he did this himself?
00:39:41
Speaker 2: What if he did this himself or caused it to happen to himself?
00:39:45
Speaker 1: And allowed it to happen and Kerry just kind of like threw away the gun to kind of cover up. Because also, look, we can't lie. There is still a stigma around suicidal ideation, around suicide and stuff. So there is also like his legacy in the grander world. His legacy as a Green Lantern, his legacy as a hero. You know, so I think that Hologram is being very honest here, suggesting that this could be a version. And it's not like some honorable, cool, and a villain took you down, right? There is an honesty here that I think is like so fucking real.
00:40:19
Speaker 2: So, Jon Stewart apologizes for misunderstanding Hal. Nothing to apologize for. They arrive at the island. Jon Stewart realizes when he fell in the water, he lost the gun, so they don't have the gun. He does have the ring, the most powerful... weapon in the universe but there's like one percent charge.
00:40:37
Speaker 1: They've had it's been on like five percent since he dug up how so honestly the one percent charge it's giving good battery charge also john we know you don't need that lantern babe right because.
00:40:47
Speaker 2: John can just john can just keep.
00:40:50
Speaker 1: The constructs we're seeing it the constructs are going in.
00:40:54
Speaker 2: But he's probably not going to be able to manifest any sort of weapon or or beam or anything Anyway, they go in there and it's like this weird kind of like almost refinery tower with this kind of weird cauldron, lit kind of technological cauldron on the inside.
00:41:10
Speaker 1: Clearly some kind of evil lair is going on around here. There's an evil lair.
00:41:15
Speaker 2: As they walk in, someone grabs Halogram from behind, a hooded figure, and is like, give me your booger. I'll kill this guy. And Jon Stewart's like, you know, like you can kill him. I don't like him. I don't like him. I don't think it'll do anything. And Hal is like, that's our music, John, which is the signal to make him disappear by thinking about the music. So Hal disappears, and John throws a punch right at Hal's head. As Hal disappears, it goes through, punches the person. He's knocked down. It's Sinestro!
00:41:50
Speaker 1: Whoa! Whoa! Okay, and I have to say, I was wrong in this case, guys. I will say, I think I do get a bit of credit because there is a redemption here. I do feel like it is more for Halogram, but it's still for Hal. There is this great moment where he looks at John and just completely sincerely says, great arm, kid. And it's what John has wanted to hear all his fucking life from his parents. And in that moment, you go back and you see him throw the ball as a kid. And I was just like, oh, okay, they got me. This how fucking gets it. This how understands. And yeah, when he said that to him, I was just like, wow. Yes, my son punched Sinestro. I'm so proud of him. Thank you for acknowledging his work.
00:42:35
Speaker 2: I think it's also... Let's take a break and then we'll talk about this episode. Lots to talk about. And we're back. Okay, let's talk about this. So, you know, the thing that I immediately thought was this younger version... of Hal is a lot more open. It's obviously like a different, it's made, it's an AI construct and AI constructs, the last thing you wanna do is get into an argument with it.
00:43:13
Speaker 1: So it is much more- We know that, we know that.
00:43:15
Speaker 2: It is much more pliant. It is much more willing to go along with things that you say, although it is obviously he and John do have various arguments, but it's not the same as the real life person. It's going to open up a lot more willingly.
00:43:30
Speaker 1: Especially if we think of LLMs and the way that they're trained to work as we know them now.
00:43:35
Speaker 2: That said, I also got the feeling that when Hal turned this off, something had happened. And my feeling is, and I mean, this is there in the comics and it's ever since Jeff Johns kind of retconned Hal's backstory. Sinestra was his mentor. Sinestra was basically a father figure to Hal Jordan.
00:43:57
Speaker 1: Exactly, which they're playing into the dad stuff so much here.
