‘Lanterns’ Season 1 Finale Instant Reactions, Plus a Talk With Chris Mundy | The Midnight Boys

Welcome into the ring of verse. This is of course the ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. We are Steve the architect, almond the builder and tinker of things. Jomi, the explainer, Aditoron. You've got questions. He's got answers. Old man van. He is the resurgent guy, gardener, hairline, co baby chucked the 24 karat closes together. We are known as out of midnight boys. We'll be right back after this. All right, files on socials at the midnight boys part on insta tiktok at ringer verse on insta twitter facebook and tiktok. You know me. Yo guys, we're really excited. I mean, just want to thank you guys for following us through this green lantern curve, which you guys have been really, it's been really incredible to see what you guys are saying online. And you guys, you guys need to get off our nuts. Clip in, take clip in the podcast and all that's sharing it, sharing it, man. What's going on? What happened? What I miss. Oh, you're not on 20 anymore. No, he's not. He's bad. Why? They took part of the conversation we have of Vanessa and Justin. Like this. It should be the, the, the comella Biden. Okay, conversation. Oh, y'all put that in the group chat. Yeah, what they say. I didn't see it. It's bad. Who's going crazy? You know, the, you know, the, the Twitter sphere, the Twitter, you know, I'm saying that right-wing section of the online, where they like these people. Yeah, suck our dicks. That's, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. There's place. Vanessa and Justin are on the show. And they're great. They're awesome. Phenomenal writers, who are a part of one of the best superhero shows to come out in a long time. And you're not. Let them talk about what's going on. You don't have to be a cook. You can have your opinion, but the talk city will be met with commiserate disrespect. Yes. Any toxicity will be met with that same amount of disrespect. When are you coming back to Twitter? I'm never coming back. Are you off threads, too? Um, basically, yeah. Okay. Never. That was a very short stint on threads. Look, I might go there every once in a while to like post about tailgate or something like that, but I cannot live in constant reactivity. I have to be able to think and formulate things that like are building. So I can't continuously be on anything to where somebody says something and immediately triggers an emotion in my body. Can't do it anymore. So like, I understand that like being a part of the conversation on there and the news breaking on there is still bar none. I'm not trying to be like, holer than now. But just for me period, living my entire life in the state of reactivity makes me less curious. And it makes me more like, think about me going on already and leaving long-ass things talking to the people that's dare ready. So like for me, I don't need to be in that space. Like, I don't, I don't. I don't. I fucking love this. This is John Stewart leaving the lantern. You like blusky? You want blusky? No, I mean, look, you might see me pop up on these things to promote something or get the lay of the land, but like being online like that, I got too much shit that I want to accomplish. Well, you too. Like, comment, subscribe here. You can watch every midnight boys in House of Art episode on YouTube dot com backslash at ring of earth. Thank you. Like, Jeremy said to everybody that's running the YouTube going crazy. Yeah. That's amazing. We're going to keep that going by continuing the feed the beast on YouTube programmer reminders. On Monday, House of Art finishes their deep dive lanterns coverage. They have been absolutely phenomenal. There's a lot of show that lanterns gives us, and our sisters over there are doing a fantastic job at contextualizing all of it. On Friday, Bloodmash covers Valor Mortis and forever ago, Steve. Yeah, Valor Mortis. I think that's a, that's a souls-like game. And forever ago, that's like a, it's an indie road trip. You don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm saying, I'm saying like 80. He said souls like I'm like, I'm putting me to work. I'm like, 20 games. You lie, I'm bro. Like, oh, but no, he right though. Valor Mortis is a souls-like action. What's souls-like? Souls-like, it's like, are you familiar with dark souls? No. No. All right. Well, it's a very, like difficult action-adventure game. Well, what does it do? It's like a very hard game where they kind of like, they just stole you in there and you have to kind of like learn by yourself. It's like Elden Ring before Elden Ring. I know you die. You're all of your stuff resets and you got to go out and get more stuff. Yeah. Elden Ring, though, for the time that I got into like Elden Ring, there was Elden Ring, but there was a different one, though. There was a game that came out, and I'm telling you guys, I played the game, but I cannot, I can't remember the name of the game now. I had to play it for Cybernet. Okay. And it was a game like Elden Ring. What was it called? Skyrim. Bloodborne? Was it called? Skyrim? I don't think it was Skyrim. Elder Scrolls. Elder Scrolls. Oh, probably was Skyrim. Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Oblivion now. Yeah. Classic. Yes. And like, I kind of got into Elden Scrolls Oblivion. Oh, that's just great. That's just great. Well, that's it. That's for y'all. Y'all got it. Give me my centrails and my yellow markings. Yeah, blue, green paint. Give me my yellow paint, bro. All right. New York Comic Con update. Oh, update. Motherfuckers, we will be hosting a meetup in New York. It is Saturday, October 10th at 8 p.m. Okay. I had to heal, had to heal country and go downstairs to the bar. Okay, listen, I'll say it again. Head to Hill Country. Hill Country barbecue. Hill Country barbecue and go downstairs to the boot bar to find us. Yeah, the bar. No badge needed. No. If you are, bad to need it, guys. New York Comic Con come to our panel at the Javits Center that is on Saturday, October 10th at 4.30 p.m. Okay. Then later on, go to Hill Country Barbecue and go to the boot bar. Come see us, man. Boys with the boot bar. Y'all better, y'all better act right. You know, we're not having no San Diego shenanigans. Right, and hopefully that guy don't got a it's the same guys. It's one guy you can't come. But if you in New York, if you were Philadelphia, if you went Baltimore, if you in DC, if you in Jersey, come through, come see your people. Come hang on. Come hang on with us, bro. Yeah, man. It's going to be funny when y'all see that nigga in Comic Con next year. No, we got no, I was potted with you. Put that with you. No, we won't get it. No, he's going to be at the raft to Bill Reeve or something like that. He can't contain him. Arkham. He's got out. He's got out. Can you imagine getting parole from Arkham? No, because so here's Arkham is only for like the worst super criminals though, right? Yeah, but also there's there's like I have a bridge. There's prison breaks every other week. So it's kind of like, but like I feel like it that's like the jet. There's a gen pop in Arkham, right? There's not a gen pop. I don't know. It's insane. It's an insane asylum. So I don't know, but like, there's not like they don't have like 50 jokers running around there. They only have one. They might. They might. Right. They have. There's another jail, right? Oh, Black Gate. Black Gate is for like the, you know, the regular people. You might be like one of the goons might be in Black Gate. Yeah, right. But the head guys you take Markham. Yeah, but you could have less criminally insane people and also go to Arkham, but you're not like the Joker. Nah, man. I mean, you're not scared. And it's not bad man. Not usually an asylum missing out of prison. Yeah. So it's it's it's less people and more more care. Yeah. Okay. Like you said, it's as to Black Gate. Are you sending him to Arkham? Who? Victors as. He's an Arkham. He's an Arkham. And you're in Batman's Rogues gallery. You're probably an Arkham. In Arkham. But like Deadshot would be like Black Gate. Black Yeah. Okay. But the thing of the problem was spec specifically with Arkham, maybe breaking out every week. If Batman was real, I'm gonna put your money over there. Bruce Wayne, give him a couple, a couple of people. Bruce Wayne don't give a fuck about mental health. Yeah. Clearly not. He's gonna care about his own. Yeah. Therapy could help him with what he's going through, but he chose not to. All right. Okay. All right. All today's episode. I'll need a little tangent. You guys please come visit us in New York. Yeah. We're gonna be there having a great time. That's next week. But on today's episode was actually this week. Actually, we leave it once it's actually this weekend. On today's episode, we react to the season finale of Lanterns. There's been so much talk. There's been so much speculation, so much discussion. But now where are we? The end of this season at least. Got to get into it, give the streets what they want. In order to do that, we have to spoil some shit. It's gonna get spoiled. Everything's gonna get spoiled, spoiling everything. All right. Steve, run a spoiler warning. We're getting ready to talk about Lanterns. