Lanterns S1E4 "The Weenie"

[00:00:00] Hmm? Ah! Hmm. My wife tells me you're an artist. Yeah, she's right. Oh, you're talented. Draw me. Uh, what's your medium? Charcoal. Charcoal. Some good stuff?

[00:00:32] Some shit. Even been to a planet with sentient tentacles. But this is weird, right? Yeah. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Kirk. And I'm Jim. And this is Wax Episodic. And this episode, we're covering Lanterns Season 1, Episode 4, The Weenie.

[00:01:03] I'm glad you got to say that. In 2016, Sinestro gives Hal information about the Manhunters and suggests delivering the Manhunter to the Guardians to prove John is unfit to replace him. John is visited by Leanna, who urges him to take Hal's ring and replace him. Suspecting William's benefactor is at his ranch, Hal and John infiltrate the property and discover an armory of high-tech weapons that are captured after triggering an alarm.

[00:01:32] William reveals he is protecting the benefactor's identity in exchange for ensuring Rushville's safety. Later, William's wife Zoe secretly meets John but fails to convince him to leave town. Zoe leaves the place just as her truck is destroyed by an orbital strike and she apparently dies. Hal traces the attack to Atlas, Inc. owner Hector Hammond, who claims to be a decoy and identifies William as the Manhunter.

[00:02:00] However, Hal later deduces that Zoe is the Manhunter and that John already knew it. After having John call Antan to arrange a meeting, Hal jumps from their car and causes it to crash, leaving John inside. Second time he does that, loser. Yeah, what a weenie. Get original. This time he didn't have a ring. Yeah. That was what was different. This is a weird show, man. It is.

[00:02:30] That's what I was thinking when I was watching this with the title and the scene with Macon having him draw him naked and then we get this high-tech slaughterhouse. I thought, man, Damon Lindelof must have written this one, but he didn't. No. I didn't write down the name. I have the name. It was Brianna Gibson was the writer.

[00:02:56] I liked it, but I couldn't help but thinking, wow, this is not what I thought this show was going to be. It's so odd. I mean, it's my favorite episode. I think by a stretch. I think it's a perfect episode. I think it's a perfect episode of television because of how the story unfolds.

[00:03:21] I think one of my biggest complaints, one of all of our biggest complaints about a show that's not written well is exposition. In this episode, there's really not a whole lot of exposition. It's about showing us. It's just constantly showing us. And I think the biggest knock on Lindelof specifically has been, well, here's an answer and 17 more questions. Whereas this episode is just feeding us answers. Just from the start, we're getting answer after answer after answer.

[00:03:50] I'm including what I guess we suspected was the big mystery, the reveal that Zoe is the Manhunter, which isn't a surprise at all. I mean, we've talked about this too. I'm not buying it. Yeah. I don't know if we can trust that. Well, I agree. I do agree. But I just. Yeah, I get your point. I agree with you. But I think that's the brilliance of the storytelling is it's giving us that. And we have at least an answer.

[00:04:19] And I will get into the why it could be her and why it might not be her, because it gives us several different options, like again, in this episode alone. But I just I just I really thought, well, it was a weird episode watching a cow get slaughtered before our eyes. Yeah, I felt kind of that part felt a bit severance to me. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Which I love, man. I love that show. That's a weird show. Well, it was the whole it was I mean, we'll get into it more, but it wasn't just that it was also no one was talking to them.

[00:04:48] They were like, yeah, well, they were robots or robots or whatever. Yeah. But they even address like, you see, that's what I mean. They even address it like right on the episode. Like we we see these weird people walking by and, you know, instead of just kind of following them around, they they like, well, let's screw these weird people. Let's just figure this out. I did. Yeah. So I just let it distract them. Yeah.

[00:05:14] Because, like you both like you both, when I was watching it, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? John's like, that's why I'm a vegetarian. Yes. I love it so much. There were some good funny lines. Oh, my gosh. So much. So much. But that's again, why I thought this this this episode was brilliant is these it's clear to me how much the actors. And I don't just mean Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler.

[00:05:43] I think these actors truly like love working with each other and especially Chandler and Pierre. Their connection in this episode, both with each other and against each other is just so just such a I mean, an intertwined piece to this show working. I think the acting has just been paramount, especially around these two characters. I just I Aaron Pierre to me. He's playing this very subdued character.

[00:06:11] But when he comes out, it comes out and how's learning how to read that. And I think them feeding off of each other throughout this episode was just everything to be leading leading to that crash at the end. Just how much they pay attention to each other as characters. But also, I think, as actors. Yeah, I agree. I thought it was outstanding episode. I think for me, it's like it's the whole thing. I can't pick out like I can't say this is my favorite episode that I've loved them all.

[00:06:41] And in fact, it's one of those shows. They're rare. But we're watching another one, too, that just ended Silo. It's the kind of episode, like the kind of show that when the episodes ends, there's like serious angst that I, you know, I have to wait another week. Yeah. Or a year with Silo. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:03] And, you know, it was like when we used to get comic books and I'd read the comic book and I'd be like, oh, my God, I can't wait another month to get to follow, you know, find out whether the goblin actually killed Gwen or not. You know what I mean? So. Such a great point. I'm loving that. He did. So I'm loving that aspect of it a lot. And I think it's a combination of everything. It's the amazing writing.

[00:07:29] It's the storytelling, as you were mentioning, Jim, and the fact that they show us instead of tell us. The fact that it's not dumbing down for the audience. It's very smart in its storytelling and it's not telling you everything and you know that. And that's what gives the mystery its power. It's the acting of everybody. I agree. In the ensemble of cast. I mean, Hillebrandt, the guy who plays Macon.

[00:07:59] Oh, my God. Garrett Bill Hunt. I mean, it just steals the scene he's in. You know what I mean? And the acting between the two leads. Parts of him, too. The two leads. The elephant. Couldn't look away. The elephant trunk in the room. I mean, Dilla Hunt or Dilla Hunt. Sorry. That's right. So, yeah. And, of course, the pinnacle of it or the best part of it is this building, budding relationship

[00:08:27] between these two main characters, which is just unfolding in such a wonderful, complex, and fun way. So, I don't know if fun's the right word, but complicated. Yeah. It's never boring. It's never dull. No. No. All right. I'm going to go first. You guys mind? Go. No. Go for it. By the way, I was sorry to miss last week because that was an outstanding episode, but I really enjoyed listening to you guys' coverage of it.

[00:08:57] It's really cool. Got to listen as a fan. My first one. Was that you? Was that your comment? Oh, thanks. Yeah. That was me. Yeah. Crowing about being right at the end. My first one is called Look at the Weenie. Oh, good. That was my first point, too.

[00:09:21] Because John says that these four guard towers on the Macon property have the same line of sight towards this obfuscated area. So he thinks there's probably something there that they're all guarding. He calls it the Weenie. He says it's named after a term Walt Disney made up for structures on his property. He goes, think Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. And that was a little bit confusing because Disney used Weenie for a prominent visual landmark.

[00:09:50] I looked it up that attracts your attention and draws you towards it. And that name supposedly came from Walt Disney's experience with his dog where he'd hold up a wiener and move it around and the dog would follow it. And this is a little bit the opposite because the building is hidden. But I just think the point is it's the focal point that everything else is oriented around and their attention is directed towards. And then, I mean, the title works like any good title would on multiple levels.

[00:10:20] We get another focal point later in the scene with Macon, which is his literal weenie. But then I also think that, and I might be reaching as I sometimes tend to do, but this is also... Reaching for the weenie? Yeah. That's all I could think about. I don't remember any of the details. No. About distracting people with what you want them to see.

[00:10:44] It's about how Liana and Sinestro are both trying to focus John and Hal on things about each other that will drive a wedge between them. It's about... The whole episode and the series is about sightlines physically and psychologically. Everyone trying to control what others get to see or know about and what they don't get to know because it's about hiding and lying and manipulation.

[00:11:10] And, like, John doesn't tell Hal that he speaks directly with the Guardian. And when Liana asked John what he's still doing in Nebraska, he says, oh, we're just cleaning up from the alien that self-destructed. So, he's lying to her or hiding something from her. He doesn't tell her... I'd be like, why didn't he tell her about the Manhunter? It's because Hal asked him not to. So, that's another thing.

[00:11:35] And this is another point, but we'll get into it, about how their loyalty and their bond is strengthening at times and weakening. And it's sort of shaky and tenuous. But back to this thing about distraction. Sinestro is telling... Is focusing... Well, both Sinestro and Leanna are focusing Hal and John about their insecurities about the

[00:11:59] other one, about how Sinestro tells Hal that John is trying to replace him and calls him old and tells him that John's ambitious like Sinestro was. And so, those are things that will trigger Hal. Leanna focuses on John being weak. Oh, I guess you're weak like your father. And I doubt your strength and your integrity and your potential. All the things that John most prizes in himself and sees as his strength.

[00:12:27] And he says, you lacked creativity. And I mean, so he gets totally triggered by that, which then... That's where he says all those things that get recorded and played back for Hal later. It was interesting to see Leanna doing all that because it felt really manipulative. It made me trust her a lot less, by the way. And I also think the show is doing this weenie thing to us, too. Of course, it's like a magic trick. They're getting us to focus on certain things.

[00:12:52] But it's the big mystery of who the Manhunter is, which is one reason why I think it could be misdirection that Zoe's the Manhunter. The whole show was a Manhunter misdirection because we're given Macon at first as being the Manhunter. And then we're given... All the time. Yeah. And then we're immediately given Hector Hammond, who turns out to be Hector Gutierrez. Right. And then they feed us the Manhunter.

[00:13:20] And they tell us Zoe is the Manhunter. And they do it in a couple of really unique ways. I mean, Macon tells the story that Zoe was the nurse and that the benefactor saved his life. And then when Zoe was with John, she said, I'm the one that saved Macon's life. So she, in that moment... That's why I thought it was a bit too obvious. Yes. You know what I mean? Oh, she just said exactly what they said the Manhunter was. But it could be...

[00:13:47] I mean, when Macon was telling them that, oh, I had cancer, the Manhunter saved me. And he said that he met Zoe because she was his nurse. So when she said, I saved his life, she could have been saying as his nurse. I don't know. It could be here. It could be not. But my favorite thing about all of this is that it, this manipulation, misdirection, pointing people towards what you want them to see and hiding what you don't.

[00:14:14] And the fact that the whole plot is about this Manhunter, which is a creature that is hiding among these people and bending itself in, is it ties into the idea of lanterns and casting light. And the oath is, in brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evils might beware my power. Green lanterns light. It's all about shining light on evil. And the secret is all about hiding things.

[00:14:43] And so the Green Lantern's job is to find this evil, bring it into the light and bring it to justice. So I kind of think that the writers really decided to lean into this corny oath when making this series. And I love that they did that, you know, instead of pretending it didn't exist or something like that. It's good. It's been a major part of every episode, right? Yeah. I mean, this episode, it was the thing that wasn't said, but they mentioned it again. You know, say the oath when you have the ring, John, and it's yours. Right.