00:44:00
Speaker 2: And whatever happened between them was a huge betrayal. Hal was left feeling unmoored by the reveal that Sinister was not the person that he thought he was. And so this is a different pre-that version of Hal who's much more willing to trust.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: Something that I find very interesting also is the fact that the way that Jon creates constructs and the way that Hal knocked... the cover of his ring. I think that those two things coming together are allowing Hal to not, or Halogram to not just be conscious or more physical, more structurally physical. I actually think that it's giving him more of an opinion, more of a consciousness. I don't think that he was manipulating John when he said great arm. I think that was like him coming out. That's his humanness. That's the actual legacy of, the boys is like that memory of his father and I thought that was really moving and I'm very interested to see where that goes because also like I said at some points I was suspicious of hologram this episode but by the end they emotionally sold me on it Jason how does this work for you as a penultimate episode of a season because it does feel like wait the finale unless it's two hours long stranger things style they're not going to be able to wrap everything up absolutely.
00:45:25
Speaker 2: They're Whatever's going on with Oa and the Guardians and Liana, Laura Linney, we're definitely not going to get to that. And whatever is going on with— Season two, big budget. Right. You know, Laura Linney, a.k.a. Liana's relationship with John and her heavy pressure on him, whatever that is, we're definitely not going to get into that. I guess they will crack the door open on that vis-a-vis Sinestro.
00:45:52
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:45:52
Speaker 2: But we will not get we will only solve the Hal Jordan piece, the Manhunter piece, I think. But I got here. So that's what I think.
00:46:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker 2: However. I have a I want to run this by you.
00:46:06
Speaker 1: Tell me.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Because I'm like, why are they on this planet? Thank you. Obviously Hal was investigating the connection between the Guardians and the Manhunters and what the Manhunters were up to. I wonder this. I do wonder if Carrie is the Manhunter. And I keep thinking about the way Anton was like, when Anton was interrogating Will Macon, who is pretending to be the Manhunter, and it's like, how many kids do we have? We couldn't conceive. What if.
00:46:40
Speaker 2: What if it was the Guardians trying to kill the Manhunter that destroyed this planet? They dropped the gas.
00:46:49
Speaker 1: I believe that.
00:46:49
Speaker 2: They dropped the gas. They dropped the gas to genocide everybody. To terrify the planet. And in actuality, the Manhunter did conceive. and has been trying to hid, because Noah's kind of old, like the ages don't match up. I was going to say, we don't, the whole like, who's the parent? Is Zoe Macon, Will Macon, Billy Macon's mom? Like all that stuff doesn't really make sense. So we're just kind of buying it. The Manhunter hid the child that conceived with Anton, escaped the planet, landed on earth and is trying to raise this child in secrecy, protecting that child. That is the most important thing. And that the secret of this planet is not that the Manhunter did it. It's that the Guardians genocided a whole planet.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: And that's why they're after the Manhunters who know.
00:47:46
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:47:46
Speaker 1: That's really smart, actually. And also there is a lot of going back and looking at the Anton stuff from this season. There is a lot of stuff where he's kind of just like, chopping and changing the histories and talking about the Guardians in one way and then talking about the enemy of my enemy is my friend and da-da-da-da-da. So, yeah, I definitely think The genocide is going to be a part of it. The gas is going to be a part of it. Sinestro is going to be a part of it. I mean, I would say my most simple theory for how they could explain this is simply going to be something about the color yellow and about Sinestro being, it's going to be something like he'd been told all his life not to harness it. It's the color of fear. It's so dangerous. It will make you weak. And then he was on a planet and he was able to harness it and he realized it made him strong or something like that. I think it might be quite back to basics on the, yellow lantern of it.
00:48:41
Speaker 2: All sinestro the greatest lantern of all time exactly.