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. I would also like to say that stick around because after our discussion, we are going to have an interview that the four of us conducted with showrunner, executive producer and writer Chris Mundy. Yeah. Yeah. Fun time. Your boy creator and creator of Ozark. Clear of Ozark. Big deal. You love Ozark. Love Ozark. Love Ozark. But we still have to react to this in order to do that. We need the midnight manifest. The only person who can give you that is Chuck Wagon. Chuck, take it away. All right. Did your midnight manifest for the season finale of Lantern season one, Dirt and Stars directed by Aleek Sakharov written by Chris Mundy, Dim Lindo, off in Tom King. The finale begins with the love story between Howling Carey, the sheriff picks Howell up for prison and they begin their life together in Rushville. Things take a turn for the worst when House House is attacked and he's burned alive, Noah saves Hal and rebuilds his skin using the same machine that his grandmother did on John. The Stark quarterback reveals to Hal that he's a manhunter. But demands, the disgraced lantern, not in form his mother that he's been aware all along. Back in the present, Sinatra reveals that Noah broke him out of prison. John waterboards Sinatra in the fear lake until the villain reveals that he made a new lantern for the manhunter to use with Hal's decommissioned ring. John takes the lantern, but refuses to charge it, fearful of any booby traps Sinatra might have laid into the cracked and yellowing lantern. Noah embishes John in rushville and takes back the ring. He admits to killing Hal and asks John to help him with an assisted suicide before his manhunter programming turns him into a genocidal weapon. John doesn't believe him and forces Carrie to admit that she was Hal's real murderer. When Hal confronts her about Noah, she panicked and killed him. Instead of turning Carrie in, John says that's not what the real Hal would have wanted. John calls Guy Garner and informs the green lantern that he'll be taking over the jurisdiction of Earth while he can have the rest of the sector. Hal gramps says he loves John before disappearing and Stewart finally charges his ring while reciting a new oath that has been your midnight manifest for lanterns season finale throwing about to you, Van. Muted finale that I thought was fantastic. Okay. I don't know what I expected from a finale. Obviously, I expected to get answers about the remaining manhunters and wherever they might be who killed Hal Jordan. But I don't think that I thought the show would be able to successfully wrap up all of its conclusions and storylines in such a accessible way. There weren't very many moments in this show where I was like, Jesus Christ, yet still it completely flowed. It completely worked. It all came together seamlessly and beautifully. And to me, put the finishing touches on one of the greatest seasons of superhero television storytelling that I've ever seen. So can I ask, because we've been doing this for a while, this finale kind of circumvents our expectations of what a superhero show finale should be. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. What are the finales since we've been doing this that have worked when they're bombastic in that way, when it's a big shootout, when it's a big villain, because it's like Loki. Loki season one, but that was just them talking really. That was the finale. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't that wasn't a big. That was not a big fight. Sometimes where they've had they have gone big, you'd say, one of these is the weakest part of that season. Yeah. I would say talking in the winter soldier, that was the weakest part of that season. I mean, they tried to do the whole talking thing at the end, right, with him doing big in the season. Yeah. But you got the sue. And then there was all the kung fu and all that shit. And it wasn't the best part of that season. Well, that's because this show avoids something and we talk about the serve Dracula thing, which this show kind of does, but this show avoids something that those show those shows didn't. This show, he gets the ring and then he flies away like at the end. Yeah. This was a daredevil season one finale. Well, even in daredevil season one, you're right. Well, he's got the he's got a costume and he's fine with people and he fights. He fights. There's the big showdown with Kingpin. But that season like this season is very much if you have to boil it down to a sentence. We are making this character turning him into daredevil. Right. And this I was like, oh, by the end of the episode, I was like, this was always Sean story. This was never going to be the thing where John gets the right because I can't lie, deep down in my heart, I wanted John to get the ring and get busy. Yeah. I wanted him to steal the ray from Noah, start slinging that shit around and they went for something that I think was. I'll put you this way. I ended up liking this season finale because Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre are so electric and the chemistry is so much by the time they admit that they love each other, I'm like, this is kind of what TV is for. Yeah. So, so I totally agree. Let's think about what the purpose of the season was, like what type of hero they were trying to make. We're going to talk a little bit to Chris Mundy about this when he comes on at the end of the show. But with Daredevil, if we compare it just to that because that is a finale that really works even though they do the big fight thing, with that he finally has the suit, you know, you have seen Daredevil throughout the entire season get cut, get out, cut up the hand, cut them all up and you're like, he's not going to be able to do what he's doing unless he adds a couple of layers of protection onto him. He's not going to be able to face off against King Pin and all of this stuff unless he's the fully formed Daredevil that we know him to be. This story is about like what makes you John a hero. And when you think about it, what makes him a hero is breaking the programming that he got, the programming, raising whatever you guys on, you guys are go crazy in the comments again. I say what I said and I believe what I believe and even he believes it because him becoming a fully formed individual is what had to happen. That is what made John Stuart. He can already work the ring. He worked the ring and made a big fucking drill episodes ago. He can already do all of that stuff. What he couldn't do was think for himself, make decisions for himself and worry about only being a hero from his point of view. And once everything happened in Rushville, everything happened to how he had to make decisions on his own by himself. That is what entitles him to be the Green Lantern of Earth. That is what is completely driven home and tied up with the bow at the end of the season of television. This was the first time that John didn't pull the trigger where since he was a kid, he's always had a weapon in his hand and he always had to shoot the apple and it was interesting when he's talking to Noah and reveals that Zoe wanted a mercy killing. Like, I do think it was, it's a controversial choice. I don't know if I fully like it, but story wise, it was satisfying to be like, oh, to be the Green