[00:15:12] And again, it's one of those things that's shocking to me about the show is it's not backing down from the corniness of the Green Lanterns. It's not backing down from the comic book-ness of the Lanterns. I didn't even think about your point, Kurt, that these episodes really do feed out like a comic book. And every single one of them has ended with a, holy. Goodbringer. Yeah. Yeah. And yet it's adult, too. It's showing butts and they're swearing.

[00:15:41] I mean, and I guess I do want to shout out an apology. First of all, the weenie, I mean, everything that you just said is exactly what I'm staring at here, Jason, which is great. It's my first point. And I do want to say, and I really thought about this a lot, and I, you know, listening to reader feedback is it's really hard. This episode, the series is such a hard thing to talk about because it really is prestige HBO. Anybody can watch this.

[00:16:06] And if you're listening right now, like I see you because I don't know that I saw you prior to the last couple of episodes. I apologize because when we're talking about some of these characters that haven't shown up yet or may or may not show up yet, my working assumption is coming from my comic book brain. It's not coming from, oh, I watch HBO at, you know, eight o'clock, nine o'clock every Sunday.

[00:16:25] So I'm going to work really hard not to mention any of these characters anymore that haven't shown up or are part of the comic book lore because I think that the brilliance of the show is that people like me who've grown up with the Green Lantern, like the three of us, and people, you know, like most of our feedback who don't know a thing about the Lanterns. It's capturing all of us.

[00:16:48] And I want to be really careful to honor that because I tried to watch this episode and then I went back and I watched last week's episode just as a TV show. And it's so well done. And every episode has had such a complete different feel with the core of it being these great characters. And that's what's holding it together. So, yeah, the weenie was my first point.

[00:17:12] And I just think those distractions and the reason why I agree with you that it might not be Zoe, that even John might be getting played here, is that they told us that was what this episode was about. It's about the weenie. It's about the thing that's right in front of us that we can see. To distract us from the truth. And they gave it to us. Or did they? Yeah, right, right. So, anyways, yeah, great point.

[00:17:38] I wonder, if you guys don't want to go here, it's okay, but I think it would be kind of fun for us all to say at this point who we think the Manhunter is if we have a guess. Okay. Yeah, I have a theory on that. What do you think, Kirk? I think that Zoe and the Guardian are the same entity. Interesting. And that they perhaps are the Manhunter. And she's not a Guardian, she's just pretending.

[00:18:08] Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's pretending to be a Guardian. There's a couple of things that make me think that. One is, if you notice the portal that the cow comes out of in the slaughterhouse. Yeah. It's the same type of portal, the same technology as what the Guardians have John step through and then falls out onto the mattresses. Yep. Right. So, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, that's no accident.

[00:18:36] The Guardian comes to John's mother right after Ebon Sir has died and the ring has tried to, you know, pick up a new Guardian or whatever. So, or pick up a new lantern. So, you know, if you were a Manhunter and you were going to have to hang out on this planet for the rest of your life or for a long time, and the last thing you want is a cop on your butt, you know what I mean?

[00:19:05] If you're a bad guy. Right. And so, if you've got to have a cop, then maybe it could be a cop that you could make, that you could ensure is going to be loyal to you, is going to be something you can manipulate and control. Mm-hmm. Like Sinestro tells John he follows orders. I mean, tells Hal John follows orders, so he should be able to control and manipulate. Right. Right.

[00:19:31] So, and then another reason I think that is that she shows herself in her alien form. Well, first of all, when she says, she implies to the mother, she claims not to have any awareness or sensitivity to the racial issues on the planet. Yet she chose the most stereotypically white-looking construct of herself to present to John's mother.

[00:19:55] So, and at that time, it felt like a completely, you know, she completely understood the racial divide and wanted to actually present herself as a powerful figure and a power broker and, you know, and come off as an authority figure to her. And then in contrast with John, she's the only other person of color in the cast. And she's presenting herself to John much more like, hey, I identify with you.

[00:20:25] You're talking about Zoe. Yeah, Zoe. Right. So, again, just two different presentations of themselves in order to manipulate the people that they're trying to manipulate. So, I just, when I put that all together and then the last thing is when, you know, well, no, there's two other things.

[00:20:44] One is, is that the way the lanterns get their ring is by the ring seeking out a new entity after the death of the lantern. And that's how it works. So, all of a sudden, this is different. Yeah. Why is it different? Why are they getting involved? I think that the show is presenting it as Sinestro.

[00:21:11] I don't think they've said this outright, but it sounds like they're trying to get us to think that Sinestro killed a guardian and now they want to change how the rings, they don't want to let the rings choose because maybe it made a wrong choice and they think they can make a better choice. But I think that's a red herring. Because I agree with pretty much everything you're saying.

[00:21:58] Yeah. Is, how did Hal get the idea that he needed to train John? Did they pretend to be the guardians in full Hal or something? You know what I mean? That's the only part that doesn't quite fit. Yeah. We don't know. But she could certainly communicate with him. You know? With Hal? Yeah. Somehow. I don't know. I don't know how they communicate. Yeah. Because all we see is Hal sitting at the table with the parents, right?

[00:22:27] We don't know how he found out. We don't know any of that yet. Right. That's a story yet to be told. Right. So. But he clearly thinks that's what he's supposed to be doing. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the last point is, is that, you know, uh, the fact that as soon as John, who's this super loyal, dedicated, follows orders guy, challenges just even once or questions

[00:22:54] an order, all of a sudden she's like, you know, maybe we, you know, we're not going to give you. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We kind of gave you this. Your parents would, you know, would be so displeased, you know, blah, blah, blah. She's like, she's proving that that manipulation does work because it did work. He was totally triggered and fell right back in line. And that just, again, doesn't fit with. Well, in the moment he did. To an extent. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting point because I think. He'll overcome it.

[00:23:22] What he says to her then to convince her is not how he really feels, which is the, which is the painful part of when, when that gets exposed to how you're like, ah, damn. You know what I mean? Cause he can't say, I didn't say it. You know what I mean? I felt like maybe he felt like it in the moment, but it wasn't his real truth. Right. You know, he was just triggered. Like we all say things we don't mean in the middle of arguments sometimes kind of like

[00:23:48] I think John is starting to figure out that something's not right with this whole process. And the fact that they would tell him that, you know, after all this training, after his whole entire life, the guardians and his parents working to try and make him the best possible lantern in their mind, um, you know, and then tell him, okay, now you're going to be a lantern, but you have to go take it.

[00:24:16] We're not going to give you the ring, which is what we always do. Instead, you, you've got to go take it from him. Yeah. That, that I think right there, I think the little bell went off. Oh, it's dead. Well, I mean, we're given that. And this is another one of those things we're given. Like he's, he gets the ring. Like the second, like they're together, how gives him the ring. He has that moment. He doesn't have just a little bit of a moment. He has what seems like an hour or two with the ring, you know, and he could have just rattled it off at any moment.

[00:24:44] And there's that, that moment where he puts it on and they, they played that moment up. He puts it on his ring. He looks at him. I'm talking about when he's, when that's said to him, I think if the bell went off in his head and that's why he says what he needed to say to convince her that he's still on board. Cause this hasn't, this mystery has not resolved itself for him yet. And he needs to know what the hell's going on. And he said to Zoe, everybody's lying to me. Yeah. You know what I mean? And he says, and why do you think that?

[00:25:13] Well, that's what I'm doing to everybody else. Yeah. And so that actually plays in your point that he was making that up. And I, I think you could be right, but I suspect like one thing that I like about the series is it seems to realize that people are complicated and that, uh, our minds may not be made up about something or we might be leaning a certain way, but find ourselves acting a little contrary to it sometimes.

[00:25:41] And especially if, uh, the point of the Liana's manipulation is to weaken his resolve that maybe it could have in the moment, but it came back later or yeah, maybe not. Maybe he was just making it up to play care. I don't know. I think it would be cool either way though. I don't mind if he's not always his best self. Yeah. And then it comes back to bite him in the ass later. Yeah.

[00:26:08] When, when a carb like gets run into a pole. Yeah, exactly. It's more like a head on. Is that what you think, Jim? Yeah. I see. I think that that's the complexity. I think that I do think it's Zoe, but I think, you know, we have to remember that man hunters are shapeshifters and they're not locked into one form. So I do think that thinking that she, Zoe is just the man hunter. I don't know why it never occurred to me that it might also be Liana too.

[00:26:38] I mean, that makes perfect sense to me and would be, um, you know, is in a, in an episode full of manipulation. I think that, that, that, that's a perfect combination of it. I think. Well, the portal was the big one for me. I mean, it was just like, hold on, wait up. Yeah. I mean, it was exactly the same, you know, when we see John falling through the roof of the mall, he's falling through one of those portals. I've been, I've just been thinking that it has to be the same way it formed on the wall. Yeah. It was the same.

[00:27:07] Except the cow. Yeah. I was, I was, I've been thinking for some reason that it just has to be one person. But, and then, and then I, I would guess Liana if I had to guess one, but then it's like, well, yeah, but she's not the one that's hiding out in Macon. So what you said, Kirk makes a lot of sense that the one hiding out in Macon looks like Zoe when, when she's hiding out and helping Macon and everything. It could be two man hunters.

[00:27:35] Could be two, but it could just be one changing, changing shape all the time. Maybe some of that reveal is, as we go through the series and makes us want to watch again at the tail end of this, that we find out that, that we've been manipulated by the same character playing other characters. Couple roles. Yeah. But then the last thing is, uh, when, uh, what's his name? Hector Gutierrez. Yeah. Said it's obvious it's Will Macon.

[00:28:02] I also thought, cause I just suspect everybody, oh, he's actually talking about Billy Macon and he just calls him Will and that's who it is. And I, and I hate to say this, that would be such a, I, I think of all the characters it could be, it would be such a letdown simply because, you know, he hasn't really been prominent in it at all. And he's his lawyer, but then he's his son too. Right.

[00:28:28] So, um, and that was 30 years ago in 1986 that, uh, the man Hunter got there and, uh, Jason Ritter, I looked it up as 46. So that if it's around the same age, that would make him 16. But then how would that work? That all of a sudden you had the 16 year old son. Yeah. It just doesn't really work. Yeah. It doesn't work for his own son to be, well, I don't know. I don't know. Well, because, because, uh, uh, uh, Kane, I can't remember her first name off the top

[00:28:57] of my head, but she, Carrie, she says, you know, that's her great. That's grandma. Grandma just died. How do I tell my son? And I, I, that's when I started doing the math because I know how old Jason Ritter is. And I was, I couldn't quite make all of that work. And it's, then I start getting intertwined into this town. Um, because the town, uh, we'll get into that. That's another point. Well, they have a little kid and grandma Zoe. Cause yeah, she's married to her father-in-law.

[00:29:27] Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that's what I was trying to, I'm like, so wait, is, is Zoe actually grandma? Like grandma, um, which gets into a whole other bit of territory with this man hunter, you know, I mean, having relationships with Macon, having relationships with John. And, and also, I mean, I, I, we are skipping around. I hope I don't step on anyone's toes. But John, Hal accuses John. Okay.

[00:29:55] You didn't feel bad about Zoe because you realized that she's the man hunter. And I want to know how long ago you figured that out. And he didn't really say, but I wanted to know, was it before you stupped her or is that the reason why he was okay sleeping with her again? Which I thought again was kind of like, what are you doing, man? Where's your integrity here? And he's, but maybe in his mind, he's like, oh, their marriage is just for show. Cause she's a man hunter. So it's okay.

