It makes sense that Lanterns could only give us what we wanted once one of the main characters was dead. \u201cThe Jordan Boys\u201d plays with those expectations\u2014and meets them\u2014while maintaining the series\u2019 tone of regret and loss and time irrevocably gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hal Jordan is back in the form of the Halogram, this version allowing Kyle Chandler to shed a decade\u2019s worth of pain to present a Hal more in line with the adventurer comics fans are used to. He\u2019s reckless, refusing to help John break into The Fortress Of Storage until he gets to see Kerry, but it\u2019s a more fun kind of reckless. Freed from his 10-year dormancy only to peer down into his own grave, this Hal is confused and pissed off, certainly. But he\u2019s also not yet crushed and defensive and, well, afraid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dynamic between the Halogram and John bristles with the sort of crotchety banter the trailers deceptively frontloaded. John is blessedly relieved that he can finally shut his mentor up just by wishing it, realizing that he can banish the stubbornly insistent Hal by belting out some Outkast<\/a>. Hal is the cheeky wiseass veteran Lantern\u2014completing the whole buddy cop dynamic promos for the show teased us with\u2014but his position as someone not quite alive (and fully shocked by John\u2019s revelations about his fate) leaves Chandler acres to stretch out his characterization.\u00a0<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Kerry, trying to keep a lid on the town\u2019s volatile reaction to having another Green Lantern situation in its midst, all while preparing to host 100 people at her house for a party celebrating Noah\u2019s hyped up college football decision. Kelly Macdonald\u2019s been outstanding, even if Kerry\u2019s status as the non-super of the central trio shunted her aside more than her male colleagues. But watch her eyes in the scene where John, blackmailed into introducing Hal\u2019s \u201cghost,\u201d tries to prepare her. If there\u2019s a way to play a scene where someone channels the mix of emotion you feel when your dead lover (for whom you have deeply complicated feelings) appears in front of you while clearly not being the exact person you knew, then Kelly Macdonald finds it here. (The little flinch after she reaches out to touch Hal\u2019s face is eloquently heartbreaking.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The Halogram asks John on the way to meet Kerry, \u201cI was in jail? I was in love?,\u201d and the second question registers as more inconceivable than the first. Chandler, too, is remarkable in \u201cThe Jordan Boys,\u201d tiptoeing the Halogram through a tangle of thoughts and emotions only a sci-fi scenario can truly create. The Halogram (I\u2019m just calling him \u201cHal\u201d from now on), is stubborn, ornery and filled with pain the likes of which the episode finally reveals. But he\u2019s also a hoot, with 10 years of encroaching obsolescence and exhaustion shed in a green blip of fleeting new existence. (The episode makes clear the ticking clock on Hal\u2019s five percent battery life, with no lantern around to recharge.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Aaron Pierre is freed up as well, clearly relishing his new control over the guy who, as he notes in \u201cThe Jordan Boys,\u201d ruined his military career, crushed him in two separate car accidents, and generally shirked any responsibility to prepare him for the destiny John had been preparing for his whole life. John\u2019s rigidity has softened before. The Guardian was genuinely taken aback when John offered sincere sympathy for the death of one of her fellows, and here John\u2014in the middle of a fraught and dangerous mission on another planet entirely\u2014does the same when Hal confesses that his fighter pilot father killed himself. If Hal enjoys his second chance, then John warily exposes how much he truly wanted a mentor more like this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Jordan Boys\u201d begins with the young Hal (Henry Samiri) battered and bruised for not giving up the baseball when his coach tried to take him off the mound during a game. Hal\u2019s father (Jake B. Miller) first apologizes for his son\u2019s obstinance and then, upon discovering Hal was pitching a shutout, gets into a fistfight with the much bigger coach. Miller\u2019s swaggering Matthew McConaughey vibe is exactly what you\u2019d expect a 1970s hotshot pilot to be, and exactly the man a young Hal Jordan would emulate. But icing down their respective bruises with rocket pops outside the airplane hangar where Martin Jordan performs his death-defying feats, the father tells his son that his own father killed himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n All this father-to-son generational tragedy is manipulative in theory. In practice, it works. (Despite Lanterns once more getting too on-the-nose with needle drops\u2014Queen\u2019s \u201cFather To Son<\/a>,\u201d really?) Deconstructing further our expectations of heroism, super or otherwise, it turns out Martin\u2019s pilot father left him a note in a locked safe explaining how his own feelings of inadequacy (as a man, husband, father, hero) grew until, as Hal finally tells John as they row a boat across an alien lake, \u201cHe couldn\u2019t bear to let us see him.\u201d Martin left Hal a note, too, this last father-son moment occurring right before the accident young Hal knows wasn\u2019t an accident at all, even as no one else does. As Martin tells his son, not meeting the boy\u2019s eye as he gives Hal a key, he has a safe as well, one only Hal can know about. \u201cIts not something she can carry,\u201d Martin says of Hal\u2019s mother, \u201cBut you can Hal. It\u2019s in your blood\u2014Jordan boys\u2019 legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n If the trauma is too pat, the actor redeems it. Chandler\u2019s face as Hal looks away to the ruined nothing of an alien world is that of a little boy, brows bowed, eyes darting. He\u2019d asked Kerry earlier if he\u2019d told her about his father, and the knowing glance there indicated that their closeness was the only place he felt safe enough to tell the truth. As Hal finally tells John, not meeting his trainee\u2019s gaze, \u201cI\u2019m not fearless, I\u2019m broken.