Latest / The K.B. Radio Network / DC's Lanterns - Season Finale/Episode Eight Review
Transcript
- 0:04hello everyone and welcome to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and and welcome everyone to the review of
- 0:17the season finale of dc studios hbo's lanterns this is episode 8 dirt and stars concluding in
- 0:30Eb
- 0:30epic first season to this show and i'm saying first season because i'm praying that they green light a second season of this show i have enjoyed this show immensely this has been an incredible incredible show
- 0:49on hbo you know hbo doesn't miss well i'm not gonna say it doesn't is,
- 0:55but rarely misses in their programming.
- 0:58I mean,
- 0:59game of...
- 0:59thrones true detective uh mayor of east town if you really want to go back you know the wire and sopranos and the you know uh uh eyes all this good stuff that come out on hbo but this this
- 1:16just adds to the lore of hbo programming and saves i would say saves dc studios who who was on the fence
- 1:29Really,
- 1:29they were up against the ropes here.
- 1:31They swung and missed with Supergirl.
- 1:34Superman,
- 1:35in my humble opinion,
- 1:36was good.
- 1:37It wasn't great,
- 1:38but it was good.
- 1:39But a lot of people did not care for Superman and all that had been coming out in the,
- 1:47not the MCU,
- 1:48but the DCU.
- 1:50And James Gunn really needed a win.
- 1:54DC needed a win in the worst way.
- 1:58and lanterns gave them that lanterns is the perfect blend of realism grounded storytelling and comic book lore it blended it perfectly i
- 2:16i i can't think of another comic book property to do that well um even even if you go to the dark knight trilogy with uh christopher nolan
- 2:28yeah there was a great you know but it it didn't have a lot of comic book lore that supported what we were watching with the dark knight trilogy yeah you had batman you had the joker and all that good stuff and
- 2:45two-face and all that there gotham city yeah it built that but it didn't feel like a comic book movie those movies felt like a Yep.
- 2:56crime drama you know it felt like uh watching heat with with batman in it you know that's all that was and it was great i'm not knocking those movies i love those movies but i'm i'm just saying as far as the comic book nerd and
- 3:14knowing the lore and the canon of it all and try to fit it into a grounded 2026 version of storytelling
- 3:24it's not an easy feat and our showrunners here chris mundy uh david lindy off uh uh uh and tom king man bro they found the way they found the way to perfectly blend the real detective story this felt like an a season of true detective just with
- 3:50Matthew McConaughey and
- 3:52Woody Harrison with lantern rings.
- 3:57You know what I'm saying?
- 3:58It was that deep.
- 4:00And man,
- 4:01it was so good.
- 4:02This was so good.
- 4:05All eight episodes,
- 4:07I must say,
- 4:09I enjoyed.
- 4:10I can't pick one to say that,
- 4:13oh man,
- 4:14they could have kept this one.
- 4:15Or they should have did this one better.
- 4:18This was great.
- 4:19Now,
- 4:19did...
- 4:20every episode get up to the level of a 10 no and sadly our season finale didn't live up to that epic climactic close to a season that i was hoping for but
- 4:37i still enjoyed it episode 8 entitled dirt and stars put an end to this first season and we had a lot of questions to be answered
- 4:49In this final episode,
- 4:51you know,
- 4:51we had the question of how did Sinestro get on that planet?
- 4:56Who broke him out of prison?
- 4:59Who killed Hal Jordan?
- 5:01will john stewart go ahead and take the mantle of green lantern if there's a lot there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered in a one hour period and i i wasn't a hundred percent confident that they could pull it off in
- 5:19a believable way to whereas i was like okay we still kept the tone of the show they're just trying to tie up luzen's type ending
- 5:28You know,
- 5:29give us these little...
- 5:31uh what how can i describe it this little sunshine and rainbows ending you know right off to the sunset everybody's smiling and happy ending there was it was guaranteed not to be a satisfying ending i guess that's why this ending didn't really make
- 5:50me mad or upset where i feel that a lot of people probably are going to feel about the ending of this season but
- 6:00As for me,
- 6:02I was looking at it from a different lens.