[00:30:24] Like, I don't know. I think he's, I don't know that to me it was like, and plus this, this time he just like aggressively just went right over to her and they started. I mean, it wasn't, there was no, you know, buildup. There was no, you know, it was, she's here for a particular reason. And I'm down. I mean, I think, I mean, it does, I think he loves her. I mean, I, I, I absolutely think he has. I don't think I'm, I'm moving away from what you said. I don't think this is, I don't think this is Jon Stewart, like trying to figure things out.

[00:30:54] I think Jon Stewart loves her. I'm just going to throw it out there. I think that he has feelings for her. But are you, do you agree with how that he wasn't showing a lot of emotion when a laser zapped her from the sky because he thought, oh, she's actually the manhunter and she got away from this? Yeah. Yeah. I think, and I do think that he figured it out in, I think he figured it out in that hotel room. I don't think he knew before that. That's me. I, I, I think that he took the clues that she gave him.

[00:31:23] She gave him very obvious clues. I'm the one that saved William Macon. She said that literally 10 minutes after William Macon said, you know, this is who saved me. And we got to see that scar over his chest, which, you know, we can talk, I want to talk about that. So in that moment, he's like, oh my God, I fucked an alien. Yeah. It was pretty good. I fucked it. Well, an Android, right? Like Star Lord. Or an Android, yeah. Yeah. Tentacles. That's right. I mean, James Gutt did go over to DC, so.

[00:31:52] You know, I just thought, I thought though that one of the telling signs, and it's not a big one, but, and, but she's trying very hard in that bedroom scene to convince John that she's the manhunter and that he needs to leave. She tells him that I saved him. I just, you know, the whole thing. She's working really hard, just about as hard as Hector Hammond did. How he was insisting that he was the manhunter. It's like, I'm the weenie. I'm the weenie. Right.

[00:32:22] Right. There's a lot of, there's a lot of people who obviously, I don't think they're doing it under duress. I think they're doing it because this, this, this entity has made their life so much better. You know what I mean? They've given them healthcare and nobody's sick anymore and, you know, food and the growing. They even make a comment about how the crops got better and this and that. So, um, you know, they, they, they want to protect this guy because they're, their livelihood

[00:32:50] and their family's future is there. So. Well, I, the interesting connection for me, having Zoe convince John that Zoe is the manhunter is it is, he is the character that sees the Leanna version of the guardian. So it would make sense for if the guardian isn't the guardian and is the manhunter, it would really make sense for Zoe to be the weenie for him not thinking.

[00:33:20] Cause she obviously, uh, the, whoever this is, if it's the manhunter knows how smart John is. So making him think that Zoe is the manhunter and not necessarily the guardian that he's seeing. And I put that in quotes, um, does make a lot of sense. What, what's sad is that these, these, if these two guys would just communicate to each other, trust each other and communicate about was that, I mean, you know, he could ask how

[00:33:48] well, you know, have you tell, have how tell him, tell me the story. And what are the guardians saying to you? You know what I mean? They get so close though, Kirk. And then they get so close and then he's not telling how about, yeah, I know. They get so close. And well, and it seemed like this was a great episode for that too, because it seemed like they were trying to show us they have more in common with each other. They both think set it off as a great movie.

[00:34:13] And, um, they, then, then he, uh, how finally confesses that, you know, his father, uh, you know, didn't, was fearless, or at least that's what he wanted people to believe. First inclination that, whoa, maybe this guy doesn't have the great, you know, leave it the beaver upbringing that everybody thought he had, you know what I mean? Um, so maybe he's got dad issues just like John does. And all of a sudden they're, you know, they're, they're working more together as a team. They're starting to communicate and trust each other.

[00:34:38] And then of course you get that heartbreak, um, at the end in the car, you know, but, um, and that's a Lindelof thing too, by the way, every there's father issues. Yeah. Everyone in lost has. So as I sit here and think about this, let me just throw this out here. It's like Spielberg's lost, lost boys or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're always hunting for some missing kid or something. If Leanne is not a guardian and she is a man hunter and we start the episode off with

[00:35:07] Sinestro who clearly is putting fear into how with John. Um, and we want to talk about maybe hiding in plain sight. Uh, if, if they're not guardians, then how does the guardian know he went to see Sinestro? And to a bigger point is Sinestro, is this a man hunter story or is this a Sinestro story? Yeah.

[00:35:37] So excellent. Excellent. So I, I, I say this because the manipulation in this episode starts with Sinestro. Right. It starts there. We were fed it two episodes ago. We had a whole episode of learning about who John is. And then we see Sinestro. We see, we see how going to, you know, going to this prison dressed in his, you know, his dress blues, right? He's got, he throws on the, actually greens, but the dress greens, right? He throws on his costume.

[00:36:06] He's going to see, he's going to see daddy, right? He's going to see his father figure. He's going to see the guy who mentored him. And it's confirmed. I don't know if they've ever actually said it out loud until this episode when he, Sinestro said something about being his mentor. My, my trainee has a trainee or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we have, we have that, um, and we have Sinestro and obviously Sinestro is in prison.

[00:36:31] So we know that he is, um, evil and we know that he did something bad and we know that Hal is the one who put him in prison. And so, so perhaps, perhaps the weenie is distracting us from, from the true evil is my, my biggest struggle with the show and not in a bad way is trying to figure out big bad. And I think the assumption has been, it's been a manhunter, but they're, they're giving us Sinestro. They gave it, they gave him to us right away. The end of second, the second episode.

[00:37:00] You know, it also occurred to me that the, he says to him, um, you know, if, if there's a manhunter, then that's the second most, whatever difficult thing you have to deal with, right? You know, whatever. And then he talks about John, which leads us. Right. But everybody's assuming that that's Johnny's referring to the John really the big threat for him. Yeah. But maybe not.

[00:37:24] Maybe, maybe Zoe and, and the, the guardian are not the same person, but a guardian and a manhunter. Right. And that may, cause there was also a guardian that supposedly got killed. Right. Right. Supposedly, but that's what Liana said. So we don't know if we can believe it. Right. So maybe there's a guardian who's hanging out there with, with the, with the, um, manhunter. And so that's what Sinestro meant was there's actually two problems for you. You're not just the one. Right.

[00:37:53] I was sort of wondering, and I don't know, this is actually contradictory to what you just said, but it feels like Liana and Sinestro could be working together somehow. Yes. To turn these two against each other. Right. Isn't that what it felt like? Because we, we, we, we have Sinestro manipulating Hal and we have Brianna manipulating John. Yeah. Right. And, and it felt concert. It felt put together.

[00:38:22] It felt like, let's, you know, let's do this. Let's corrode this relationship. Yeah. So, so I mean, all I know is I'm just sitting here listening to both of you and my mind's churning and I, there's two thoughts I have. One, holy crap. This is either the most amazing thing that we're watching or, and I love Damon Lindelof or holy fuck. If they don't answer all of this stuff, like if we don't figure all of this out.

[00:38:48] Well, I think, I think, I think the, I think the basic, I think this basic story will be definitely figured out. Yeah. No, I, I don't, there's no like polar bear type things. It's all. But also Chris, he'll do it. But one thing about like how the, maybe the bad guy is not the manhunter and John threw in a little line. How was telling him about what the manhunters do and they're programmed to do this.

[00:39:17] I forget what it was, but he goes, so they have no choice. And how just ignored that. But that was sort of a hint that maybe there'll be some sympathy for the manhunter by the end of this. And then it also made me think about what you're saying, Kirk, about how they are protecting it because it's providing all these things, healthcare and crops and everything else. The hospital's empty. Now we know we got an answer there where the hospital's empty. Right. He cures sickness. Yes.

[00:39:42] But, um, it was wanting, uh, made me want to go back and look at what Antan said about the manhunters. Cause he said the most that we've heard, we don't know if we can trust anything anyone says, but he said there are synthetic beings who can take the form of any species and embed themselves undetected. They're brutal and deceptive and an entire species were wiped out by their idea of justice. And then they just disappeared.

[00:40:07] But one of them embedded itself on Antan's planet passed as one of his people and quietly engineered a Holocaust. He said, have you ever been deceived by someone you love? Then you'll understand when you experience what he did to us. So there's a chance that if what he's saying is true, which who knows if it is that this manhunter may be presenting as someone who's helpful, but may ultimately be harmful. Yeah. You know?

[00:40:36] Well, I'm sure the long range plan would be to take over, but. I guess. Or maybe Antan's full of shit. I mean, we just don't know anything. That's one thing. Yeah. Well, good storytelling, right? They give us answers, but all the answers make us ask more questions. Yeah. So gosh, that's, that's, and that's what I loved about this show. We, we felt satisfied, but at the end of it, we're sitting here still asking the main question here who they, they literally say, this is the manhunter.

[00:41:06] And the three of us has just spent the past 25 minutes going, who's the manhunter? Yeah. Maybe it's not a, maybe it's not about the manhunter. You know? So it's, it's great. It's great. And, and, and again, as far as the show goes, like plot wise, it just flew through it. I mean, it just flew through all of it. And yeah, I, that was a good catch too, going back. I, I, because if Zoe is the manhunter, she's presenting to John with love. Right.

[00:41:36] So yeah. And of course this town, as Hal says, they, they manipulate you. They'll, I forget exactly what you said, but present themselves in a way that they can manipulate you. And there's just a lot of people manipulating a lot of people. So it could be, she's not doing a good job though, because he's not leaving. That's true. Yeah. I like that. That was cool when he said that too. He's like, no, I'm not going anywhere.

[00:42:03] But yeah, I, I think the other thing too, is that all of this is kind of feeding into my, my, my idea that, or my feeling that John, when given the, the opportunity in this show to take the ring, it's not going to take it. I mean, we already, he already did that right in this episode, but so maybe that was it. And, and at the end, how we'll still, although we know how dies in the future, well, supposedly

[00:42:29] dies in the future with the setup in episode one, but, um, but I, I suspect that that's why he doesn't have the ring. Yeah. I, I, yeah. I don't know. I mean, we'll find out. Yeah. I hope. We hope. Did they say it's been greenlit? No pun intended. For a second. For a second season? I don't think so. I, I don't know if they've officially said that, but I know that Lendilof was asked about

[00:42:58] a second season and he was saying that he was kind of seeing it as a, um, I forgot the terminology, but in other words, each season would be a different characters and different story. So probably like anthology kind of thing. Anthology. So it'd be more like each of the different rings and their respective powers. I don't think that would have as much appeal as a green lantern show, but no. How, how is it doing? Do you guys know?

[00:43:23] I know it's had, it's had huge, it led like 10, 10 million viewers for the first episode and it was somewhere around that. It was, it was a record. It was, it was, it was either the first or the second biggest, um, first episode of. But nobody really knows how that ties into financials. You know, streaming is so different than movies, you know, movies it's, you know, the box offices is what the box office is and then what the cost of the film is, what it is.

