This Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 review has to start where the episode ends, because nothing else that happens in "The Weenie" matters as much as the last thirty seconds. Four episodes in, the show still can't decide if it wants to be a buddy-cop procedural or a cosmic conspiracy thriller. It doesn't fix that split personality here either. It just ends on a gut-punch big enough that nobody's going to care.

John Turns Down the Ring, and It Doesn't Matter

Lianna (Laura Linney) doesn't test John in front of her. She orders him outright: the next time Hal hands him the ring, John needs to recite the oath and take over as Earth's Green Lantern. John pushes back, and Lianna doesn't let it go, accusing him of not being as ready as she'd been led to believe. She gets under his skin badly enough that he finally snaps back, telling her he's ready, that he'll be a better Lantern than Hal ever was, and that the ring's been his all along. Hal, John says, is just an old man keeping it warm.

That night, John gives Hal a real reason to hand over the ring with nobody watching. He pitches tunneling into Macon's compound with a drill device instead of Hal just smashing through the gate, and Hal gives him the ring to build and operate it. For a second, it looks like John might recite the oath right there, ring already in hand, no Guardian in sight. He doesn't. He builds the drill instead.

It reads like restraint. By the end of the episode, it reads like something else entirely.

Sinestro Already Knows Too Much

Sinestro is locked in a Sciencell and somehow already knows John's name. When Hal presses him on how, he just says "around," which is either a throwaway line or a sign that something bigger than either of them is leaking information nobody should have. Pair that with Lianna telling John that Hal broke his oath by going to see Sinestro at all, and you've got two manipulators running parallel plays on both heroes without either of them fully clocking it.

The Compound Break-In and That Truck

The infiltration of William Macon's compound (Garret Dillahunt, doing his usual brand of quietly unsettling) is where the tonal whiplash of this Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 review really needs to call out how badly the tones clash. John cracking a joke about Macon's people not letting him into "the happiest place on Earth" lands fine as a character beat, then thirty seconds later they're getting swarmed by Macon's men firing alien rifles that shoot out billowing darkness. Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) hauls them out and hands John a shotgun afterward, a nice beat for a character who's quietly become the most competent person in Rushville.

Not long after, Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) tells John to leave town, drives off, and a laser beam from orbit blows up her truck. Hal flies up and retrieves what's left of the satellite that fired it, and it looks ancient, nothing like anything Macon's people would have built. If you're catching up on this Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 review after our Episode 3 recap, this is the moment where Zoe's storyline stops being a side plot. The show plants real doubt about whether she actually died here, which would mean everything about her connection to John and to Macon reads differently in hindsight. It's a strong midpoint jolt, not the episode's ending.

Hector Turns the Recording Into a Weapon

The real gut-punch comes later, when Hector threatens John's parents' lives with one of his satellite weapons. Hal doesn't buy the threat as real. So Hector plays a recording instead, one he had of John in his motel room telling Lianna exactly what he thinks of Hal, the situation, and the ring: that it was always supposed to be his, and Hal's just been keeping it warm.

That recontextualizes everything from earlier in the episode. John turning down the chance to take the ring by force wasn't him proving his restraint. It's him already believing the ring belongs to him and choosing to wait it out rather than take it by force in front of the Guardian. Hearing his private resentment played back to Hal by their enemy is a far worse betrayal than John simply admitting it to Hal's face would have been.

The episode ends on Hal jumping out of the rental car in the middle of that conversation, and the car crashing behind him. No resolution, no reaction shot to sit with. Just Hal gone and the wreck left behind.

TL;DR (For The Skippers)

Here's the short version of this Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 review, for anyone who just wants the beats:

Lianna orders John to take over as Green Lantern next time he gets the ring, and John snaps that it's always been his and Hal's just keeping it warm
Hal later hands John the ring to build a drill, and John has a real, unwatched chance to recite the oath and take over. He doesn't
Sinestro somehow knows John's name from inside a Sciencell, and the Guardian reveals Hal broke his oath by seeing him
The Macon compound break-in goes sideways fast, alien rifles and all, until Sheriff Kane bails them out
Zoe's truck gets blown up by an orbital laser after she tells John to leave, and the show plants doubt she's actually dead
Hector threatens John's parents, and when Hal doesn't buy it, plays a recording of John telling the Guardian the ring was always his and Hal's just keeping it warm
The episode ends with Hal jumping from the rental car mid-conversation and the car crashing behind him

Why This Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 Review Lands on Press X

The Hector recording is the best gut-punch Lanterns has landed all season, and ending cold on Hal jumping from a crashing car with zero resolution is the kind of swing that earns a next-episode click. The tonal whiplash between buddy-cop banter and cosmic stakes is still an issue, but "The Weenie" backloads enough momentum that it stops mattering by the credits.

Verdict: PRESS X

Laura Linney

Lanterns Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Ring Changes Hands

Lanterns Season 1 Episode 4 Review: Brutal Ending Wrecks Hal and John