- 6:04I was like,
- 6:04well,
- 6:04this is guaranteed not to be a happy ending.
- 6:08We got that in the very first episode where it was already foreshadowed that Hal Jordan was dead.
- 6:15So we knew that this was not going to end in a happy way.
- 6:20And so we get to this final episode.
- 6:23And I must say,
- 6:26many of the questions were answered.
- 6:28Yeah,
- 6:28they are.
- 6:29shockingly so uh there were some open-ended answers to questions that we didn't receive but that's fine if we're going to pursue this show further in a season two or three or whatever um
- 6:46but even still even if john stewart gets his own movie standalone movie or something like that all of that is set up so we got set up
- 6:55and that's what comic books do that's what comic book movies do so uh that's no shock i wasn't expecting uh a grand finale to all of our mischief that has taken place throughout the show uh anyway
- 7:13episode eight had some heavy lifting to do here in one hour and we needed to resolve some stuff,
- 7:20some long standing questions throughout this series.
- 7:25Let's start off with the biggest mystery.
- 7:28Who killed Hal Jordan?
- 7:30The big mystery of the show that was set up in season one,
- 7:35or episode one,
- 7:36I'm sorry,
- 7:37with the conclusion to that episode that kind of,
- 7:42especially threw me off,
- 7:43but it threw a lot of people off.
- 7:45And so we needed to see if Jon Stewart would take the power ring and become the true Green Lantern at last,
- 7:52and how would that affect...
- 7:54the the guy garner of it all who is currently the green gray uh uh green granite green lantern of earth and so you have that and we needed to know if there was still remnant
- 8:11of a manhunter threat in rustville it's 10 years later and so there's an emotional level there we needed to know if john stewart would make peace with his destiny and
- 8:24with hal jordan to be honest with you or should i say the uh the ghost of hal jordan in that hologram let's start it off this episode uh begins back in 2016 hal is being released from prison and
- 8:44uh well actually he got released in 2026 but in in 2016 uh we see carrie
- 8:52go see hal after all of what took place uh after uh zoe was killed and all this here and she tells hal that you know she she feels bad she feels bad for him even though he did what he did that doesn't mean that i you know she doesn't feel bad for him and he
- 9:16gets released from prison in 2026 and she's there to pick them up.
- 9:21Had some beer.
- 9:22Had some flowers waiting on him.
- 9:23So that confirms that she always had feelings for him,
- 9:27which they didn't really hide throughout the season.
- 9:32You know,
- 9:33didn't do a good job of it,
- 9:34I must say that.
- 9:36But
- 9:37I don't think they meant to hide it.
- 9:40They did a great job with that storyline,
- 9:43the will they want they,
- 9:44between Hal and Carrie.
- 9:47And they begin a relationship.
- 9:49And we fast forward.
- 9:50forward about two months later and she's tired of hiding you know sneaking behind the people of rustville's back you know seeing how and decides you know what
- 10:02we're gonna do this we would no point hiding it you know they eventually they're gonna figure it out anyway and so they go to eat at a restaurant and everybody is of course upset and uh staring at them hal is like super uncomfortable and
- 10:20tells carrie like look you know these people these people smeared their own crap literally their own poo in my lawn
- 10:30and told me to leave a-hole and you know and that takes a lot of time i was like yeah when he said it i thought like man that's a lot of crap you know i pulled a jeff goldblum in uh uh jurassic park you
- 10:46know that's a lot of crap and so that's some hatred that is some real hatred behind that to collect that amount of poop but anyway carrie uh The
- 10:58tells everybody that's sitting in the restaurant like look it is what it is you know uh i i forgave him i lost just as much as you and i i managed to forgive him y'all need to go ahead and do the same thing and so on and so forth and so so
- 11:16we're just gonna bounce around i'm not gonna go through every bit of the episode but i i it will cover the entire episode and so let's just go through plot point
- 11:27let's answer the questions the big questions that we all had is nor a man hunter that was my theory or at least one of my theories i wasn't 100 sold that he was but that that was a theory of mine because i kept i always thought you know like that can't be possible because i thought back to episode six
- 11:54i think it was or five when um
- 11:58uh anton told uh uh macon that they can't procreate that the man hunters can't procreate at least that's what zoe told antoine that they can't procreate and so the theory of noah being a man hunter didn't quite make sense but the way it was explained on this show in this episode well they she didn't really procreate with him you know
- 12:27She didn't really have
- 12:29Noah. It was more or less a gift.