[00:43:52] Marketing is what it is. So you can net out and, you know, come up with a total and say, yeah, this was very profitable. I eat, you know, a brand new day. But, um, but this is really hard, but, but that is a lot of viewers. Online it's, I'm reading HBO's lanterns is a major ratings and critical success and merging as one of DC studios and HBO max's biggest series launches to date. Premiere records, the debut episode pulled in 9.3 million global viewers in its first three

[00:44:19] days, uh, outperforming the penguin and welcome to dairy episode three hit a series high with 10 million global views. Well, first step, that's 20 million. And so that's really what I wanted to know is are people still watching? Yeah. Cause they're like, what? I didn't like that. Longevity. The first episode has surpassed 20 million views. Yeah. That's amazing. Since inception. So, I mean, we're talking a DC show, right? At the end of the day, it's a DC show and it, but it doesn't play.

[00:44:49] This is the brilliance of the show. It's a DC show where geeks can like love it, but it's also, and I love that, that, um, you know, they compared it, you know, viewership wise to the penguin because I think that, you know, I'm not talking about very much, very much so. All right. Where should we go next and who wants to go next? I thought the humor in this show was this episode was just off the charts. Yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:45:16] And it was like slapstick as well as, uh, um, story as well as dialogue. I mean, it never stopped. Yeah. It never stopped. Just, you know, you guys were talking about the scene when he's up on the water. Tower with the, um, scope. Yeah. And, and he's watching it and Hal lands with his ass in his face. I mean, he sits back like motherfucker. You know, it was great.

[00:45:43] And then the best line to the, the one that had me rolling in the fucking aisles was when the car blows up and Hal comes running out and he was like, what direction? And he goes 45 degrees. He was just fucking pulling. I love that. I love that. And the way that they do the flying in this is fantastic.

[00:46:09] I think, I mean, it's just, I mean, it, it, it just feels real. I don't know what they're doing differently, but the speed of it, the, the pot, you know, the way he holds himself. It's just, uh, and it's, you don't need a lot of it. You know what I mean? But when they do it, it looks good. I agree. But yeah, so many great jokes. I thought. I mean, how about this one? This is, and again, a woman wrote this, right? Um, can we talk about the elephant in the room? Which elephant? Not that one. Not that one.

[00:46:39] Not that one. And then his face, Hal's face, when he sits on the, on the desk. Yeah. And I feel like he's like, oh. Well, he goes, hey, I've seen some shit, even been to a planet with sentient testicles, but this is weird, right? And then he goes, you better get to doodling, Junior. I'm like, let's get this over with.

[00:47:04] Well, Cain, Cain, Cain walks into the room and goes, dad, please put your dick away. This is the usual thing. What did you make of that, by the way? Was he just showing dominance? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think. And I love, it was interesting how John was like, okay, fine. And then directing him. And I wondered if John. John was unfazed. As an artist, not only was he unfazed, but it seemed like he was, he'd done this before.

[00:47:33] I know artists do like live figure drawing, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Have you done that? Yeah, of course. Many times. You've drawn naked dudes? Dudes, women. Women. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. He never missed a beat. Usually, you know, if you take a drawing class. You're going to do it. In college. Yeah. And I did, I did a bunch of swimming in New York as well at school of visual arts. And yeah, they always bring in a model. So he, he, I think he was really comfortable with it because he'd done that.

[00:48:03] Yeah. He'd done it a million times. And he's also very, he's very confident about his skills too. And I like how it was so interesting. Yeah. He kept directing him and he's like, can you stop moving and making, instead of getting offended by it? He was like, oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry about that. And he just puts his hand, puts his hands up, you know, and he keeps telling him, put that hands down. Relax your shoulders. Put the hands, yeah. Relax that. Put the hands down. I just, here's our John Dory moments, right? Garrett Dillahunt, he doesn't have a lot of time in this episode. He really doesn't.

[00:48:31] I'm curious to see the actual runtime, but my God, did you see? I mean, they're giving him a great part, but he takes every scene and just, I mean, eats it up. I, I, he was so brilliant in this. I think there's more to his character. If, if you noticed when, when he took off his clothes, there was that scar that was above his heart. Yeah. That, that, that I think is going to come back in, and maybe we can talk a little bit about that during comic book talk.

[00:48:58] Well, I find it, I find it interesting that they would show us that in the same episode where we learn about the crystallization of the heart. The crystallization of the heart. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's not a coincidence. Yeah, possibly. Back to funny stuff. So I thought it was funny when Hal said to John, you know, we can fly there. Well, how are we going to do that? I can carry you like a baby or you can hop on my back like a horse. Or he goes, nah.

[00:49:30] And then they just cut to the next scene, right? They, we, we don't, we don't get any of that. No, I think they're in the car. I think they drove. But I think, I, I feel like this is okay to say from the comics, I know I'm being a hypocrite, but in the comics, he usually just puts a bubble around people, right? And carries them around. Yeah. But it was more fun to do it like that. Well, they've done crazy stuff too. Like they, like the, the, it'd be the bubble or they're like, I've seen him where he like makes a couch. They're sitting on the couch and he's flying, flying through the sky on the couch.

[00:49:59] Yeah, exactly. I liked when, um, Carrie yelled at Hal, you had one shot to get the guy and you whiffed it. If Zoe hadn't called me, you'd be beyond fucked. And he goes, I live in beyond fucked. And she goes, Jesus, what is that? A catchphrase? Can you hear yourself? Great. Or when, or when Hal says, I, you know, I didn't go to Disneyland because they told, they wouldn't let me in. Cause they said I would kill the vibe. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then he looks back at him and he's like, did you just tell a joke?

[00:50:30] Yeah. That was good. Um, there was again, the subtleness of like Kyle Chandler, like, like, uh, Carrie Kane puts the ring on his finger and he looks over and he goes, not even a date yet. And she goes, do you ever stop when they go into this pristine white tiled kill room of the high tech slaughterhouse? And Hal goes, jazz, that can't be good.

[00:50:56] That did give me the, the, the, um, severance vibe, especially cause remember the, the dance, the jazz dance experience or whatever. Yeah. Dance experience. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty funny. And then I just thought, let's talk one more, one more funny thing. I thought, um, when, um, this laser just destroy seemingly destroys Zoe. And then you see that how has placed this green shield over the motel. And I just thought cool.

[00:51:26] If ever I was in a motel that needed that, I think I'd go stay at another motel. Yeah. Time to check out. This doesn't seem good. It's not looking good. Honey, pack the bags. We're outie. Yeah. Um, here's an interesting side thing. I don't know if you guys caught this or not. Um, there's a piece of technology. That keeps showing up.

[00:51:55] I don't know if you've noticed the, um, in this episode, there was three times. I think the, the, um, the point where the lasers come out in the slaughterhouse, that circular device, it's the same piece of technology that's on the satellite that comes down. It's right in the center of the satellite. It's also on Macon's desk, the same.

[00:52:23] It's on the front of his desk. It's like a, not a, like a paperweight type of thing. And it's right there. And then in C and episode two, when he, the, the alien detection technology is the same thing. Oh. So it's, again, I guess it's manhunter technology and there, you know, but it's, it's weird that it's the same one every time the same central device.

[00:52:51] And I just thought that I don't have a theory on that other than that it's, it's tech, but maybe they just want us to recognize the similarity. So we'd know where it came from or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Just the fact that it's manhunter technology, right? Because I think those guns that they use to nullify the green lantern, I think we can assume it's manhunter technology, assuming the manhunters are not friends.

[00:53:17] My, my understanding from listening to some people online, that is for that gun is almost verbatim right out of the comic books of a manhunter weapon. Okay. I mean, I, yeah, I, I didn't know that for sure. And it shoots, and it shoots the black stuff too, that, that, uh, neutralizes the green light. Hal said your darkness gun or something seems to be made to counteract green lanterns. Yeah. Another, okay.

[00:53:45] That reminds me of, cause then, uh, Macon said, I told you we're, we're prepared for anything. And earlier in the series, they were presenting Macon, he was presenting himself as sort of this, uh, xenophobe, you know, maybe we thought analogous to anyone who just hates immigrants, you know, Hey, we only people born on this planet should be here. The comparing it to like Europeans coming over and just taking land away from the natives or something like that.

[00:54:15] Right. And, um, now it's like, Oh wait, no, actually there's this alien being that's, he wants to protect because it's helping him. And that's a little bit different. Right. And I wonder, okay, are we supposed to think that Macon was just presenting that way to hide the truth? Or is that sort of a writing inconsistency? Cause they wanted to misdirect us and make us think he was one kind of person at first, but now it's something else. Do you, do you, am I making any sense?

[00:54:45] Yeah. I think, I think you're making sense. Like at first he seemed like a xenophobe, but now he's a xenophile. Right. Right. Right. In other words, he's, he's lumping in his benefactor as part of this planet's. Yeah. When before he'd say no, and not born here should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think that that's, um, most likely just because the benefactor, you know, his mission or mission that he's given to the town and to Macon is to not let

[00:55:13] anybody find out about him and not to let anybody, uh, any other aliens come to this planet. And when it comes right down to it, he, Macon's just been protecting this man. This one entity who saved his life and has given him all this stuff and everything else. So is this a company town then? Does everybody know? I, I don't know. They don't know who it is. Yeah. I think, I think they all are on board. That's why they were having the big town meeting.

[00:55:43] And then when he walks in, it's all hush hush. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Good point. And I don't think they necessarily know who it is or which one it is or whatever, but you know, and I think the sheriff has got more dirt on our hands than we think. Well, she said that she had been going through her husband's files and was close to figuring out who it was. So I think she, I think she's always known who it is.

[00:56:09] Well, it was interesting because she said, we don't have that kind of relationship, which was making me suspect Billy even more. And then later she made a point to say, okay, I've now been going through his files and I'm this close to figuring out who it is. So maybe that's all BS, but I don't know. It might not be, but I get the sense that it's, or at least it's a possibility that they

[00:56:35] all know that there's this benefactor helping them, but maybe they don't know who it is. Maybe only make it knows. Yeah. I think, I think so. Yeah. I agree with that. To protect, help protect them. That'll, it'll be interesting to see how they explain it. Maybe it's not an important part of it, but you know, they, they don't go to the doctor. They always have crops. Yeah. Everything seems great. You know, I, the, the Carrie Kane part of it is the confusing part to it. I, I'm glad that they, they specified she's not from there.

[00:57:04] They, they very clearly like she's from Gotham, you know, we get it. You're not the main hunter, which of course made me think maybe she is, but I, um, but Hal looked into her, he said, she's got, she good move, uh, getting rid of those bangs. Yeah. But I liked, I liked that little, that was funny. Right. But it also lets you know that there's more than meets the eye to Hal because he's done his research. Yeah. Which is what I like about him. He's been smart a few times in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:34] The scene at the slaughterhouse when he's making, or, um, uh, Hammond. Yeah. That was great. I remember that maybe part of his charm as green lantern is making everybody think, you know, I'm not good at this, but he really, I mean, he's been doing this for 40 years. I mean, this is again, to our knowledge, the longest, uh, superhero that that's been known, uh, in the DCU. So, so he's, and he's good at it. He's still good at it.