Lantern, he has to do the one thing that how couldn't, which he's realized, like, who am I without this ring? Who am I without this weapon? And I thought it was very, very interesting that for John, he has to make the choice of letting Noah live and being, because he sees himself in Noah and I was like, oh, that's bad. Like, he has to trust and he has to also learn how to pick his battles to fight his fight, not somebody else's fight, not how not to be a good soldier for John Stewart is not now nine months, mission critical, never leaving until that ends at something disappointing. It's the way he feels what he needs to do and what he thinks is right yet to, he let the ball go, right? John or how was incapable of letting the ball go? It's what got him killed was that's, that's Kerry's son. She not just going to let you like mess around him and get him hurt or endanger himself, whatever. For John, he was, he realized, like, the Kerry don't want to, he don't want to do nothing bad, man. If I, if I leave him, I trust Kerry to make it work. It's a done deal. I walk away. He let the ball go, went how didn't, and it got how killed. But here's the thing, I am killing the kid though, if I'm John, I'm like, hey, bro, I've seen Terminator. I know how this goes. Yeah, but I see you terminate what terminate got to do with this, you see, I'll kill, I'll fucking killing machine. Yeah. So it's a, it's a reverse, but it's not, but this is different, though, how is this different? Well, I'll say, okay, number one, well, I mean, which version of terminate we're talking about? Let's be precise. I feel like this is T2. He had a liquid one. Okay. The liquid one is not. That's not. It's definitely T1. It's definitely T1. Even if it is T2, you know who it is? It's actually Schwarzenegger's character in T2, and it's him, he had enough programming to end up being like a good father to John Stewart and stuff like that. And he had to make this decision at the end of it. Another chip in his head. He had to get in the liquid lava or whatever like that. Yeah. It's very, I mean, my dad, we both did like that, like when he did, that was very upsetting. But, but like, to your point, I think they're going to be a lot of people who go, got to kill the killer robot and gotta put Kerry in jail, she killed a human being. I was so wait, and we say I'm Noah, we have to be real. This little boy broke out to the next show, at that point, I'm just like, you got a whole head right in your head. I wasn't really breaking down how crafted you have to be, so I'm giving John some bail here because the name of the game is anybody, I mean, he, he mentioned it. He could have called guy, overpower guy took guy's ring, right? He could have been dude done that. You feel me? I feel like he's like, look, if anybody going to take out Noah, it's got to be me. I'm the only one who could talk to him, I'm the only one who can, it's like see where he sees. That's why at the end of the day, he's like, yeah, give me the ring, I'm going to charge that thing because like, I'm going to take Earth because if guys show up with the man Hunter, it's not going to go well. I'm the only one that I trust to deal with this manhunter business, right? If it does indeed come back, what, what happens if Noah gets a little freaky and now we got a bunch of fucking manhunter children running around fucking Earth, he's a manhunter children. He's a manhunter. He's a manhunter. He's a manhunter. He's a manhunter. Yeah, he's half. So like now, I mean, the manhunter vibes, they just go down. The biracial manhunter just get diluted. Yeah, by you. I know how it goes back. Yeah, I know how you get a court. You put him on the manhunter list, she's a certain, you know, the manhunter list, but no. So, you know, this is a chance and that's another thing, like John operated with such certainty in other aspects of his life, he almost had to be certain. in order to do stuff, right? This is uncertain. Like the only thing that he knows is that he wants to try to be a green lantern under his own rules. Everything else, he's kind of taking a chance. You're taking a chance by letting Kerry go. You're taking a chance. - You're letting Kerry go, that was. - I mean, again, who cares? Like the, no, I'm serious. Like the town don't care. - The town doesn't care. - Like, house did. Nobody told anybody that house did. Except only people knew house did. Or Kerry, John, Noah, the town, and what's his name, and Carol Ferris. - Yeah. - That's it. - Kerry couldn't have had a conversation with how, like, hey, how? - Now killing him. Like, that was an act of passion. - I think that was like the weirdest part of episode to me because I had to watch it a couple of times 'cause I get why she would kill him. Like in that moment. - But to be driven like that. - But killing him. - Just to be like, one pop. I was like, dang. - She just seemed very stressed and then just innately shocked. - That's your guy. I thought they would talk about us a more or something like that. - Yeah. Or he'd have an ultimatum or something. - Yeah, that scene was interesting because she has been trying to protect Noah for his entire life, right? Against people knowing and everything that's going on. And John, it is, excuse me, how? It is in how's directive. In how's makeup to want to take him out. So the question is, who was going to act in that situation? But also he, I want to shoot how some bail. He saw what happened to Rushville. He saw what happened when you let a man hunter gain too much power. So there is a part of me where I'm like, it's not like how could have easily called up John or a guy and be like, did it or there's a man hunter. And he tried to do it in a different way. And that's, maybe that's what got him killed. - He knows how dangerous man hunters are, period. Not just Rushville, but in terms of the kind of havoc that they wreak wherever they go. So for him, it was always going to be existential. For her, it is existential. And she, at this point, you know, when you think about it normally in this entire show, how already always has a trick up his sleeve. He can always, his gut always lets him know that something is gonna happen or somebody's not what they're going to do or what they think they're going to do or what they're really thinking. And at this point, I don't think he knew she was capable of that. I think that he didn't think that his gut, maybe the one time that betrayed him. - He did pick him up out the pen. That's some, let's take one. - Draco's his book bag. Tretta, I got a little kid back. (laughing) - Do you think Zoe, I was like, was Zoe fucking around a little bit. It did this on purpose because Carrie was acting like it was an accident. And I'm like, it don't, it seemed like Zoe purposefully put a man hunter in you. I mean, she definitely knew. - Yeah, so yeah, it probably was. - But Carrie didn't say it like did I, am I misremembering? - No, well Carrie, I mean, it's immaculate conception, right? Basically Jesus, better than Jesus, right? She had a big name. - Did they build other people and they didn't end up pregnant? - Yeah, that's what I'm saying, right? Like literally, who was she, who else was she with? She was no body. She said she got pregnant, hadn't been with anybody in a while. - Yeah. - Right, so yeah, no, I'm okay with it. - Yeah, but she was in the, she was in the, like this is what I don't get, you were in the fucking machine that gave you your finger back, and you just pop out with a baby. Zoe definitely was like typing in a like a while, like maybe, 'cause she couldn't have, she couldn't have kids with a old dude. - Right, and at that point, she would have indoctrinated and be like, you will be the vessel of carrying on the, I'm wondering more so why, 'cause at the end, first of all, I was like, Billy, why are you fucking out here? Like, what did Billy know? Billy was just like, Billy, I think, was an instrument and a tool for the writers to throw us off. - Probably. - Billy does not have a lot of utility in this show, but he's always there. Like, what is Billy doing? What, why are Billy's popping in and Billy's popping out? Billy was a way to throw us off, you know? Early on, me having the wherewithal and the genius. - Oh, God. - Right. - I'm just joking. - But like, when