- 12:33And that's the way Carrie described it.
- 12:35So it was confirmed that Noah is a Manhunter.
- 12:38And that was revealed after
- 12:41Hal's house gets firebombed.
- 12:44And he gets burnt up,
- 12:46coincidentally.
- 12:47Just like
- 12:49John got burnt up in that episode.
- 12:51Where Zoe watched him and waited until he...
- 12:56caught on fire in order to uh rejuvenate his skin in that machine or whatever and uh noah did the same thing for hal but in exchange it was uh noah that told hal not to tell anybody that he is the manhunter and so on and so forth so so
- 13:17this is why carrie was so connected to rusville you know so so willing.
- 13:24to put everything on the line to protect the people and noah you know and zoe for what she did for you and she later explained to hal uh not hal to john that you know zoe saved her life you know she lost a pinky and she grew it back but in exchange she gave her a gift and that was the thing gave her a gift and that that was the line that kind of stuck
- 13:53with me because she said that in a previous episode and i didn't catch it but when she said it again in this season finale i was like oh ah that was the giveaway there that was the dead giveaway right there that noah was
- 14:10uh a manhunter but that also brings in the question about uh jason ritter's character you know because he's supposed to be the father and so does he know this
- 14:22you know and his his character kind of took a back seat this this was some of the little things that i had a problem with in season one just the little things like that characters that kind of took a back seat that appeared
- 14:38to play a bigger part in the show but that ultimately didn't but like i said maybe in season two because well we'll get to it but there's a lot of
- 14:51things that still are open-ended all right so we find out about sinestro sinestro my theory was last week
- 15:02that it was Hal who broke him out of prison,
- 15:05you know,
- 15:05because of their connection and everything.
- 15:07Well,
- 15:08I was wrong.
- 15:09It was actually Noah.
- 15:11Noah is the one who kidnapped
- 15:13Sinestro and put him on that desolate planet.
- 15:17And the reason being,
- 15:20because Sinestro is the only person to ever successfully kill a guardian.
- 15:26And so,
- 15:26of course,
- 15:27Noah will want to know this information,
- 15:30how to kill a guardian
- 15:31because he wants revenge on what happened to his grandmother zoe he wants to eliminate the guardians and so you have that or at least a part of him wants that you know because there's another part of him that doesn't want that you know he is actually a good person because of carrie and this is explained away in a
- 15:54scene with carrie and john and when john tells him that he knows everything and this,
- 16:00that,
- 16:00and the third.
- 16:01And he tells her that,
- 16:04you know,
- 16:04due to the conversation he had with Noah,
- 16:06that Noah is he's fighting within itself.
- 16:10He's fighting a battle within itself,
- 16:12you know,
- 16:13with the good side that was raised up by
- 16:18Carrie and his natural instinct as a manhunter.
- 16:23And some of the thoughts he had and some of the feelings he had,
- 16:28you know,
- 16:29and accent.
- 16:30john to kill him but letting him don't let him see it don't let him see it coming and i was like oh my god man this is this is gonna be brutal is john gonna do it well ultimately he didn't do it and uh because he saw that noah deep down is a good person you know that he if there's a chance that he can do some good and so you have that element there now will that come back to bite him
- 16:59We'll see later on in the future,
- 17:01God will it.
- 17:03Zoe wanted
- 17:05John to kill her.
- 17:06We kind of got that as well in this episode.
- 17:10It wasn't blatantly said,
- 17:12but that's the insinuation that she wanted that.
- 17:18You know,
- 17:19that she knew that was going to be her end.
- 17:22And she wanted it to happen in the hands of
- 17:26Jon Stewart.
- 17:27And so...
