Lanterns – Trust Fall review S1 E2
Trust Fall didn’t lose any of the momentum from the Lanterns’ premiere adding further intriguing branches to a story that’s surprisingly layered just two episodes in.
Unlike the pilot episode, Trust Fall doesn’t bounce around from decade to decade sticking to the events from 2016. Hal continues his hazing training style in teaching John the ways of a Green Lantern, but there’s a payoff this time — Hal’s going to give John his first flying lesson.
While John can’t get the ring to make him fly, he is able to create a bird construct. Lanterns is really burning through the series budget with exhaustive and elaborate constructs like a bird. In fairness, the bird does stick around for most of Trust Fall.
Hal was already skeptical of John’s no manual training prospects and booked a flight for him to grab his lantern since the ring is due for a charge. Naturally, Hal’s figured out a charging hack or banging it against a flat surface to give it a 5% charge. Hal challenges John to keep the bird construct with him the entire time.
With John out of the way, Hal goes exploring crashing a Rushville town hall meeting to make sure everyone is properly distracted while he ferries out the four alien bodies. It’s not real clear why Hal needed all four aliens and felt the need to drag their dead weight to the football field again. Hal does discover an alien detector at the gate, which piques his curiosity.
Hal convinces Sheriff Kerry to go with him to the Macon compound. This time, Will Macon isn’t nearly as thrilled to see him especially as Hal seems to get dangerously close to getting some actual answers about the alien detector he installed. Hal gets too familiar and Macon’s lookout sniper clips him in the shoulder. Maybe Will needs to make that No Trespassing sign a bit bigger?
Fortunately for Hal, it’s only a flesh wound. Kerry doesn’t want him raising any more fuss, but that sounds like asking Batman to be less morose. Speaking of The Dark Knight, Kerry is a Gotham transplant, who came to the small town for Billy. Hal notes the hospital is basically empty, and the equipment is basically brand new. Yep, something definitely is not on the up and up in Rushville…
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John is impressed at the size of Hal’s house, which he says was a gift from a guy after saving his son’s life. It’s interesting how Hal can say anything and he comes off like a very unreliable narrator even when he’s telling the truth. John — and his bird — head to Hal’s closet and finds several iterations of earlier classic Green Lantern suits.
Maybe this should be enough to earn some comic book geek credits, but these teases and tiny Easter Eggs are hardly worth getting excited about.
Hal’s password to his safe is “Mogo is antisocial” was a better nod to comic fans. Trust Fall did raise the stakes for the season as John was kidnapped by more of the aliens who lost four of their number in Rushville. John fights them off while they attempt to take him to their leader although why John thought running in the middle of the highway was an effective strategy is another question. Maybe he was reading from the Book of Rickon Stark?
Eventually, John is captured again and presented to their leader, Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor, Entourage), who calmly explains their purpose. Before the Green Lanterns, the Guardians created the Manhunters. They can assimilate and blend in with any race. One is still left on Earth…in Rushville, but they haven’t been able to figure out who is hiding in plain sight. Antaan wants John’s help to track down the Manhunter.
And if he can’t track it down in 48 hours the aliens will self-detonate and blow-up Rushville. Quite the incentive. Despite Antaan’s warning, John gives Hal the full update when he returns to Rushville. Maybe it was a stretch, but it felt like Hal wearing a sling on his right arm was a nod to his Reign of the Supermen look?
John brought one of the Green Lantern suits for Hal along with the lantern, which Hal uses to quickly recite his oath and recharge his ring. For a change, Hal is thrown off when John asked what he knows about Manhunters. Hal deduces Abin Sur brought the Manhunter to Rushville and it killed him. He could be anyone in town.
On the quick list of suspects after Trust Fall — Kerry and Noah seem to be the only ones who couldn’t be the Manhunter. Maybe John has been hooking up with Zoe Macon completely unaware she’s a Manhunter?
Hal is also baffled by John’s ability to keep the bird construct until he returned and his reluctance to answer if there was some significance to it.
Trust Fall has a major reveal as Hal actually puts on the costume and flies off to Oa’s prison cells. He visits Sinestro (Ulric Thomsen) inquiring about the Manhunters. Sinestro says the Manhunters would be the second greatest threat Hal is facing, but first, he wants to know all about John Stewart.
Once again, the comic book feel of Lanterns was sparse, but Trust Fall was engaging enough that it wasn’t an issue especially with the big reveal of the season’s real threat/threats.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Warner Bros.
After watching Trust Fall, check out Green Lantern: Back in Action on trade paperback at Amazon.
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