[00:58:04] I think the commonalities that John and Hal both have while they do it different ways is they, they're very good at figuring things out to your point, Kirk, if they would just put their damn heads together for longer than 15 minutes. Cause they, they have these moments where they trust each other. He hands them the ring, you know, we get to see, and I, I, I, I don't know if this is an homage to the, to the comics and I don't think this is a spoiler, but you know, John in the comics is in varying degrees has been an architect and artist, and they talk about him going to art school.

[00:58:33] Um, I think the creative piece in this, where we see this architect develop, you know, this tunnel device on a, on a pad. And then he turns it, um, you know, this is total trust. They work together and, and, and they build this and you see, as they're walking through the tunnel, how showing, um, some of that trust and showing, you know, he said you, uh, what did he say? Constructed or whatever, manifest it and, uh, just call it training.

[00:59:02] And I thought maybe that was because in order to manifest something like this, you have to maybe have some kind of an understanding of how it works and how didn't, but he didn't want to admit that. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. He's realizing that, you know, there, that John has some talents that would be really, really good for this job. And he didn't want to look weak and say, I can't do this. So he was just like, Oh, here's a training exercise. But by the way, where does all the dirt go? Yeah. I, I wondered that too.

[00:59:33] Plus they have this great tunneling device, right? Maybe it's vaporized. They have this great tunneling device, but it ends far enough away that they still have to crawl. And so the lights don't catch them. And then they have to sprint once the lights go past. I was like, man, couldn't they have gone a little further? And, and also there must've been piping that went, was going to that building. How do you know without some radar or something? Yeah.

[01:00:01] It could be plowing through gas things and having to blow up. We need some kind of podcast alarm when we're thinking too hard. Yeah. This is, this is it. This is it. Suspension of disbelief, right? I think the other thing though, that since I'm going to bring it up here, since you brought up them and, and what they're, you know, how kind of starting to appreciate some of John's skills. You know, the irony of that final scene, which I'm sure we'll, we'll get into, and I won't go into a great detail right here.

[01:00:29] But the irony of that is that he says to him, I didn't know. It was a hunch. It was my gut. Now for four episodes, this guy has been trying to teach John to listen to his gut and that that's how you do this job. It's not just the rules and the, the, the handbook and all that.

[01:00:53] It's your stomach and your gut and your feelings and your, um, you know, your, your, your sixth sense, so to speak. And, um, and so that's what he was doing and he wasn't sure yet. So he hadn't said anything. Um, and you know, immediately Hal starts laughing. Yeah. So immediately Hal starts laughing about, you know, the gut thing and it was like playing it off.

[01:01:19] But, um, I think, you know, it was kind of a moment where the student was surpassing the, the teacher, you know, he was basically lapping him on that, you know, he'd been, they'd taught him to do that and now he did it. And then he's like totally bent by it. But that was kind of ironic. I mean, I understand he was bent because he, he felt like he, he didn't tell him the truth. He gave him the chance and he lied to him, but he lied to him because he's not 100% sure. That leads into a point of mine.

[01:01:47] So it's Hal and John's shaky relationship. And, and I think this episode is about their bond and it drives by the end, even more of a wedge than there's ever been between them. And Sinestro is working on how he's asks whether John speaks directly to the guardians and how says John claims he doesn't. And he goes, and you believe him.

[01:02:13] And he is lying about that, but how defends John, he says, oh, he, he could have kept the manhunter a secret, but he didn't. And all he does is follow orders. And Sinestro says, well, then he can be controlled and make him believe that you're embracing his worthiness as your replacement. That's exactly what Hal ends up doing later on when he hears that recording.

[01:02:35] And, um, it's, he, he, it's, uh, John saying he's old and I, I, he's, I earned this and he never did a damn thing. And, and he's just an asshole and all this stuff. And then in the car, Hal says, ah, you're probably right. You know, you got, you probably would be better than me. I don't think he means any of that. I think this is where he's decided, oh, this fucker. And so he's like, maybe Sinestro is right. I'm going to follow his advice. That's what's so sad because throughout the whole episode, they're starting to find things

[01:03:05] that they have commonality and they're starting to connect and everything else. And then that, that, what he takes as a slight just mean, just turns him right over to what Sinestro had asked him or told him he should do. Yeah. And earlier, like second watch through when, cause I was so relieved in the car earlier when Hal's like, how are you doing? And he goes, you never asked me that before. And he goes, well, your girlfriend just died. And I'm like, oh, there's finally some compassion there. This is great.

[01:03:33] And then, uh, after I got to the end, I was like, oh, maybe Hal was just pretending there too. But when you watch it, I don't think so. I think that was genuine compassion. And I think when he turns to him and says, I believed you. Yeah. I believed you. Yeah. Yeah. I did believe you. Yeah. But, but, but there is like he, he did by the end, we like, fuck this guy, you know? And I think, I don't know, unless it's not what we thought we saw. It seemed like Hal tried to kill him. Well, I don't think he tried to kill him, but I think he's trying to take him off the board. Take him off the board.

[01:04:03] So that he can then go get, do exactly what Sinestro suggested. Go get the, the Manhunter and bring him to the Guardians and get the credit and screw John. I mean, I think you're probably right, but I just, you know, devil's advocate. He, he, I think he did do what Sinestro said as far as making him believe that he thought he was better just so he could control him. And Sinestro also said, I think you're going to need to kill him.

[01:04:29] And when you, if you in real life took a car and crashed it into a pole and jumped out and someone was in there, there's a pretty good chance they could die from that. Yeah. So I mean, he's not going to die as plot armor. So what happened for real? Maybe, I mean, I wonder if maybe, uh, John can, cause we've seen, he has exceptional power. Maybe he could actually construct something without the ring, like more bubble wrap or something, or maybe it wasn't exactly what we, we thought we saw.

[01:04:58] Maybe how put some protection in there for him. So you would just be, like you said, off the board, but not dead. Yeah. I don't know. I think it was whatever house version of killing him is. I mean, for what it's worth, I think that's your full circle here. Right. I think it's a big fuck you. That scene. Yeah. I think it's a big fuck you. And if you died, if you died, I don't give a fuck. It does seem like that. Yeah. That moment where John, you know, comes clean with him and, and, you know, I didn't take

[01:05:28] the ring, you know, I'm in, and you, you have, and he has this moment to come completely clean and Zoe's the manhunter and he doesn't. And that's when you get that turn from John or from, from how, um, and, and when he says, I believe you, there's, I mean, there's, there's a tone to it and it's not, I, you know, he's, it's not being funny. He's, I believed you, you know? Yeah. Also in your, in response to your, maybe he constructed something to save him.

[01:05:55] You know, I'm starting to wonder, I'm starting to doubt that whole, the bird and all of that, because the bird may not have been John. If a rogue guardian is there trying to manipulate the situation, like I said, maybe Zoe, that maybe Zoe and the guardian are the same person or they're working together or something. They might have the ability to produce that and do that.

[01:06:23] Cause that would then again, intimidate how and help separate the two of them and everything else. Um, then the other thing is, is where did the ring come from that they give him at the art school? Wait, I can't remember what happened at the art school. He has to pass a test. He has to make a, he has to do a draw and then he has to make a watch. It's like a wooden sword. It's their practice spring.

[01:06:49] But if we're saying it's not actually the guardians, then the question is how did they get a ring? Right. But we don't know that. Yeah. I mean, I, I also liked the idea that this is sort of a rogue guardian in league with, or with Sinestro maybe, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying if that's the case, then, then, you know, I could see where that guardian might have enough power to be able to, you know, create a ring or has a ring with them that they could then use.

[01:07:17] Maybe they could even have it create stuff the way that they did. Maybe the bird wasn't really John's creation. I don't know. I mean, I want to think that John has that ability. But I just started to peek in my head like, maybe not. And I also, I don't know if we can take it for granted that by the end of these eight episodes,

[01:07:42] we're halfway through, by the way, that Hal and John are going to be past all of this and on the same page. Yeah, that's true. We don't know. I mean, although he does, I'm sorry. We do know that Hal's dead. Yeah, we see. I agree. Right. I'm still, I'm even now trying to undermine my own argument here or my own point. He does create the, um, the digger using the, the real ring. Yeah.

[01:08:12] So he certainly has the ability to manifest amazing, complicated, complex, um, constructs. So. That's true. Coming, coming back to your point though, Jason, the, the relationship between these two and the complexity of it. There are a lot of things trying to come between them. We have Sinestro. Hal doesn't cave to it, to, to our knowledge throughout much of this episode.

[01:08:39] We have Leanna and, and that's not working. Um, although maybe in the moment it did, you know, we see both Hal make choice, um, to, to give trust to John. We see John telling him again, like he's done in other episodes, what happened with, with the guardian. Um, the one thing that comes between them is, is Zoe. Um, she's the one who ultimately comes between it. Cause that's the information that he won't give Hal, which is ultimately what causes him

[01:09:07] to quote unquote, try to kill John. So, um, I, I don't, I, I, I suspect that the next episode is going to tell us that. I hope that we find out what happened. I mean, obviously we're going to find out what happens to John. I don't think they're going to bench Aaron Pierre, but, uh, I, I, it is interesting that the one thing that ultimately breaches the trust between the two of them is, is, is Zoe,

[01:09:31] which would again, come back to Kirk's point that, that perhaps this is the guardian manifesting it or the manhunter manifesting itself into something that can ultimately split them apart. And it does also connect to Sinestro. I mean, John, John would certainly trust this guardian because he's been seeing this guardian since he was a child. Yeah. Right. Know what I mean? But he's never, no one's ever said to him or shown him or a guardian, other, any other

[01:10:00] guardian has never appeared to them or talked to them or had any conversation. So he has no reference points. His wife, his mother and his father didn't have any reference points. Um, they just had to accept it. And Hal, we don't have any, we don't have any. Exactly. And Hal's not talking to them. So, you know, another little thing is perfect, perfect storm.

[01:10:24] This guy, Hector said that he monitored, uh, John's hotel room. And that's how he got this recording of John talking to the guardian that he played back for Hal. And then it turned out, and he was saying that as if he was the manhunter, but then it turned out, Oh, I'm just a decoy. Yeah. Uh, but it made me wonder if Liana actually got that. She recorded it and got that to them or something, you know? Yeah.

[01:10:54] They're working together. Yeah. Maybe. We're just, I feel like this podcast, we're just presenting all these ideas of possibilities that sometimes contradict each other. Cause we're doing the mystery of it. Yeah. To me, that makes, that means it's a good show. There's just so many possibilities. Well, I, I want to talk about this director a little bit because this director, um, has

[01:11:21] done a lot of really amazing work with, uh, a house of the dragon. Uh, and I don't want to get into that show too much, but who is it? A couple of the episodes, uh, her name is, um, Gita Vasant Patel. Um, her brother is an actor. They put out a documentary called, uh, meet the Patels, but she, uh, she did the, um, episode

[01:11:45] uh, Lord of the Tides, which was the episode in which Viserys spoilers for a three-year-old episode, but, um, was, was an episode where Viserys dies. Um, she did another episode called the burning mill. Um, and it was known for, uh, the episode where Rhaenyra, the main character meets up with Alicent, um, two main characters who are friends, but foes at the same time. And then, um, she also did the season two finale, the queen, whoever was, were those

[01:12:14] two characters come together again. She's very adept at directing episodes in which two very close characters are pounding at each other, um, in very subtle ways. And I think that, that, that in this episode, she was absolutely perfect, um, for this. I thought it was a really well-directed, um, show. She's also slated to do the, uh, uh, season, uh, episode seven, um, as well. Uh, so I, I, I think that, um, they got the right director for that.