00:48:45
Speaker 1: You know and then he's kind of trapped on this planet and he's gonna i think he's gonna have to convince halogram and john stewart that obviously real hal put him there to protect him which we had guessed about abin sir but not about sinestro because we still don't know who broke out sinestro So there are these kind of questions. So I think that will maybe be the big thing. The big reveal could be we still have real Hal alive. I don't know, because we have talked about potential other holograms or, you know, Manhunters who can change shape, stuff like that. I would also say J. joelle put a great question in here which we've kind of alluded to this episode but let's break it down a bit more did the ring lose power at the end of the episode and if it did can john keep hologram conscious without the ring i think he can at this point i think that's what the episode will be is him keeping him alive.
00:49:39
Speaker 2: I think he can because, listen, the ring has been on some very sub-5% charge, very low charge for a long time now. And Hal, Halogram, has been doing a lot of things, running around, walking around, having full-fledged conversations with multiple people.
00:49:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:49:57
Speaker 2: And is existing outside of and without needing the power of the ring to keep him alive. So. Yeah. I think that that, I think hologram is here to stay. Agreed. regardless of whatever happens with the charge of the ring or whether Jon actually manages to do any Green Lantern stuff. That's an open question. Does he charge the ring at any point?
00:50:22
Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie, guys. I do think the one thing the finale does need, this has been a really fun show to cover. There's been crazy highs. It's been like really interesting to see the discourse around it. I will say, I think, not necessarily for me, and I love weird Green Lantern shit, but definitely a recurring theme I've seen in the Discord online. We've talked about the budgetary constraints, clearly. There hasn't been a lot of Green Lantern action. I think people would love to see a couple of Green Lanterns with the ring on making some constructs. I hope that they save a little bit of the budget for that in the finale. But I also, Jason... I don't know exactly the shape of it because I don't think about how that much, as we all know. But I do think there is something interesting about the idea that Hal was never dead or Hal was pretending to be dead. And then there's going to have to be some kind of showdown between is this really Hal or is it a Manhunter in Hal's shape and the hologram? I feel like there's going to be some connections between Jon Stewart and Hal, real Hal that's going to like prove. I feel like maybe even if it's just in this universe, I feel like we will get another Hal. I don't know if it's just hologram.
00:51:28
Speaker 2: Well, I think that there were potentially some very meaningful clues in this episode. When Hal Graham is so insistent that Hal Jordan would not kill. And we know that Hal was the bait that led to, yes, he did not pull the trigger on the Manhunter, but still was part of it. He was part of the plan. Right? You then begin to wonder if Carrie is the Manhunter and had either seduced or had sincerely fallen in love with Hal and Hal had fallen in love with her. Is... Was he part of something to protect her and her child to draw attention again away from her?
00:52:11
Speaker 1: I think you could be onto something. I think you could be onto something. Cause think about this, right? Hal went to prison for 10 years for some, like he didn't go to the OR. He didn't go to the guardians. He didn't go to the government. He didn't call in Carol. He just went to jail for 10 years and took the fall. I don't think he would have done that just for Jon Stewart. You know what I mean? Like I like that he would have done it partially for him. And also think about this. We, there is still that chunk of time where we just don't really know that Aside from, you know, the issues I have with the way that he treated John, we don't know what happened in that time. So I think that you are right. And also, if, you know, there is another Manhunter or Manhunter technology, it does feel like it would be possible for, you know, how.
00:53:01
Speaker 1: To have been in, yeah, I'm just very interested. I do, I hope that real Hal Jordan is dead because I love Hal O'Graham, Hal Jordan right now. But I do think that there is a version where all of this was a coverup for Sheriff Kerry and for Noah.
00:53:16
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you, can I ask you this?
00:53:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, go for it.
00:53:18
Speaker 2: Okay, we know that there is this gas that causes like mass psychosis and suicidal and murderous drive. amongst the population that causes it's capable of wiping out an entire planet. What if they use that, what if that was what happened I don't know. How much can we trust what happened in the town when the Manhunter thing happened? That's what I was going to say.
00:53:45
Speaker 1: Like, everyone was useless and just started, like, attacking each other. And there was a huge body count. But the plan didn't happen.
