Lanterns Episode 6 Fixes A Superhero Mistake From Zack Snyder's Extended Universe

In brightest day, in blackest night, no spoilers shall escape my sight. This article discusses major plot details from "Lanterns" Episode 6, "Bad Optics."

After half a season spent on the lingering mysteries surrounding Rushville and the Manhunter hiding in its midst, "Lanterns" has finally caught up with the present-day storyline in 2026 ... but remains entirely preoccupied by the past. The opening scene of Episode 6 catches us up with Aaron Pierre's goatee-sporting John Stewart, a full decade after the horrific events that saw the small town decimated with scores of innocents either injured or killed. That memory looms large over the events of "Bad Optics," coloring everything from John's new focus on building panic shelters for entire cities to Hal's guilt-ridden attempts to make up for his inability to defeat Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) all those years ago.

Regret, accountability, and reckoning with failure are the name of the game here — in other words, concepts that were sorely lacking in the last iteration of the superhero franchise prior to James Gunn's "Superman" reboot and the (re)birth of the DC universe. When Zack Snyder was running the show, the scale and depiction of collateral damage and death in 2013's "Man of Steel" put off many viewers and cast a shadow that its sequel "Batman v Superman" (and, in all honesty, all the movies that followed) would spend almost its entire runtime attempting to get out from under. If you're going to have superheroes battling bad guys in major population centers, audiences seemed to be arguing, you better do so carefully and with nuance.

"Lanterns" doesn't make the same mistake and, in fact, helps fix those shortcomings from before. Here, all that death and destruction matter. And our heroes know it, too.

If you couldn't tell that Damon Lindelof's fingerprints are all over "Lanterns" from its refutation of the "Chosen One" trope a few episodes back, then this week's "Watchmen"-like exploration of superheroes behaving badly should've made it as clear as ever. This series has spent hours focusing on the immense power involved with the ring and Hal's irresponsibility in how recklessly he chooses to use it. Well, those chickens finally came home to roost in Episode 5, when Zoe and Paul Ben-Victor's extraterrestrial avenger Antaan unleashed hell on Rushville and hundreds of civilians were caught in the crossfire. But, to its credit, "Lanterns" Episode 6 doesn't gloss over this traumatic event; instead, that's what the entire hour is all about.

This is felt most acutely when John returns to the scene of the crime of Rushville following Hal's death. Local waitress Maggie (Hannah Christine Shetler), the same nine-year-old girl that John once blankly apologized to in the midst of all the carnage in 2016, has now grown up and decides to blackmail the (former) Green Lantern for "reparations." The existence of the memorial wall and Guy Gardner's (Nathan Fillion) Lantern signal further underline the point. This is a town frozen in time at the moment of its worst day ever. Although nobody's in the mood to forgive and forget, the fact that John (and, to an extent, the dearly-departed Hal) tries so hard to atone speaks volumes.

It stands out all the more here, of course, because "Man of Steel" never even attempted the same. If nothing else, this new DC Universe is now on more solid footing. It's up to the final two episodes to make it count.