[01:12:43] I, I, they're just the, the beats of the show runners are putting the right people in the right places because I think that what, what I'm going to remember from this episode at the end is the, these two characters learning sort of how to trust each other, but then that trust all going out the window. So, yeah, I think that I agree with you 100%. And I think that, that the show runners must be phenomenal because there's not, there's

[01:13:12] never a sense that this episode was written somehow differently or that the dialogue was different or this, the story structure was different. You don't experience that way. My experience of it is it's one flowing as if it was shot all together at one time with one story with one. And I think that's testament to a great team of creatives who are all on this. They're all on the same page together. No one's going off on, you know, think about Jason, like walking dead, all the different

[01:13:40] writers or they'd have direct different directors for different episodes too. And, and like a lot of times I felt like this was a very different episode than, than any other episode of walking dead I've ever seen. And you know what I mean? And then there'd be a two, two, three in a row. There'd be very similar. And then there'd be another one to be like kind of, kind of totally different. And, um, I think the, the, the, the different writers and different directors can bring that to a show.

[01:14:06] And in some shows that that works great because you get something kind of fresh, especially like a show like walking dead, which was going on for 12 years or 13 years or something. It was, it was nice to get an episode that would go off in kind of a different direction. But in this, you want the consistency and, um, and yet you're not, it's not lacking any, you know, these, these writers are, are bringing incredible depth and additional, you know, wonderfulness to the, to the show. So it's not hurting that at all. Yeah.

[01:14:36] That's just my opinion. Yep. It wasn't, it wasn't that bad. I was going to go, but I have, I need a minute. Jim, do you have any more, any more points? Yeah, I've got, you know, I, I mean, I, I think all of my major points, I think, I think you hit upon the relationship, which was going to be my next point.

[01:15:04] Um, I, I do have a question for y'all. Um, we talk about the weenie in this and the variety of weenies that we get and I'll leave it there, but we're left at the end of episode one with how dead on a bench, right? Um, are we supposed to remember that or are we supposed to be forgetting that? How can you forget that? Yeah. Well, I don't think they thought we'd forget it.

[01:15:33] Well, no, I think, I think it feeds into the mystery. What I'm saying is, is I'm saying there, they gave us that in episode one and they're very pointedly staying away from it right now. And I'm just trying to figure out. Well, that's, that's sort of the white Lotus method where you have early on and then keep you like, that's one more thing to just keep you wanting to watch, to find out what happened. Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I, but they don't even tell you, they don't even tell you who it is. Yeah.

[01:16:03] You just, this person, somebody's dead. We don't know if it's a man, woman, child. And it could be a man hunter, by the way. Have we said that on the podcast? It could be, uh, yeah, well, we've got a 14, what? 14 different species of alien that can change themselves to look like that's what they told us. Right. So yeah, definitely. And there's changing going on all over the place. Mm-hmm. We've not been back to 2026 since then. That's the only time. We've, we've been, so I think that we've got four more episodes.

[01:16:33] We were given a, a, a doozy of an episode here. And I, I just, I, I have to imagine that I can't even say that the pace is going to pick up because the pace has been picked up. Like, I mean, this episode was definitely paced really well. Some people I saw, like Wendy, I think had said, I wish it would, uh, speed up a little bit after the first episode or two. Uh, I'd be interested to check in with her and see if she's satisfied now because I feel like it's humming along. I think, I think it's cruising. Oh yeah.

[01:17:02] It's never, to your point Kirk about episodes not feeling different. I think last week's episode was the one that was supposed to feel different. It did. Yeah, I thought it did. We go back in time and we, we, we meet John, you know, all of John and we get this story of, of abuse and, um, love at the same time. And, and. Tonally it was still the same, but it was just a different type of episode. It, it certainly didn't feel to me like it was written or produced by different people. No, I, that's, that's the point of it.

[01:17:32] I think that's the brilliance of it is that they told a different story, but it felt like it was, the drum was still beating, you know, it never did I not feel other than the fact the only thing that I missed from last episode that we got in this episode was Sinestra. Like I, you know, being the comic book guy, we end with Sinestra. You said they might not leave, uh, Aaron Pierre hanging or something. They might for an episode. Oh yeah. Well, we still haven't gotten Hal's backstory next time. Hal's backstory. We obviously we're going to be getting, you know, some of that.

[01:18:01] I mean, at least we have to know what happens between 2006 and 2016 because he turns from being what seems like a happy go lucky guy into this like prick that we have now. Thankfully, I'm glad I'm, you know, Kyle Chandler's eaten that role up, but he's edgier than I've ever, I haven't seen a lot of things he's been in, but yeah, he's got, he's prickly. He's, he skirts. I think the roles that we remember him in are, are pure, you know, we, we remember him in Friday night lights.

[01:18:27] We remember, you know, early edition curmudgeonly, but here he's kind of vicious. Sometimes I've never seen him like that before. Did you see Wolf of wall street? I did, but I can't remember his character. He plays the FBI agent who's investigating. And there is a scene when he interviews him on the back of his boat on this big yacht. And it is just, it's just, it's beautiful. I mean, it's just so well done, so well written, so well acted.

[01:18:56] And you can see the prickly side of him. Okay. You know, he, he was, he was in a Netflix show called bloodline with Ben Mendelsohn. I never did see that. Uh, it's, he is a very different character. Okay. He's sort of like what would happen to the character we see him in if he would, would, would tack into a different direction. There's, there's, um, so he, the picture that I think everybody has of Kyle Chandler's Friday night lights. I think that's the guy. Yeah.

[01:19:25] That's his signature role. I would say the coach that inspired this team. Yeah. And, and, but he has played such a variety of characters over the course of his career. And I think it's, it's, we're going to see it manifest. I'm sure I can find the, the Wolf of Wall Street scene on, on YouTube or something. I'll, I'll send it to you. It's a great scene. I just remember that Quaalude scene. That's what stands out to me. But, uh, that's not, that's not the one that I remember. Bringing up a couple of, this is bringing up a couple of things. I'm glad you said it. One. Yeah.

[01:19:55] There's another scene. Uh, Kirk, last episode you, I heard you say, was I, am I in trouble? No. I, you said you might watch Friday night lights and I was like, ah, I hope he does. Cause I think you'll really like it. And, uh, you know, I, I want to, I, I haven't started. I'm not even into sports, but I really liked it. It took me a few episodes to get into it, but once I did, so maybe give it two or three episodes at least. But I don't know if you know, but Jesse Plemons, who went on to play Todd on Breaking Bad, he

[01:20:25] kind of, that was his breakout role on that show and a much different character than Todd. Um, yeah. Also, um, you know, of course, Kyle Chandler. Isn't Michael B. Jordan? Yes. Wasn't Michael B. Jordan? Yeah. In season three, he came in and just commanded the screen and that was his first big role too. Right. So, so, so to, to my point last week, Kirk, season two for me was a little shaky, but season three, it like kind of recaptures the glory of, of, of Friday night lights.

[01:20:53] And that's when, when his character comes in and there's a blending of, of schools, but yeah. But I love Matt Saracen too. He's so good at character. Uh, yeah. And then one thing I, I completely forgot. I was just reminded today that, uh, if you watch alien earth, I do, I do. The main character Marcy slash Wendy is played by Sydney Chandler. Who's Kyle Chandler's daughter. Yeah. I just saw that yesterday. Wow. Yeah.

[01:21:19] And, uh, if you're listening to this on casting light rather than wax episodic alien earth is one of the other shows we're covering over there. So if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, wax episodic is this podcast where different co-hosts and I cover whatever currently airing shows that we're most into like pluribus severance silo, which we'll be doing an episode pretty soon here to cover the last part of that season. Welcome to dairy fallout and soon widow's Bay. Karen and I are going to start doing widow's Bay.

[01:21:49] So, uh, if you like the way that we talk about TV here, come check us out over at wax episode alien, alien earth is phenomenal. Wax episodic.com. Oh my God. Yeah. I, I loved that. And they're filming season two right now in London. And I think it's supposed to come out like towards the end of next year. So I love it because it, it took the, the whole lore, the alien lore and just expanded it. It didn't beat it to death.

[01:22:15] Like all the other, you know, that's Noah Hawley heads that up and he did Legion, which is another favorite show of mine. Oh, Legion is great. Yeah. And Fargo. He did the Fargo show. He's just brilliant. I mean, it's just, it's, and in fact, with all of the billionaire tech guru stuff, it's terrifying to watch in that respect. Cause it just feels like where we're, where we're going.

[01:22:40] I noticed a lot of, who didn't do this on purpose, but wax episodic covers alien earth and, uh, severance, which also has that theme kind of fallout too. It's, I'm like, Oh, I would find myself railing on corporations, every podcast and like, wait a minute. Dude, I got to ask you though.

[01:23:04] Um, I, it's silo and fallout seem extremely similar in terms of their, you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you think one got kind of aped the other one or, cause I believe fallout was in the started out in the nineties, right? The game. The game. Yeah. The games and the wool books weren't until the early two thousands. I think maybe, I mean the definitely a lot of similarities and not just the fact that

[01:23:34] they're in these underground bunkers or whatever, but also the not being able to trust the powers that be kind of thing. But the tone is so different. Like the, the, the, the, the cryo sleeping of the, uh, of the aristocracy. And all that stuff. But silo is such a noir slow burn thing and fallout is just fucking bonkers comedy, you know?

[01:24:01] So they feel a lot of ways similar, but a lot of ways different, but I don't know. I've never heard anything about whether one was inspired from the other. I mean, don't you think though, those are shows rooted in that, you know, I'm being our, of our age, young men with gray hair. Don't you think that, that shows like fallout and silo come from that, that bunker era that we grew up with, um, like the day after. Yeah. Freaking out about nuclear war. Absolutely.

[01:24:31] I mean, like right now, I mean, all the tech gurus are building bunkers. For some reason we were buying islands and building bunkers. We should be just as freaked out about it as we were in the eighties. Exactly. But I don't think we are though. I think in the eighties we were all terrified and now we're just oblivious. We used to do drills in school for Christ's sake. I mean, yeah. Hey, we're getting off track. Uh, I mean, I love all this, but we should probably focus. So do you want to get into notes? Oh, I got some notes. Okay. Yep. What do you got?

[01:25:00] Um, probably my favorite note is one of the most, I, I held back one of the humorous scenes when, uh, how Jordan stepped on that, that, um, alarm, uh, and, you know, they, they did the 85 pound weight and in the middle, um, you know, they're like, I think it's, it's, uh, uh, I think it's John who says, um, don't set it off. And they both look at each other and go great movie. He says good.