00:53:53
Speaker 2: Because I'm confused as to why Hal would go to jail. For what? He didn't. Jon Stewart shot the Manhunter. No, no, no.
00:54:02
Speaker 1: So I think the general— and this has been a big conversation in the Discord and online— I think from rewatching it a couple of times, and I think that what happened is nobody knows that Anton and his aliens went there and suicide bombed the town. They think Jon Stewart and how Jordan went there and how Jordan kind of fucked up and accidentally blew some shit up. And he was, remember, the guy that the American government would always be like, send him to a bar. Like, go in and do the last minute shit. And I think that... He just took the fall and was like, this went wrong. We can't say what it was. It was a training exercise, but a bunch of people died. But actually, I think you're very smart, Jason, because Rushville never made sense. They had had a militia that had been training for 25 years. They had had.
00:54:50
Speaker 1: Ample time to you know get all this high-tech gear they had the alien readers at the school but the moment the manhunter's turned up they just started like acting crazy like the moment anton and his killers turned up they couldn't do anything like i think there is something interesting to that suggestion.
00:55:07
Speaker 2: Right i think we at least need to uh hold in our minds the possibility that some of the stuff that we saw during that maybe didn't happen the way we think it did because of this.
00:55:18
Speaker 1: Or for the reasons.
00:55:19
Speaker 2: Or for the reasons. And now there's like, okay, so what is Sinestro's role in this, Rosie?
00:55:26
Speaker 1: Right? That's what I want to know. So where do we go? Because he's clearly not the antagonist. I doubt that they're suddenly going to rug pull and say he was behind all of this, like a Thanos-esque figure. That's not really his place, even though he is a cosmic level villain. I do wonder that. I wonder if he will become allied with them. I also wonder if maybe... John and Hala Graham will have to ally themselves with Sinestro and that will lead to some kind of conflict that will play into Superman 2. You know, I also wonder if this is a, like, making a choice that seems hard because you've got to save the planet and then Superman misunderstands the choice. You know, though saying that, you know, I will say I think that A lot of people haven't had the Justice League that they've wanted yet. We had the jokes with the Justice Gang. Jon Stewart has Justice League energy. So I'm hoping that the end of this, him and Superman, him and Corrin Sweat would be so great together. I'm hoping they don't end up in a conflict. I'm hoping he's a straight ally in Superman 2. But the Sinestro, if it all does confuse me, Jason, because are they setting him up? Maybe this would be my most simple Occam's Razor theory. He has actually lured them there because he knows how powerful Jon is. And now he's going to want him to make some construct. And he's going to argue that he has to do it for some reason. But the end of the season will be that they've accidentally unlocked the power of him to get the yellow ring or something. I don't know because I don't see how that's going to happen. But we got to know. Also, Jason, what are the odds if you were going to do sporting odds on, uh, Zalshi, our x-ray vision betting, Zalshi, um, reconciliation odds of Jon and his family. I feel like we've got to see Bernadette at least.
00:57:15
Speaker 2: Like, she's been such a recurring figure on the phone.
00:57:18
Speaker 1: We've got to see them on camera.
00:57:20
Speaker 2: We've got to see them on camera somehow. Um, I can't wait. It's, it feels like, again, too much to happen in one episode, but, uh, I can't wait. Send us that episode. Nobody's seen it. We need to see it. Coming up next on X-Ray Vision, we're revisiting Avengers Infinity War for our next episode of Abending Tuesday. Plus, more of the biggest news, movies, TV discussions, and of course, the finale of Lanterns next week. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
00:57:47
Speaker 1: Yes, and it will be a Lanterns finale roundtable.
00:57:51
Speaker 2: We will be living. X-Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
00:58:03
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Joelle Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
00:58:06
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
00:58:09
Speaker 1: Our producers are Carmen Laurent, Ian Johnson, and Bay Wang.
00:58:13
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kaufman.
00:58:17
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Sol Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi, our Discord moderator.
