Review: Lanterns, "The Weenie" | Season 1, Episode 4

In the comments two weeks ago we were discussing who we thought was the Manhunter. The consensus was that Sheriff Kerry Kane was the not-alien-but-something-else in human form. I had thrown out Zoe Macon, with whom John Stewart has been having an unconvincing affair, but thought she was a little too obvious, because the character was already too much of an outsider with a mysterious agenda. Turns out I was actually right. Returning to Rushville after last week’s flashback, Episode 5 of Lanterns blows the Manhunter mystery wide open. William Macon’s wife is his benefactor/boss providing him with advanced alien weaponry, and she’s who Hal Jordan and John Stewart are in Rushville looking for. But the previous telegraphing means that it’s not exactly a big surprise that Zoe is the Manhunter, so that’s not really the twist; the twist is that she’s not dead when it seems like she is. 

“The Weenie” is the season’s midpoint, and it feels like it — maybe a little too much. It escalates all the major conflicts introduced in the first four episodes in a way that feels like “okay, it’s the halfway point, let’s move stuff along.” While I appreciate the speed of Lanterns’ pace, what should have been the episode's biggest beats felt perfunctory, either underplayed through flavorless dialogue or occurring inelegantly in the course of an overall unsatisfying sequence.