[01:25:29] I think, I think, I think Hal says good movie and John says great movie. Great movie. Yeah. So set it off is, is for those of you that don't know, it's a movie. Uh, it's in the interesting thing about the movie, it's from 1996, which is one of the 10 year jumps and we've got, um, and it, it's, um, it's a take on a bank heist and it was, it, it was for women. Uh, and it was, uh, one of the first bank heist movies that actually tackled socioeconomic

[01:25:56] poverty, women who were losing their jobs, um, black women specifically who were, uh, who needed money to survive. Uh, and, and it's, it's, uh, I think the, the bank story is less interesting than the story itself because it is a story of, of women who are together, but also who stopped trusting each other. Uh, but anyways, I ended up watching it yesterday. So I haven't seen it in a long, long time.

[01:26:26] It is a really great movie. Jada Pinkett Smith, um, Vivica Fox is in that as well. Um, Queen Latifah, that was, I think Queen Latifah's first role, uh, as, as a movie star. Uh, and it, it's a really great movie. And I just, the throw in for that and whether or not it was a writing choice from the writer, which I would assume it was, um, was just a really, a really neat, a throw in. Cool. Yeah, I agree.

[01:26:50] I found it a little disturbing though, that online, a lot of people are trying to make the claim or draw the comparison that, that, that actually was a reference to the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. Oh. Because of the, the time or the, the weight. Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, just the, the physicality of it. Yeah. Right. Right. But I mean, but I think, I think they're missing, I think they're missing the bigger picture,

[01:27:19] which I think you were, you know, you're talking about. The implication I thought was how either lied or was wrong about his weight. It would be really dumb to lie about it because it's one 85. Yeah. Maybe it was wrong. I said, but really what it looked like the way it played out is I don't think it was smart to just drop that fucking thing on it, you know, gently down. They made a point.

[01:27:48] Is not light dude. Maybe, well, he lifted it up and then he just, boom, they made a point of that. Yeah. It's like, oh. I don't think that was such a good idea. And that is not how Indiana Jones did it. Just so we're clear. Yeah. He was deaf. He was very careful with it. Yeah. Yeah. Hal told Sinestro that they found John when he, he was in the Marine or they found him from the Marines. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I guess Hal doesn't know the story because they found him before the Marines. That's what that was just meant to show, right? Yeah.

[01:28:19] Right. Sinestro. Wait a minute. Sinestro says that? Hal told Sinestro that. Oh, tell him. Sinestro has to where he came from, I think. Which, which is important because John is not being on, like integrity was one of my points and I never got to it, but this is, this is that John's not being, not showing integrity by telling him the truth at all. And it's, I guess it's omission, right? Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, I feel like Hal's not very curious about John.

[01:28:49] So maybe John just didn't volunteer the information and Hal never asked. Okay. You could put it that way, you know, versus him like trying to hide something from him. Um, Leanna told John that the next time Hal gave him the ring, just recite the oath and he'll become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. And, uh, I, I kind of wonder what that means because we already know that John can use the ring. So how would that change anything potentially?

[01:29:16] Would it just mean that Hal is not officially part of the Green Lantern Corps anymore in, on some level, or I guess we don't really know, but something would change. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a little, it's a little, uh, confusing because I thought the ring identifies a new lantern and then that becomes their ring. Right. And I would assume that that means no one else can use that ring.

[01:29:45] It won't work for anybody else until they die and then it'll go and find another person. So. But we've seen that, yeah, they can pass it back and forth between each other now and both use it. Yeah. I don't know. But could anybody? Right. Because Macon had it on his desk. Yeah, Macon had it on his desk. You'd think he'd pick it up and try it out. I kept waiting for him to put it on, you know? Yeah, well. He put it on his, put it on his trunk. Oh my God. Don't let Kirk write the show. That's a different version.

[01:30:15] You mentioned the art ring, the ring that they had in the, with the Guardians just sort of gave them back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are being kind of cavalier with the rings. Yeah, yeah. That, that doesn't feel right to me. And I don't think it's plot driven. I think they're just being cavalier with the ring. Well, it's also interesting. It's interesting. He couldn't fly. Yeah. I just, I just think it's, it's interesting. You know what I mean? Well, and maybe, maybe it is a plot. Yeah.

[01:30:45] To your point. I think it's going to tie into the plot somehow because he's not getting the ring. He doesn't get the ring at the end. He doesn't have the ring at the end. He, he either turns it down or, uh, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know that yet, Kirk. We don't know. We don't know. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Don't tell me what we don't know. I can't theorize. Yeah. You could theorize even though you're full of shit. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.

[01:31:15] You're right though. They make a point. They make a point in episode one to show that he doesn't have the ring on his hand. Right. And neither does Hal. Yeah. All right. Any other notes? Only that, that I just think it's, it's really cool how the show keeps giving us all these clues by deliberately making almost everyone an unreliable source of information. Yeah. So, you know what I mean? It's like everybody. Even John. And I love that John even says it. Yeah.

[01:31:43] But even John says, everybody's lying and even I'm lying. Everybody's lying to everybody. So we can't believe anything we're seeing. No. Is the sheriff a good guy or a bad guy? Right. Is the Zoe the hunter? Is the guardian a hunter? Are they both the same? Is Hal like John? Does he hate John? Is he, you know? I think Hal's the most reliable one of all of them. Yeah. He might be. Yeah. He might be. Yeah. He might be. And maybe that's what John has to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's true.

[01:32:13] I love that. So I don't have, you know, tying it back to that other point. I don't, I don't trust that the ring situation is legit. I think there might be just one ring on earth and that's the one that Hal has. And, you know, his ability to use it might be being channeled through the aliens, you know, or channeled through the manhunter or the guardian, if that's what it is. You know what I mean? They're just setting John up. They're just using him. Totally.

[01:32:42] Everybody's using everybody. Yeah. I just love these characters. I just can't. I, if Hal Jordan does die and Kyle Chandler's done, I'm just, that's going to break my heart. He's so good at this role. Yeah. I just love it. I, I, Kirk, how do you feel?

[01:33:03] Cause you mentioned in the first episode, how do you feel now about, I think you mentioned that you didn't see him quite as your Hal Jordan when the show started. And I know that changed a little bit after episode one, we're sitting at episode four. Oh, you just said when he got cast, but then when she started playing the role. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's, I think he's been, I love the portrayal. Yeah. I love, I love what he's doing with him. Yeah.

[01:33:27] I, I don't think he, I think there's aspects of him that are similar to the Hal in the comics, but I don't, but I think they've, they, they haven't made that so important to them. They've just, you know, they, they got a story. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, um, I feel like this version. Yeah.

[01:33:48] It's like just an older version who's been through some shit, but he's, Hal in the comics is cocky and fearless, but he's not so vicious. All right. Let's get into listener feedback and Jim want to go first. Mo Favo love the dialogue in this episode gets better on second watch. My big question, what type of relationship does Sheriff Carrie have with her husband?

[01:34:18] Also, any guessing of over under how many times you will have to say weenie in this episode? Oh, we've said it a few. We've said it a few times. I'd say the over is 20 over under is 20. Yeah. That's what I'm going with. Um, what type of relationship does Sherry, does Sheriff Carrie have with her husband?

[01:34:41] I think is probably a more important piece of information than we even know yet because he, or not an important piece at all because Billy has been such a fringe part of the show. Um, but it does. Sheriff Carrie to me is such an outlier and everything because she's either completely in the know as Kirk said or completely not. And I can't quite figure that out. Basically the answer to the question is we don't know anything. Yeah.

[01:35:11] We know nothing, but that could be a clue to something bigger, or it could just be a normal marriage where your husband's a lawyer and there's attorney client privilege and you don't breach that, you know? Yeah. And she seems to have a good relationship with her quote unquote dad, you know, put your dick away, you know? Like she's seen it before the weenie. Doesn't seem like that's the first time he's done that. Jijo Putia, another nail biter.

[01:35:40] I was so confused at the end. You probably covered it, but how did they figure out she was the man eater? Did he mean to say that? I think it's when she jumped on him in the hotel room. That's when I think. That's when she figured it out. What do you guys think Jon Stewart is thinking with how he was handling how? It's very interesting. Why not claim the ring?

[01:36:05] Do you think the guardian that is mentoring Jon has gone rogue? Before I continue, do you think he should have taken the ring? I think Jon respects Hal and is trying to be loyal to him. And maybe it's not 100% pure, but it's at least 80, 90% pure.

[01:36:27] So he hasn't told the guardian anything about the man hunters because Jon doesn't want them to know. And he knows that, you know? So he's trying to do right by Jon, even though he may be tempted. Like when he asked to, can I have the ring when we go to see Hector? Because it'll all have the element of surprise. And then later he tells Hal, I was going to give it back. I didn't mean to.

[01:36:56] There was a part of me that was like, maybe he considered it though. You know, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. It looked like it. Yeah. It looked like he considered it. I think he doesn't want, he seems like a very moralistic kind of by the book kind of guy. And I don't think that's how he, you know, he, he, he, I think it bells went off. Like I said before, when she started, you know, said that, you know, you got to take it from him instead of us giving it to you. You know what I mean?

[01:37:24] After all of this training, you know, by you to, to become the best lantern and, and you, I got to go. Something's not right about that. And I'm not doing it that way. He also is lying to Hal and he slept with some guy's wife. But other than that, very moral. Do you guys think he loves Zoe? Plus I think if he did that, I think if he did that, it would basically nullify his ability to ever be the lantern. Oh, there's a good point. Yeah. That's a good point. And I think he knows that.

[01:37:53] But anyway, uh, what was your question? Do I think he loves Zoe? Do you think he loves Zoe? Is that why he didn't tell Hal? Is that the piece? Why he did? Well, then why didn't he tell Hal? Why wouldn't he tell him that? Because he wasn't sure. Because I don't think he, yeah, he's not sure she's the manhunter. He's just got a hunch that that's sweet. And they don't have the relationship where they're like, I'm getting a hunch about something. Yeah, that's true. I think he's sleeping with her in order to get information from her. And he got a lot. He got a confession out of her that she said she's the manhunter.

[01:38:22] But now this other guy, Hammond said he was the manhunter. Everybody's saying that the manhunter. So, you know, who do you believe? You know what I mean? I think he loves her. Sorry. All right. Go ahead. Maybe you're right. Yeah. Okay. So, Gigi says, do you think the guardian that is mentoring John has gone rogue? Well, we kind of touched on that. I thought that might be possible. I think either that or she's the manhunter. Yeah. Yeah. And John suspects that so he does not trust her. Why do we not see any of the other guardians and only her?

[01:38:52] Good question. Again, I think that's very much. That's why I'm suspicious. Please speculate as much as you can without spoilers. Thanks for your work on the podcast. I think we did okay. I think we did okay, Todd. I think we did okay this episode. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know. Not too bad. Let's know, Gigi. Alex Kruger says, what are the chances Leanna Linney isn't actually a guardian? We think pretty good. We should talk about that. Hal never interacts with her.

[01:39:18] The same tech that got John into the abandoned mall was the tech used to bring the cow in. And she seems to have a manor in this episode that doesn't vibe with what they want us to believe guardians are. These moral police want John to essentially steal the power from Hal. It just doesn't end up. Totally. What if Laura Linney is an agent of Sinestro, bear with me, that focused on John Sr.'s fear

[01:39:43] and how they could weaponize that to create a fail safe in case Hal ever got too strong or locked Sinestro up. They would have a supremely capable replacement that's conditioned to listen to Laura Linney and could potentially wreak some havoc. Wreak some havoc. Yeah. And how else? I mean, how does Sinestro know any of this stuff that's going on? He says something. He's locked in a freaking vault. Well, that's the thing. Frozen IO. Right? And if, yeah.