- 17:28kind of got that confirmation john is indeed the green lantern now uh not the green lantern but a green lantern but not under the leadership of the guardians he's doing his own thing you know he's kind of uh how he described it on his episode an independent contractor and his oath i don't know man it may be like
- 17:54i said in previous reviews of other things and whatnot
- 17:59uh i'm getting older and the older i get the more emotional i get and stupid stuff that at least when i was younger i would say was stupid stuff but now just little things gets me emotional and i got emotional twice in this episode i'll get to them both but the first one is when john says
- 18:23his oath he finally says the oath from
- 18:27charging the ring in the lantern that,
- 18:30he got from Sinestro,
- 18:31the one that he forged,
- 18:34for
- 18:35Noah. And at first I was skeptical about that.
- 18:38I'm like,
- 18:39cause they look like it had those yellow scratches in it.
- 18:43And I was like,
- 18:43Oh my God,
- 18:44he's going to,
- 18:45is it parallax?
- 18:47He's going to open up the thing and his parallax or whatever,
- 18:49but nah,
- 18:50it didn't end up being that.
- 18:51But,
- 18:53when he quoted his oath,
- 18:55it is not the,
- 18:57official green lantern oath but it was his and it was in brightest day and darkest night i embrace my fear i would do what's right i choose this ring i choose this fight in service to this lantern's light i
- 19:17don't know why now just read it i didn't get emotional but when aaron pierre
- 19:24spit it out on screen i was i was i got emotional because i know the oath you know and it's it's a big deal in green lantern uh lore but this is his new oath and he was given instructions to do that you know or a suggestion to do that by the hologram
- 19:45you know uh hal jordan's hologram and the second that the second time that i got emotional you
- 19:53which is out of order,
- 19:54but just bear with me,
- 19:57is when they basically say goodbye to each other.
- 20:00Because after he charges the ring,
- 20:02there's no more hologram.
- 20:03That's it.
- 20:04It's over for him.
- 20:06And that's mainly the reason why he didn't charge the ring when he first got the lantern.
- 20:15Because
- 20:16John loves
- 20:17Hal. In spite of all that took place,
- 20:21he loves him.
- 20:22He respects him.
- 20:24And he has so much love and respect for him.
- 20:27He just did not want to let him go.
- 20:29it was that scene in the car when uh after he had spoke to noah and noah had got out the car and he was calling for hal and in the hologram didn't come back and it was crushing to him you know you could tell you could look on that expression on his face it was crushing to him so john had to muster
- 20:49it up and do it on his own and confront carrie on his own and after all of that confrontation that's when
- 20:57the hologram came back and it was just his way i'm talking about the hologram here his way of teaching john to do it on his own and i thought that was beautiful that was a beautiful moment but that's not when i cried when i cried it was when they
- 21:15were talking they were saying their goodbyes and uh uh he had asked well they weren't saying goodbyes but you know it was the the implications,
- 21:24but the hologram
- 21:27asked john what was his last words what did carrie say what was his last words and john looked at him he kind of hesitated for a minute i'm getting choked up now he hesitated for a minute and said i love you and
- 21:46it was a little pause with the hologram because he knew he was lying he knew that wasn't it he knew that's not what it was
- 21:57that was john telling hal that he loved him and hal and kyle chandler bro my god if he doesn't get an emmy for this show or at the very least a nomination that is an absolute crime but his
- 22:16reaction his look and like okay it did that was basically what he said like okay i love you too
- 22:26And he faded away.
- 22:28I broke down.
- 22:31I broke down because that was beautiful.
- 22:34That was a beautiful end to this partnership,
- 22:38to this relationship,
- 22:40and to this show,
- 22:41to this first season.
- 22:42It was perfect.
- 22:44Perfect.
- 22:45Now,
- 22:45I know they left a little Easter egg with Sinestro.
- 22:50Sinestro told him that he can resurrect
- 22:55Hal.
- 22:56Easy peasy,
- 22:57lemon squeezy.
- 22:59Now,
- 23:00nine times out of ten,
- 23:01they probably would do that in a season two or something like that.
- 23:06Personally,
- 23:07as much as I would love to see
- 23:09Kyle Chandler return and Hal Jordan return,
- 23:13and if they do it,
- 23:14fine.