you, if you had that feeling, the other characters around Noah were the ones that were gonna kind of distract you a little bit from the fact that it seemed like Zoe took extra special care of her grandson that for whatever reason, she had the same type of bond. It didn't seem like it was a step-grandmom, but they did not look like each other. So there was some stuff that was going on. There was always a lot of mysteries surrounding the kid and then it ended up being the kid. How do you feel like that was actually reconciled? The fact that it was Noah, all the time, do you feel like it was too obvious at a certain point? - I think it was very obvious. I think there was a reason why we were like, you gotta keep Noah on the board and when it was finally revealed, it made story sense, but there was a little bit of me was like, this is very convenient. Like, part of me is like, oh, the show felt like it was missing a big bad because of the mystery it kind of kept moving. And that's, I think, where I was like, oh, this was a muted season finale because everything that John was fighting is an internal battle. Like, it was an external thing. I was like, oh, he's gonna start slacking the ring at the football game. I'm like, oh, no, that's the disorienting thing about this season because we're built around this being centered around a big bad and that ended up being Zoe. And then once we got the 2026 timeline, we're kind of respawn into disarray with what was even the big bad, though, because there are beyond John being like, she wanted me to kill her because she did not want to repeat the same genocidal act she did on the other alien. - I agree, like, I don't think so. And so that's why I'm like, really interested to see like what the reception is to this episode because there is no big CG. We say like, we don't want a CGI boss battle. Then when we don't get one, we kind of feel like. - We're like, huh. - Oh, interesting. I think this episode does a really good job of like ending the show, like threading the, any of the threads of these characters in a way that feels fulfilling. Even though there's again, no big CGI boss fight. But even as I'm watching episode, I'm like, once like Noah puts the ring down and he goes back to John, like, oh, they really not gonna fight. - Yeah. - Okay, we'll see how they do it. And I think they did it well, but I'm interested to see. - Now this is the end of it. It was an ending of a Naruto episode and you know, friendship solved everything. - Well, I'm gonna be real. Like, I think this is kind of, sometimes my frustration with us, because like not just us, I mean, us as a fan. - Oh, right. - Not just us, but us as a fan base. So if you have a big bad, you have to have the CGI fight. - Yeah. - Sure. - You have to have it. If you do something more nuanced, then you don't get the big CGI fight. What you get is characters like resolving story, which is essentially what makes great television. - Yeah. - We sometimes cannot be satisfied. It's a jommies point. It's like, if there is a big bad, if we ended up having a, if Sinistro is pulling the strings of how all it is, and then we get a big Sinistro fight, and well, does everything have to end in a big CGI fight? Well, no, it doesn't. There's another way to do it, which is the way that they did it. While it is definitely muted, I think it's interesting to explore a world where you don't have to have the fight, where the characters have learned to like solve these conflicts in a different way. And so I think that that's actually for me, not just satisfying, but it was almost liberating. - Yeah. - It was liberating to know that it can go away. - But also if we think about it, the reason why, even if this was in my favorite episode of the season, the reason why the season as a whole to me is a success is that we got Obi-Wan. We got, and like we got everything that we said, we wanted and we were still bitching. And I think a lot of times with like the superhero or sci-fi shows, we were talking to Mundi, we've talked to Justin and Vanessa about it. To me, it's more interesting to have the Green Lantern be something that not only is hard to use, but feel special. It feels like a lightsaber, where it's like the minute you have a thousand lightsabers, the minute people are back flipping, like, oh, this feels a little less. Yeah, it feels, yeah, a little less special. And with this show, I was like, the Green Lantern Ring still feels like something you can earn. It still feels like something that not just anybody can wield. And we know that John is going to be in Man of Tomorrow. We're going to get John flying around and doing all of the big stuff. Is that actually what you want to see on TV? Because usually it's not done well just because the budgets can't be what they need to be to make it look how we want it to look. And what it can do well is wrap up that story. I think the one, like, even less so than that, I think the one, like, slight gripe that I would have had with this episode is that, like, there was a lot of very, very fast table setting in the beginning of this episode, only to get us to that end. I think, like, when Sinestro has to explain, like, second and third hand to how a Graham and John, what Hal did with Noah to set up, what we're going to eventually get to. I was like, okay, that's like a little, feels a little rushed and only just to use Sinestro for that purpose is odd. But then again, we're back on track. I think that to get that scene in the car where him and Noah are resolving those things is all worth it because that was one of the, my favorite scenes in the entire season. - Yeah. - I guess, I don't know, I don't mind. Like Sinestro needed a utility, right? - Sure. - So, like, who broke him out? Why? He did that in the episode three, right? He's always, like, thinking about Sinestro. - He's manipulating. He's telling the straight, he could be, and it could be bullshit. He could be lying. He manipulates. How many times did he tell how you got to kill? You got to kill John. You got to kill. Oh, yeah. He's always trying to move stuff at the table. I was going to say he's bad at it. He's actually not because he actually did influence how and like the first and the first, but he didn't get John in this one, right? I think like Sinette shows utility was, was used pretty well in this episode, but I do like that conversation with Noah and John and the conversation that John has with Kerry. You guys are like, man, you should have turned Kerry in, man, I don't know, man. She was being a mother, man, you know, at the end of the Kerry is a fucking murderer. Yeah, she killed how it's tough, man, we all make mistakes, right? She feels guilty. She going to live with the rest of her life. It's always different when a white woman kills somebody. People like act differently. Let her let it be. Let it would have been like Latisha or somebody like that that killed the slammer, okay? It would have been slam, crank, slammer, Fox news, news in 11, cop killing black winch. Like goes crazy in Nebraska, filming it like today on Hannity. This was the Zack Fox. Like it was all hung in at the end. And by the way, by the way, shout out to Kerry, man. Kerry lucid him like I guess I'll turn myself. You know, he wouldn't go turn you in. He wasn't going to turn you in. He knows like it's not what I would have wanted telling you, bro, we sometimes as brothers, we go, we go further for these white ladies than we do for all since we got a man. No, you think this was a, this was an episode, a healing because John, he's just like, hey, yo, Kerry, I forgive you. He walks through his own house. Okay. Everybody. Everybody who was mad at us. How do you know that his brother was a rapper? How do you know his brother was a rapper that didn't have all the fun? I mean, how do we know his brother was a rapper? He said it. Oh, no, you could have been a singer is what? Yeah. Oh, okay. That didn't look like a rapper. What do you want to rap to me? It's like rap to me. Oh, look. Can we talk about? Can we talk about? Could it be a, it could be R&B? It could be Afrobeats. Niggas is rappers now. All right. I don't know what to say. No, he lived in white. It's like a tree or some shit like that. Bro, it could have been me. He lived there with a brother. You know what? Yeah. The brother is a classically trained opera singer. That's what he's doing. He's putting out. It's the three tenors featuring him. So look. How do you feel like this episode attacked or addressed the love story between Carrie and how that kind of preceded all of the stuff that happens in this episode? We go back to 2016. How get out of jail? I'm definitely allergic to this wig. How get out of jail, right? And then we get to see a little bit of how they came to have feelings for each other. How well was that executed? I think it was executed very well. The literacy was hilarious to me, though, because I was a little bit like, come on. You are you are ruining everybody's Friday night. Like if this man don't kill like a dozen people, fuck you and your girl. Okay. Hey, I would have been like, hey, I feel what you're saying, hey, my brother died. Yeah. So I'm missing a leg. Carrie was essentially like get over it. Get over it. But you know what? Shout out to the people. They wouldn't have a nice shit. They treated him exactly like they would have treated John if John's family would have moved into the neighborhood. Oh, God. Yeah. Like 1913. 