[01:40:13] So. Yeah. All right. That is our show, except for the comic talk section at the end, if you want to hear us talk a little bit more spoilery about stuff outside the show and how it relates. But for now, thanks for listening, everyone.

[01:40:39] Next episode actually did release a title this time, Lantern Season 1XO5 Lights Out. Ooh. If you want to write in or leave us a voice message about it, you can send it to brightestdayatpodcastica.com. Or you can leave comments in the Podcastica Discord or in our Facebook group where you can also chat with us and other listeners about lanterns or whatever else you are watching. Links are, of course, in the show notes.

[01:41:08] If you want, you can also write to everyonelies2andmanipulateseachother at podcastica.com and that will also come to us. We're actually lying right now. Yeah. Yep. I want to remind everyone to check out studiokm.com for Kirk's life figure drawings. No, that's not true. We're always great. No elephant. Specializing in elephants.

[01:41:38] No, no, no. Maybe we'll get more visitors that way. But it's amazing pop culture. I don't know if it's the visitors we want, though. The start and OnlyFans. I draw a trunk. I draw a trunk. Drunks.com. We're not endorsing that. Oh, my goodness sakes. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. All right. You better get to doodling, Junior.

[01:42:14] Okay. Time for a comic talk. Just a quick reminder. If you don't want to hear anything that could possibly be spoilery from the comics or even the movies or anything else outside the show, then you don't want to listen to this part. So one thing, yeah, that we did a pretty good job of not mentioning, but I absolutely thought of, is that if Liana does turn out to not be a real guardian, then that would make sense why she's so huge.

[01:42:41] And the guardians of the comic are famously three feet tall or whatever. With huge heads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, also, Alex had in his message that I didn't read yet. Is that how Guy Gardner fits in later? Find a ring, say the oath, and then boom, instant Green Lantern. That's an interesting idea. Maybe he just grabbed it and said the oath. That's how Guy Gardner.

[01:43:10] He certainly has that personality, right? He does. It's definitely not Jon Stewart. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's a possibility. I had a few other things, but what else do you guys have? Yeah. Well, Hector Hammond, for one. That name is one of the first Green Lantern villains from way, way, way, way back to the early comics before I started. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:43:39] Where he, in one of the first three, four, five issues, becomes a major, major villain. And I'm sure, well, I'm not sure, based on this whole episode of the podcast, I'm not sure that it was just, I mean, it's probably a red herring for all the comic books. I didn't know that was, it was weird because they said Hector Hammond and Hal didn't seem to recognize the name. So it didn't seem like he had a history. Oh, that's my villain, arch nemesis Hector Hammond. Right. Yeah.

[01:44:07] And then maybe, I think maybe it was just a red herring Easter egg for fans of the comic. Oh, this is not Hector Hammond. It's Hector, somebody else. The minute they said that, I was like, there's the twist. It's Hector Hammond. Let's go. But doesn't Hammond, like, super rich and he, like, helps fund some, or did you just say that? No, no. He's, he ends up, he ends up, yeah, he's rich. He ends up with this, like, big brain. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:44:34] Yeah, he finds fragments of a meteor and it mutates him eventually and his brain grows to a big size and it gets telepathic and telekinetic powers. And, yeah. He's superhuman intelligence. But it was weird that they, why didn't just have him be Hector Hammond, you know, they changed his name to something else, which it was weird. But it does seem like Hector Hammond owns this company that makes his satellites. Yeah.

[01:45:03] Yeah, basically they introduced him. Yeah. But I don't know if it was the guy we saw. Yeah. No, no. I don't think it was. No, because it turns out to be Hector Gutierrez and he immediately slips into a Hispanic voice. I was like, okay, there's a turn. That's hilarious. No, I think it was just some world building. When. Some universe building. John said to, you know, Hal said, this is a lonely job. And John goes, you ever talk to the other landers? And he goes, I'm the only human. They're aliens. One of them's a fucking squirrel. Nobody like me. And that's.

[01:45:32] I thought of Gnor, but Gnor's like a dog-like character. And so I had to look it up and it's Chip C-H apostrophe P from the planet Holven, who looks like a rodent with a Green Lantern outfit on. And then the last thing I had is, Jim, you said they're being kind of cavalier with the ring compared to the comics.

[01:45:56] But I remember during Jeff John's run, I don't know if it was every Lantern, but Lanterns could just make more rings with their rings, like pop them out. And I was like, wow, that's kind of like you could just make a thousand of them and hand them out. That's like getting a, you know, you get the magic lantern and you just wish for a million wishes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I, truth be told, I think they're using a bit of John's in this, right?

[01:46:23] Like, I think this is, that was part of, part of the nucleus of the show is the Jeff John's run. I, I, I don't remember reading anything like this mystery. Type thing in there. Well, yeah, I think the mystery is, I think some of the lore. The fear part. That they're trying to, yeah. Anything else? I saw a funny, this isn't really just for Comic Talk. I should have probably said this in the other segment. That's right.

[01:46:51] Someone online was saying that Sinestro looked like evil Stan Lee. He did. He does. Red face Stan Lee, right? Yeah. It struck me as funny. And I'm glad they gave him the, the sharp ears, the Spock ears. I wish he was less shiny slash oily. It looks like makeup to me. Uh, I disagree. I thought it looked like skin more than, than they did like in the, in the, um, Ryan Reynolds movie.

[01:47:19] It was just like, oh my God, that was, that was crazy. I just, the chain, the chain of the rings in the comic is, um, it does go from how to John. Um, Guy Gardner was a backup at one point or was the guy who was supposed to follow. And then it turned out, it ended up being John instead of Guy Gardner. Uh, it's not super important to this, but also in the comics Sinestro was house mentor.

[01:47:48] Um, I could see a scenario, I could see a scenario where John has just been being played since he was a child and his parents were played and that there were no guardians involved and there's no, you know, special training that was making him be able to manifest stuff and everything else. And that the guard, the, the guardians, the, you know, that the process is if Hal dies, the

[01:48:15] ring goes to the next one and the ring found, um, Guy Gardner and that's, who's getting the ring and John doesn't get it. But then, but then at some point the guardians step in and say, but we think you deserve it. And I believe that's happened in the comics where they, they have at one point put themselves in and picked somebody, but that, that was something completely out of their ordinary process.

[01:48:43] Um, because he does end up being in the movies in the next movie. He's, he is the green lantern. Yeah. But the next Superman movie, if, if you, if you think about the episode last week, we find out that John's father was, was offered the ring and then what happens next. And then this fits in, you know, we didn't talk about this, but, but this fits into your theory.

[01:49:09] Um, Laura Linney shows up to give a gift. Yeah. I feel sorry for what I did. And I don't, I still don't think that's something that the guardians would do. No, I said that last week, but I didn't think anything like you're thinking now. So I, I, I, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the Marine story, the John Stewart Marine story in the comics. So I, I, I think it's probably possible that this scenario is played out in some version of the comics. I just don't know that.

[01:49:37] I think they gave him that backstory after one of the reboots, possibly after crisis or maybe new 52. I don't know. Yeah. I know that Marine story just came, came out of nowhere. Well, I know that John's origin in the comics, the, the guardians do pick him to be, um, Hal's backup. If Hal were to be incapacitated in any way, the ring would go to John and John. But they did that because Guy Gardner got hurt injured. Right. If I remember correctly.

[01:50:07] So maybe that, maybe, maybe that's what's going to happen. I'm looking for, I keep looking forward to Nathan Fillion. I wonder when he's going to show up. We got four more episodes. It might just be in one episode, you know, one episode might not be very long. Right. Well, this is spoiler section, right? Yeah. Okay. Uh, did you guys watch the preview? I did not. No. Is he in it? Uh, you can say yes. Go ahead. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go.

[01:50:36] I think so. It's quick. Cool. But he's definitely, it's not, you know, we were talking about maybe it being a flashback to, to Hal's backstory. And I think we're going to get that. Yeah. But I don't think it's going to be this episode. Supposedly this episode is, is like explosive and a lot of fighting, a lot of craziness and bombastic and stuff. And I think he somehow, he ends up in jail. John ends up in jail. Given it's called lights out. I predict somebody punches somebody's lights out. Maybe. Yeah.

[01:51:04] Is this the, is this the, did you watch the preview, Kirk? Yeah, I did. There's a scene in the original preview where John is walking through the street, holding a lantern. Do we see that? Yeah. Is that in this? That's in the trailer. And he's just been, he's, that's what he, the, the outfit he's wearing is from the prison. He's in jail. It's not a prison, but it's a jail. Okay. Um, and the guy gardener, sorry, Jason, I don't want to, I don't mean to like, I, I just, I, that's the scene I want to see. No, no, no. It's a spoiler section. That's all right. Yeah.

[01:51:34] Um, guy gardener sitting on a chair and he's flashing such a dick. He's flashing his green lantern light at John while John's trying to sleep. And he just keeps slashing it until, and then, and then John just goes, cut the light guy. Something like that. It's just funny. But recently on Instagram, someone posted, I don't know much about Greenlander. So it's guy gardener wearing Jordan's ring or are there multiple rings on earth?

[01:52:01] And James Gunn replied, all will be answered. Well, the say what you were going to say, Kirk, about the ring. You were going to talk about this, I think. Yeah. Well, the, the, the, the, the, there's only one ring and they always felt the guardians in the comic always felt like earth was just some backwater little planet. They didn't even really want to spend any time with it. Um, but my guess is, is that they'll feel like there needs to be another lantern because

[01:52:31] of all of the increasing, uh, what do they call them in DC for superheroes? They have, uh, they have the name like powered people or I forget what they call them. Meta humans. They have a name. Meta humans. Exactly. Right. So, you know, when Superman arrives and then, you know, now, now you've got the one green lantern, you've got Hawkgirl shows up. She's now part of this thing. You've got Mr. Terrific.

[01:52:57] Um, you know, there's, there's a growing alien attention on earth now. So I, I wouldn't be surprised if the guardians don't step up to John at that point and say, listen, you know, we never thought there needed to be more than one guardian, one, um, lantern here, but I think maybe there needs to be two. I think in the comics, there's at least seven green land earth, green lantern. It's gotten crazy. But, but just so Tom King has said multiple times.

[01:53:27] Oh, that's what I've, yeah. You're right. There's only one that guy Gardner has the one house. The same ring. The same house. It looks different. Yeah. But yeah, it looks a lot different, but you know, it's Nathan. I mean, it's, it's guy Gardner, Nathan Fillion. Like I, I think he'd make it look different just based on his portrayal of his version of the green lantern that we've seen. For those of you that have seen Superman versus what we've seen on this show.

[01:53:55] I think obviously I have a different style of green lantern and guy Gardner, which I can't wait to see. Yeah. All right. I think that about wraps it, right guys? Wraps it. Cheers. Everybody got take it easy.