- 23:15But if they leave it alone,
- 23:18I would be perfectly fine with it.
- 23:20This was the perfect send-off to that character.
- 23:25Just like I...
- 23:25felt about wolverine and logan i thought that was the perfect send-off to that character to to hugh jackman portraying that role for
- 23:3850 years that was the perfect send-off and i think this was the perfect send-off you know and if they bring them back you know it's fine just like i felt with wolverine with when he uh came back in deadpool and wolverine i accepted it
- 23:55But I would have preferred them to just leave it be.
- 23:58You know,
- 23:58I would like to remember that character the way he left us,
- 24:03you know,
- 24:03and the same thing here.
- 24:06But any who's the big one who killed Hal Jordan?
- 24:11It was none other than Carrie.
- 24:14It was Carrie Kane that killed Hal Jordan.
- 24:18And the hologram said that last episode.
- 24:23And I felt that.
- 24:24last episode but i didn't want to believe it everything pointed to her everything pointed to her and when you think back in your mind's eye you the seeds were there the entire season you kind of knew that the entire season but you didn't want to believe it because you like that character you like the chemistry between those characters and you personally
- 24:49i felt like their their arc their love story
- 24:56was flushed out.
- 24:57pretty well it was a it was a well-developed love story and to have it end in that matter but the way they did it it wasn't cheap i must say i i thought it was a perfect way to do it uh hal confronts her tells her that he knows who noah is what he is and
- 25:20uh trying to flush out their next course of action and what to do
- 25:26And all Carrie can think about in this moment,
- 25:29the last time you came here and there was a manhunter that you knew about,
- 25:34the city was destroyed.
- 25:38You pretty much decimated the town.
- 25:41And now you know about Noah and the town folk already hate you.
- 25:47I'm involved with it because I'm in this relationship with you.
- 25:51Dan is my son.
- 25:53You got all of those factors involved.
- 25:55the woman is like oh my god i can't do this you know and in a i don't know weird moment she i don't think she meant to do it it was just a reactionary moment she pulled out a gun turned around and just fired and perfectly hit to
- 26:15hell uh cinemas in the forehead killing him instantly and that's where he said uh the big question was why did she call
- 26:25John and John asked her that and she gave a great answer to that.
- 26:30You know,
- 26:31deep down,
- 26:31she knew deep down.
- 26:32She knew that she wasn't going to get away with that.
- 26:36Yeah.
- 26:36And she tried to do the right thing,
- 26:42even though she did the wrong thing.
- 26:44And it was it was it was kind of poetic.
- 26:47You know,
- 26:48it was a little poetic there.
- 26:51But
- 26:51I really did.
- 26:52I really did think.
- 26:54it was her throughout i just didn't want to believe it i still i still don't want to believe it after it was shown on the show now noah and this is the thing that kind of convinced john to let noah be uh
- 27:12noah took the took the bullet for that you know he told john that he killed hal you know to protect his mother and that's what he told john
- 27:24to kill me just kill me and once john figured it out really did figure it out in his head he knew that you know killing noah wasn't gonna work that that's not the that's not the course of action i should take because he is truly good he is willing to sacrifice himself for his mother and i thought that was also
- 27:48a great great way to wrap that up this was great man
- 27:54And I know if you're playing a drinking game at home with the greats,
- 28:00you're probably drunk by now by as many times as I said it.
- 28:03But I don't have any other adjective to put on this show.
- 28:08I really love this show.
- 28:11This episode was anticlimactic.
- 28:14You know,
- 28:15you didn't have the action and the suspense and the thriller elements and all that there to kind of...
- 28:22boost up your adrenaline throughout this episode it was none of that it was more story character driven and i'm not mad at it i'm not mad at it at all i think that this was one of the best written shows that we received all year one
- 28:43of the best written shows to come out of the dcu i i'm
- 28:49i'm just blown away on how good this show was really was this show is so good you take away the superhero element of it all take take away the lantern rings and the alien evasions
- 29:06and all this other good stuff and just be a standard true detective style show it is phenomenal you know adding on the comic book elements of it all
- 29:19just makes it that much more exciting and i'm i'm happy with it i'm happy with it i think this episode uh was decent but to give a grade to win the entire season of lanterns season one i gotta give it a a minus i thought it was awesome
- 29:44it was it was truly truly awesome not a bad episode
- 29:50within all eight hit um they had some weaker episodes don't get me wrong i'm not gonna say every episode was perfect
- 29:59But.