\u201d Again, only in the speculative reality of comics could such an outlandish circumstance exist for an actor like Kyle Chandler to explore so powerfully.\u00a0<\/p>\n If there\u2019s a weakness to \u201cThe Jordan Boys,\u201d it\u2019s on the periphery. The Maggie blackmail subplot is the sort of effortful complication that could be avoided with a conversation between John and Kerry. And the final confrontation on that alien planet (there\u2019d been one of those portals in the guise of a ball of goo in the storage locker) should land with more impact, considering the big reveal that the escaped Sinestro is camped out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m thrilled that Ulrich Thomsen is going to match wits once more with this younger, less experienced Hal, and the way that John and Hal\u2019s grudging buddy relationship allows them to get the drop on the ring-less supervillain is satisfying stuff. (Outkast to the rescue!) \u201cThe Jordan Boys\u201d introduces the possibility that Lanterns is about to take off, literally and narratively, into the sort of universe-spanning adventure fans were anticipating.\u00a0<\/p>\n But look around\u2014the first world we see is Antaan\u2019s. It\u2019s dead and desolately howling with remnants of the fear gas the Manhunters used to exterminate an entire world full of people. The spectacle comes in John\u2019s shocked reaction to the sight of abandoned, ruined cities in the clouds as he pulls a shattered alien skull out of the lifeless sands. Stubborn as Hal Jordan (any version), Lanterns\u2018 vision of the superhero story strips away the colorful constructed narrative like a costume left to mothball. And it takes skin with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stray observations<\/p>\n \u2022 Aaron Pierre\u2019s delivery of \u201cSeparate incidents, motherfucker!\u201d is the sort of catharsis I imagine John has been waiting to vent upon his mentor.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Young Hal, listing off the teammates who\u2019d pummeled him to unsuccessfully pry the ball from his grasp, notes, \u201cAnd both Raffert twins\u2014I think.\u201d
\n\u2022 Martin explains how his father had a genuine safe to lock away the record of his perceived failure. \u201cLiteral guy, your grandpa.\u201d
\n\u2022 Hal asks if \u201cthe squirrel<\/a>\u201d came to his funeral, and catches John lying when he sets a Mogo trap. \u201cMogo\u2019s a damn planet!<\/a>\u201c
\n\u2022 The saga of John\u2019s next-level Lantern abilities continues, as Hal marvels that John can still manifest him without the ring. Not sure how thrilled I am with this idea, but Chandler makes Hal\u2019s real pride at John\u2019s feat deeply affecting. (As John says, bashful at his vulnerability, \u201cHal never complimented me before.\u201d)\u00a0
\n\u2022 One more time, Kelly Macdonald is just terrific playing about six levels at once in the scene with Hal. Her simple goodbye, \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see you again,\u201d fills pages.\u00a0
\n\u2022 \u201cYou got a fucked up brain, man.\u201d \u201cYeah, and there\u2019s a bullet in it.\u201d
\n\u2022 Hal\u2019s guilty fear that older Hal left John a key to a safe sees Chandler once more killing it with unspoken depths.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Poor Guy gets another oblique put-down, as Hal blurts, \u201cA gym teacher with a gold tooth? You gotta be shitting me.\u201d
\n\u2022 Oh, and Noah ostentatiously postpones the \u201chat ceremony\u201d announcing his future that literally the whole town has assembled to hear so that he and the team can concentrate on their shared goal of winning the big game. This kid is, as Kerry hints, angling for a career in (presumably Republican) politics.
\n\u2022 Asked about older Hal\u2019s true thoughts on John, Kerry explains, \u201cYou talked about John like a football team who\u2019s always giving you hope and then letting you down. He\u2019s the TV you yell at every Sunday but you never miss a game because, you know, big fan.\u201d Ow.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Hal tries to excuse busting in on Kerry by calling his gesture romantic.
\u201cRomantics don\u2019t brag about being romantic, Tex.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u2022 Okay, I have to say it: As subtly excellent as Aaron Pierre is on Lanterns, the way the Shakespearean actor is tasked with pronouncing \u201cask\u201d as \u201caxe\u201d keeps snagging like a thorn.\u00a0
\n\u2022 John\u2019s fear gas nightmare could have been freakier, but it got the job done, as countless apples bob up all around his tiny boat and his father and younger self accuse him of being afraid.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Like John\u2019s reaction to Hal\u2019s praise, Hal reacts to John\u2019s heartfelt sympathy about his father\u2019s death with an unspoken gratitude pointing to these two finally getting on the same page.\u00a0
\n\u2022 The symbolism with young Hal\u2019s baseball is a bit on-the-nose as well. Coming straight from his father\u2019s funeral to pick up the weight his father called too \u201cfucking exhausting\u201d to carry all his life (complete with a Queen reprise) shouldn\u2019t work as well as it does. But it does.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Next week\u2019s the finale, gang. On the subject of who killed Hal, I haven\u2019t gotten the screener yet (promise), but it seems like there\u2019s only one real possibility\u2014an unsurprisingly painful one.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It makes sense that Lanterns could only give us what we wanted once one of the main characters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-629828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}