- 30:00it still wasn't bad i the only way i could judge it by the last episode that came out you know it wasn't it wasn't up to par with the previous episode or so on and so forth but it was still good and that's that's all i can ask for man it kept you coming back every single week i don't know what i'm gonna do with my sunday nights now i'm completely lost i
- 30:27gotta pick up a hobby now
- 30:29But congratulations.
- 30:31Congratulations to James Gunn.
- 30:33Congratulations to Damon
- 30:35Lidnoff,
- 30:39Tom King,
- 30:41and Chris Monday on an excellent show.
- 30:44DC Studios as a whole for getting a win.
- 30:48Getting a win under your belt.
- 30:50You know,
- 30:50there's something to build on here.
- 30:52This is the direction you need to go.
- 30:54Now,
- 30:55not everything needs to be in this style.
- 30:58you can still have your different styles you know you can have a show like a peacemaker you know this oddball comic book movie or show or uh the kid friendly superman movie or
- 31:16the kind of i i don't know how you describe supergirl but it's oh you can have the body horror rated r
- 31:24a clay face movie that comes out in a couple weeks you you can have all these different tones throughout the dcu and still have it connect and still have it work i still feel that superman is a part of lanterns i never
- 31:42once did i feel this was a different universe or this existed in elseworlds or something like that i still felt like this existed in that universe
- 31:55And even though it was a darker,
- 31:58mature tone and that the writing,
- 32:03the directing,
- 32:04the acting,
- 32:04all that plays a part into making everything work together for the good.
- 32:11So it's possible.
- 32:12And so I just need more real constructive shows.
- 32:16I guess that's the better way to describe it.
- 32:18Not not to say,
- 32:19oh,
- 32:19I need more shows like this.
- 32:21No,
- 32:22everything didn't have to be like.
- 32:24lanterns just make everything work you can tell your story and connect it to the overall universe without inundating it with all the easter eggs and setting up the next superman movie or the next uh uh whatever movies they got coming a batman movie or whatever you
- 32:47don't need to do all that you know leave that for the movies but everything that comes out on you
- 32:53HBO Max,
- 32:54let that be your grounded storytelling elements that hooks the audience in because this was phenomenal.
- 33:04I would like to know what did you think of Lantern season one or do you hope for season two?
- 33:10I certainly do.
- 33:12I will be beating that drum until an announcement is made.
- 33:16Subscribe to the KBRadioNetwork.com.
- 33:20website where you can be notified of new episodes and previous episodes that you can listen to don't forget about youtube ladies and gentlemen subscribe to the kb radio network channel like this video while you're there don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to the concession stand here on the kb radio network everybody thank
- 33:49Thank you for joining me all season long for my coverage of Lanterns on
- 33:57HBO. This was fun.
- 33:59This was an exciting story.
- 34:01This was the type of show I love to cover.
- 34:05It brought nothing but joy every Sunday night,
- 34:09sitting behind this microphone,
- 34:10talking about a show that I enjoyed so much every single week.
- 34:17And I was glad.
- 34:18for all of the support i got every single week with all of you coming to listen to me rant about this show i really do appreciate all of you i truly truly do uh i don't know what else is out i don't know what else you
- 34:35know for the remainder of this year what show is coming out that i will cover throughout uh it's run but hey if something do pop up hey just keep a lookout for me i will be around but
- 34:48for the time being i'm taking a rest it's sunday nights i will be laying up probably doing nothing because life is lifing and especially now that we're getting close to the holiday season and whatnot it is starting to ramp up so i i kind of need a sunday evening to get
- 35:08some rest but it's all good everybody thank you once again for all of your love and support
- 35:15of me and this podcast.
- 35:18I want you all to know that I love you.
- 35:20Continue to love everyone.
- 35:22And until we speak again,
- 35:24you all be blessed.