1913 at least 1960 maybe even nineteen fucking seventy. Yeah. No, this was remembered. It's like, hey, yo, fuck you. Fuck you. Boom. You're back to where you came from. They pooped on his front lawn. Yeah. Pooped on his front lawn. But then I'm talking about the firebombing. The firebomb is still like civil right. Yeah. That's why I said. Yes. Evil. No, it wasn't just one. They was like, yeah, everything. Yeah. Check it. Every window burnt up everything. No thought or regard for Earl, which by the way, that was our brain. Wait, wait, wait. Was Earl okay? By the way, no. No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, John's parents. John not shit. Because he dropped Earl off with his parents. And then he's left. He's like, yo, take care. Earl. Y'all got him. And then come back. Okay. Hugs. But I thought that they kind of got us into their relationship and made us really kind of believe that these two people that was always some sort of attraction have found something special in each other, particularly after Rushville was obliterated. Oh, yeah. The scene in the, the scene in the bed was really touching when, you know, she like, don't look at me. He's like, no, come to the game. I'm like, wait, I got to call a foul and I'll play as well. But now this your son. This is game. Whatever. I'm not trying to see you bring your new man to my fucking game. Who don't kill. Okay. No, no. No, no, no, no. I'm the game. This is not about y'all. This is about me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have them same hands. He's a man. No, this is baby boy. No, you know, I keep going. I'll be funny. Baby boy. Baby boy. Grab him. The young blood. Whoever you lick this head. I'm not going to do that. fact that he didn't mark him out or try to like dominate him in that situation because he had a fully charged ring and John didn't that actually kind of made me respect guy a little bit. But do you think part of this is the fact that like if we look at how, how is basically discarded by the guardians by the time he's in the last few years of being a green lantern guy is basically getting corporate money. So as part of guy probably is just like, yeah, I am kind of just a messenger for them. Like I have had to kind of sell my soul to be popping on earth. But you wouldn't stand up and be like, actually, no, man, I'm the big dog here. I'm a cook a little bit. I got brand deals clearly. I know you wouldn't just take that, bro. If John, if you were to green lantern earth and a dude came up as like, yeah, man, actually, this is my spot now. You got to go up in space. You'd be like, hell, no, no, no, no. First of all, yes, this wouldn't happen to me. I'm not letting fucking Trader Joe's ghost fucking talk to me crazy. Right. You know, what you like. No, I'm the real fucking green lantern. Fuck you. God, where was that for? I do love the fact that they don't like each other. Come the end of that. Yeah. But look, look, here's the thing. That all could be true. But in that situation, it's interesting about his character that he did not leave with ego. That's all I'm saying. I'm saying it's interesting that he didn't go, oh, you're the green lantern. I'm the green lantern because really the whole show is about the fact that the worthiness of that mantle is kind of synthetic. Like, there's not a right way to breed a green lantern. You're not right. If the guardians choose you, you're not right. If your parents choose you, you're not even right. If the ring choose you, because that's not what makes you a hero. What makes you a hero is understanding the intricacies and the vulnerabilities of human nature and wanting to help. And like trusting yourself and like having your own moral compass for what you believe is good. Any organization or group of people that have to make decisions about heroism probably has an agenda that's anti-humanistic. So like, to me, when he's standing there, I think that not only is he probably to y'all point a little scared of John for whatever reason. But I also think that he probably thinks he's got a point. Like he's got a point. He's around the guardians. He knows he's like, he's got a point. There's a lot of red in his ledger already. There's something about God that went, huh, I get it. I mean, but also the, and this is what Monday brings it up. This show was always litigating. All right. If the green lantern core is real and we have a green lantern on earth, they say one of the previous episodes, there's no, this not the army. There's not a bunch of green lanterns running around on earth. All of this shit to your point is fucking made up. So it is like for John, I do think it's like a very interesting and smart choice to be like, no, I'm going to be the green lantern of earth. Why would I give a fuck about the other sectors? Like, I know what I want to protect. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting because like, yeah, why would you give a fuck about the rest of the sector? Yeah, Saturn. I mean, we've only been to one other planet. Earth first. Yeah. Oh, we're earth first. We don't send, we're earth, we're earth first here. We're all, we're not eventually all around the galaxy. They try to build that green wall. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. You said, what do you have against John, reinvesting in his own hood? I don't have anything. Well, his earth is his hood. That's what I meant to. I'm an earth is his hood. We got to give it. We got to buy back the block. No, and he wouldn't, he wouldn't give a shit about that because we've only been to one other planet, this entire thing. And John wouldn't care about that since like, he's kind of still getting his wings and like, if he's bopping around other planets, the Guardians are going to keep catch wind of that. Well, they said, they said he's going, they're going to send an army. And I was just like, Hey, first of all, because like, he kind of was like, Hey, bro, not only do I got the battery from Sinestro, I feel like John's like, I could kill you. Like I could kill a guardian. Yeah, maybe I, but my thing is like to, to guy's point, like when you go to, oh, and you like, Hey, um, I don't know if you know this, but uh, John dug up House ring. You don't ask him how he got it. It's crazy story. Not only this, but he also has a power battery. So there's just another thing in our earth. I just feel like somebody's got to, like somebody got to make a call. Like, hey, yo, yo, John man was going on. I thought you didn't want this life. You know what I mean? Like, but the one bit of leverage that he has over the guardians is the fact that he knows that they were covering up man hunters because with the search their hearts. Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like I think I, I mean, and that's like kind of where I landed on ultimately. A little, I don't think you feel flimsy. Really? I just, no, no, because he's going to be like, they're going to know he killed a guard or he killed a man hunter. Right. He's not somewhere to be truffle with. Amen. Maybe we just let him be. He already, like, he learned, from the best of the best, which is how? How's already followed me? You know what? If I'm John though, I'm going straight to Metropolis. I know where Superman is. I know where Supergirl is. I know where Crypto are. What the fuck the Green Lantern? Like, I've seen these batteries. They can't hold to charge for shit. What the Green Lantern court really going to do when they come to earth? That's true. What you mean? You're going straight to them into what? No, I'm saying he's like, oh, our army will come down to you. I'm like, we saw what the ring could do. We could barely do shit. Like this shit. We haven't seen John. We're going to get cooking with the ring yet, brother. I'm just saying if it's Superman, Supergirl, Crypto, a couple. Oh, my fuck is better Morpho. We got Hawk Girl. Hawk Girl. Like taking them over the court. I mean, nobody is going to, if you have Superman, if you have two, Tony and your fucked, right? It's going to be tough. It's going to be already. Wait, how many Green Lanterns do you think it would take to take down Superman? I mean, how many you got? Like, I mean, are we, are we, we're power scale? I mean, are we, we're at a place with a yellow sun? Yeah, you're fucked. I think no. Well, it depends how much willpower. I think how John guy Kyle could, could in the right circumstances get Superman. At least this, this universe is Superman. Maybe this universe, you saw it. But also, but also to be real, this universe is Green Lantern. Oh, that's true. If you take those four guys in the comic books, it's done. If you take them, they're fucked. Like, yeah, there's the whole court can take down Superman. Maybe, maybe? I mean, I don't know. It's like, Mogo is a planning. I know. But like, what I'm trying to say is, how many are in the court? Like 50, there's 200, 200. No, it's a, I think that thousands of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Yeah, the universe is infinite. So I mean, I guess if you had all of them, I mean, the question is, how do you go on? You got, you got. But I'm saying, it's going to take a lot of, there's nothing that they can do to Superman. Nothing, what are they going to do that's going to work on you? Could you create like kryptonite from the ring? Maybe. I mean, if you could do that perhaps, I'm sure there's been some comics somewhere where the Green Lantern was able to, but like, Superman is going to destroy any of the constructs that they're done. Like, what can you do to them? Interesting that Superman can beat up Green Lantern, but Batman is where we draw the line. What? Batman's where we draw the line. Psychologically, Batman has a different set of, excuse me. It's just, he's certain set of skills. That's it. That's the crazy part. Every other woman like, "Yo, Superman." Like the court. Batman, hold on. Oh, no. We got to talk about it. But here's the deal, though. There's the difference. No one thinks that Batman is going to roll up on Superman and square off and be Superman. That's what we're saying about the Green Lantern, right? No one thinks that Batman's, "What if Batman has time to plan?" Even the president thinks like, "Time to plan." It's going to be tough if we've already seen it. Okay. So, Noah's the man, Hunter. John Stuart your Green Lantern. Guy Gardner gets cucked out again. Guy Gardner is now off of Earth. It seems like that. We'll see how much he honors that. How do we feel like the Rushville reparation this gets her back? Okay. How do we feel like everything in Rushville was tied up? This is a community that's experienced. Devastation. Devastation. There was just a murder. And now, there is, like, one blog girl, the soul of a killer alien leading their team to a state championship. Which, by the way, shout out Noah, he only didn't make the decision because the scouts could take a look at his other bullshit. When they did that to be like, "Yes." See, this man Hunter got a heart of gold. He tried to put his niggas on. I'm like, "All right, yeah. All right, yeah, all right, all right. That's the only way. That's the only way. That's the only way to go to Florida state. You know what you got to do, though, if you know it for real, right? There's got to be one guy. There's got to be one dude. Wait, like, it happens with like brothers and stuff like that. But it's going to be one dude like, "Yo, man, you put the Nebraska head on." You're like, "Hey, listen, man. Like, I really do want to come to Nebraska. I really do love this. But you got to take my homie too." He need a scholarship, man. You know, they did that. That does happen. They did that with Romeo back in the day. Remember that? With Demar D'Rosan at SC. They did that with a package deal with Romeo and Demar D'Rosan at SC. You got to tell you you got to tell your mom. All right, let's say we're in Rushville and you got the kill shot on Noah. The minute he's played his fellow teammates on not picking the school, you're like, this is why I'm not gonna kill him. Right. Well, I mean, you've known Noah since he was a kid, right? So there's something else that you've known Noah's even being honest. I mean, you knew him. You knew him as a kid. Fuck this grandmother. Got a little overattached to the family. By the way, talking to do what needs to be done. I'm gonna tell you something right now, man. If I'm like, all right, I got this shot lined up. I got to kill this kid playing football. And I see him spin out of a, spin out of a tackle. You know, go across his body and throw a dot to the tie it in for 15 yards. We might need that. I'm gonna be like, hold on. Wait. Hold on. I'll see the quarter bag, man. I'll be like, no, you can see this. - I was at least with the gun down. I was seeing what he got. - You gonna shoot the husband? - Yeah, like my need that. - Hold on. - I'll say this. Okay, so a couple of things that happen. Number one, I don't think that John can let Noah live if we find out that Noah kill hell. Because at that point, he's giving into his nature. As much as he did do, 'cause he did whoop the shit out of, like a couple of people. As much as he did do, he broke the nostril out of jail. - I know he broke the nostril out of jail. - I would have really loved to have seen that. - But even that, even that, like there was, that was a means to an end. There is an idea here that you can't indict him yet for the evil that he hasn't done yet. - Exactly. - And that's a really interesting thing to explore in this particular show. 'Cause this show continuously delves into how much of your nature should you be held responsible for? The moment that we learn that this brash, arrogant, with Michael Aggressions' nature that Hal Jordan has, is something that's not just a part of his lineage, but that is a part of his formation and his programming. The question is, what can somebody be if you free them of their programming, if you free them of what they're supposed to be? - What if they choose to want to fight it? - Right. - So when they are fighting it. - Are you allowing, if you're John, Noah to go into politics? I'm like, you got to-- - No, I mean, but that's why he takes the ring, right? It's ultimately like, if something happens with this kid, I'm gonna be the one to deal with it. - But as long as you go to the major, I'm like, nigga, go be it. - You go talk to him. - It's like, if he's there and you see him, he's a turning point, you, yeah, okay, now. You just flashed three more times, man. - You see, no, all campus somewhere. Like, what is it, woman? Like, nope, got come here. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no - You gotta, no, no, no, no, no. - John flies right down. You're like, no listen. - Stop, stop, stop. That John come to A. You better go take some basket. We, what the fuck is wrong with you? You not supposed to be doing this out here with these people? - Or here's the thing with the programming. - I can't say it. - No, I can't. - That's for listening, and the midnight boys, Pew Pew, we'll get back to you shortly. - And what's my first question? That is one of the deepest shadows that we've ever known, so, so, Devin and them, I want to make a note. We're not gonna take that whole part out, but that is a deep, we're back, well, we've been back for a second. I want you guys to know, what Charles just did was the deepest of shadows. - Oh, yes. - That'll never come out, yeah. - This is wrong with you, man. - What? That's tough. - Yes, that's tough. - Flip 'em 100 in New York, maybe you'll tell you this. - Oh, my God. - That's tough, that's tough. - You want to know what, I'm censored and silenced on this podcast so much. - Hey, bruh. - Oh, no, you get what? - If you want to rock with it, be my mother fucker. - Yeah, I want to love it. - 'Cause you're two for two. - Guess what, band you back up with. - Because you're two for two in jokes that were devastating. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, that one. - But that week, that other one was one. - That was amazing. - That was amazing. - You're two for two. - Can't have it. - Well, I wouldn't have been no tours on the office hat that come out. (all laughing) - Damn, you're two for two. If you wanted it, well, I can't, I would love it. That was some shit. But no, so, yeah, so I think kind of trusting the community around them, caring to a degree, trusting Zoe, which you don't have a lot of reason to trust her, is kind of something that John, this is a part of what John has chosen. - Well, really quick, though, it was a very bold choice and I'm so glad they stuck with it. They don't give Hal an easy out. I feel like a lot of people I saw, like, "Oh, maybe Hal was a clone." - Maybe he didn't do this. - All right. Till the end, they were like, "No, Hal and John are culpable in what happened in Rushville." And that's why I'm like, "I am not." Even if this was a mutipinality, I'm like, "Oh, they didn't take the easy way out." - No, yeah, yeah. - Can I galaxy brain this also in a way that, like, I'm sure the writers weren't intending. - Okay, okay. To John doing what he did with Noah, is essentially what you would have to do as a superhero. Like, the nature of human beings and who we are is so uncertain, depending on where we are, the type of environment that we've come from, like the trauma that we've undergone. And so if you are a superhero, then part of your job is to believe in the uncertainty of calamity, evil, but also of good. And so you're legitimately monitoring human beings for the time that they go back. And then you step in. If you can't do that with one person, how are you going to do that with everybody? How are you going to trust everyone to do that? That's the difference between like a Superman and Batman. I believe in the good and people, like Captain America and Iron Man. I believe in those heroes always have to learn that free will and the ability to make a choice and letting people do that. And then acting is like what a belief in humanity actually is. So he legitimately demonstrates a belief in humanity by believing in a robot. But even what I think the writers and creators is such a good job of is they were constantly asking what would happen if these rings and these aliens came to earth. And at every single point, whether it was John's father, whether it's Carrie, you are seeing people in real time have to create like with moral and ethical dilemmas, that would happen if aliens came to earth. It's not easy. Like in the comments a lot of times, like, oh, we got the ring, everybody's used to it. I'm flying around and you're like, oh, no, Carrie had a life before. She ever ran into a man hunter, John's father. Of course, this is something that is going to have echoes and reverberations to his entire fucking lineage for years and years and years. And that's where I'm like, oh, the show was successful in kind of building a scaffolding for the DC universe where it's like, oh, this world is still trying to come to grips with what a metacumids mean, aliens, demons, and I was like, oh, these are really good jobs. But it's not, it's not just on a like global, immediately, at least on a like global, like what are our Soviet cords? What are our like broad sweeping, like humanity level protections against superheroes? It's just people in small towns, reckoning with those levers of power that are way beyond their imaginations. I wish the MCU, because like, I feel like because the MCU didn't have the TV shows at first, they could only really be macro. And to me, I'm like, oh, it's so interesting. I hope the DCU does more of this where I'm like, the DCU historically in the comic books, everybody has a city. So you're, you're used to these heroes like the Flash or Batman, dealing with problems that are a little bit smaller and I kind of want the DCU to stay here for as long as possible where it's like, it was very smart to pick Rushville as a place. And I'm like, oh, wherever these other things go, it's a really smart choice for John to be the Green Lantern of Earth since you brought up the MCU. So I watched, I went to the theater to watch encore, right? What did you think of it? Had a fantastic time, you know, had a great time. The, the new scenes or whatever, the cutscenes, they were whatever, like they, I get it, it was whatever. I have no idea. I have no idea. Yeah, it was whatever. But I went to the theater to see in-game again. And the thing that's still a triumph about in-game is just a tremendous amount of care that was put into wrapping up everybody's story, right? And the fact that they could do that, that movie is dense though. That is a dense, dense movie. That movie has time travel, multiple versions of people. That movie has a homicidal maniac going around killing people. It has like every time, and you don't think about it too, you're on the big screen. Every time you think you're at the point that that movie has stopped moving, it moved some more. Yeah. And then at the end of it, you get an old-ass version of Steve, right? That's a lot of movie. I think the MCU sometimes felt like they had to give us that experience with everything that they made. Yeah. Like that they had gotten to a point to where they couldn't slow things down just a little bit to have us focus on really examining why we love these characters so much. Yeah. That they always had to be an equal amount of spectacle for every tear or laugh. And that's the stuff that didn't work on television. But they're getting back to it in terms of Spider-Man, Wonder Man, Thunderbolt. Totally agree. They were the most successful R when it's like, okay, even if lanterns, people might be a little bit like, damn, we didn't get the big spectacle fight. I'm like, they gave us Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre. They literally helped birth a new hero that people are invested in and want to see going forward. That's not nothing because most of this shit for the past like decade could not do that. And I'm like, I would rather you start slow and build, then try to be like, all right, in one season, this is going to be the huge fucking shit you ever. Yeah. The MC is constantly impatient with itself to want to give us something that they know we would like to see but is constantly unearned. Like I don't think the National should have gotten the yellow ring in this. I feel like it would have been rushed and it would almost be like, the, the National was so good in the, in this finale and through. throughout the season, it gives the universe somewhere to go. Right. It's not a Thanos level event, but you are like damn he's there. You can he's there. What's going to happen? He stuck on fear planet with nowhere to get out. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's stuff he earned it. I'll be honest with you. Yeah. Wait, what did, what did Cedestra really do though? In this universe? Kill the guardian. And I, you can't, I don't know if you can quibble with that that much. It seems like that kind of bullshit. We didn't see them anymore. No more guardians. Lower lily. I didn't, I didn't. Did you expect to see more? More guardians. I think we needed to see the guard. I didn't see Lenny. We had to see Lenny come down, but like, hey, man, so this is how you really going to do it? Okay. Like, we're not going to stop you. Well, then we don't even got him. Poor kid knows those ghosts. Like, he goes to over. He snitches and then lowers like, hey, man. What you did was kind of crazy. I'm not going to hold you, but you are kind of right, though. Mm-hmm. So here's what we're going to do. You don't say nothing. I don't say nothing. We good. My guy. All right. I'm going to see you. That would have been nice. But ultimately, I mean, if you see Philly and say that to Laura, I don't need Philly. I do Philly in the fly off and then Laura Lenny comes down as a bird, whatever. It's like, hey, listen, you say no, right? However, you did kill a guard and you did do me a favor. So I'm going to just turn a blind eye at it to that final shot. You see, like, just a bird fly across the sky. Yeah. But I mean, at the end, I mean, that's like good point to the end. And they're like him flying at the end because we talked about this last week. We got to talk about that. Yeah. We talked about it. Like one of the things that's going to happen is going to fly. I think that moment is really like poignant in the sense of like, he let all this stuff go, man. There's two way down by his bag. He's with his family with brush field with how, right? So when they have that final moment in, I love you. I love you, too, Jr. Yeah. And he finally, he finally takes the ring and flies off. I'm like, he's finally free. I've been too positive. I needed to see John at least in the suit. Where was he? He just became the first of all instructed how should have been how it's because like how was watching him like that was his favorite football player. He should have been like, Hey, Jr. I left this for you. No, I really need to see him in the suit. I wonder how I didn't need to see him in the suit. Him flying was good. Uh, I, when it happened at the end, there was a part of me that was almost hoping that it didn't happen that they just did something where he grabbed the ring. And he looked up and then just to pitch y'all off. No, I just needed to fly. He needed to fly. Yeah. He needed to. Come on. I, I needed more ring slinging. I just did. I like, I needed to, John get a little busy. So he doesn't want it. But then again, it's just like, I don't even know if I need too much, so here's a thing though, right? Remember first try to came out and was like, Amen. So I was thinking of rings. And I was like, Oh, you want to get some ring slinging. Don't worry. And we, we, I'm like, like, we didn't get no ring slinging, right? The episode five was a ton of rings slinging, but I, I'm sorry to that, man, it was kind of light on the green. All right. So here's the thing. I agree. This isn't, all right. Let's have the debate. I don't think this is a full surf Dracula. I feel like this has always been the show that they wanted to make. Right. Like if you like, watch it from episode one to episode eight, I always, I always felt like they are making a grounded universe and this will never be the show where the constructs are the point, right? With that being said, in a Green Lantern show, do we need more Green Lantern? I agree. I think so. So this is my deal. I don't need anything in a show. Right. So do I understand the criticism? Of course. I don't need anything. The only thing I need in a show is only one thing I need in any show is I can't wait to see the next episode. Yeah. That's the only thing I need. If the show delivers on that, then there's some reason why I'm into the show. I want a second season. And that to be is the. Yeah. I watch a lot of these shows where I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I can get all the way behind that in the sense of, again, speaking, speaking to like MCU Daredevil, there's a Daredevil show in Daredevil and I find the hand like like the original born again thing was like, he's going to be in doing a brand new stuff. He's going to be a lawyer for episodes. He's not going to find nobody. He's going to be alright, man. Yeah. But here's the thing. Daredevil to me is different because I agree with you, but Daredevil is just a fucking ninja. That lends itself to TV and choreography and everything. We remember Secret Invasion. We remember when Daenerys had all the fucking powers and it looks fucking crazy. Little drags. So we say. Gaia. We're powerful being in the air. All I'm saying is we say we want this shit. We say we want Anthony Macchi in the suit. And then we see the suit. Like, yeah, that's what I'm saying about the ring sling. I'm like, if it was even a little bit too much or not executed the way that you would have wanted, you would have complained. But that's the part that's the paradox of all this stuff. Yeah. Is that we have been, I think ultimately what it comes down to is we've been conditioned in a superhero story at the end. It's going to be the good guy versus the bad guy. If I good wins or maybe sometimes evil wins, but at the end of the day, there's still, they got to get the hands. It's always this is all how you do it, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It was a superman story. It was great. There was no suit. There was no cape. There was none of that until the last you talk about served Dracula. Yeah. The very last one. That was him. I would argue. I would argue that, you know, we can, I mean, it's a rice thing. There was never go Batman never showed up on the show because they're not going to put bad man on. No, I'm not talking about whether or not they could or could not do the thing. I'm talking about the fact that they didn't do it, but it was as much of a Superman story as anything. Yeah. That was great. It was as much as a Superman of a Superman show as I've ever seen and like, there was, remember the episode where there was the teacher and she was too fine and he started getting his heat vision. Shit like that is just inspiring to me because it's like he a freaky ass young man and that's what's making it. That's inspiring. It's inspiring because, you know, the story of when did Superman's heat vision first manifests itself? How can you take something that we already know and love and make us interested in it in a way that's very, very grounded and accessible? He's a god, right? And watching his power was man because I think that lady in that episode was also like some kind of demon because she had Marylick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She was like some kind of like the meteor had given her some kind of power and just to take that mythology that we all know and make the meteors, the source of all these crazy happenings and small. So move legs Luther and Luther core to small all of that stuff is not about what you have to have. It's about how well they do the thing that they are doing. I mean, also if we're going to be real, the constructs to me will always kind of look goofy in live action. So you have to be very careful of how like the coolest thing that how did this entire season had nothing to do with the constructs. It's like point junior and he just goes boom, that to me is way cooler than because I was just like, oh, so I give a little bit of grace because I'm like, they still have not gotten the green constructs right to me. And I don't know if you can just because it is a common within and technically they're relancer in the whole time because how was the construct the last three episodes? Yeah. Let me ask you this. Do you feel like they got to come before we get to the midnight meter? Do you feel like we got they got the constructs right and Superman in the movie? No. It was fun. It wasn't bad. It had this like kind of like marble texture to it, which looked kind of cool. But then again, like in contrast to this, which is like just a little bit of a shade of green on it. But like you can make tornadoes and stuff like I could have gone for a little bit more than a bubble from how I thought that he's a big fan of the bubble. I thought that guy was cool and in Superman, baseball bats, the way he was just at the end. That's cool. Yeah. But the contract itself still looks a little goofy where you're like, oh, there's no real way to make something big and fucking green. Yeah. Look dope. Yeah. The Hulk just cried somewhere. It was like, even with the Hulk, if you think about it, the Hulk didn't stop looking cool. That nigga was basically great. He was like puke cream when that first movie, not the, not the Angleee joint. You talking about Eric, Dana? Yeah. No, not the air. That's Angleee. No, I'm sorry. Everybody were north. He wasn't super fucking green in that shit. He was like dirty, brown green. I can't see. Yeah. No. I like the way he looked in the Avengers. I think I think he looked better than the Avengers they did in Incredible Hulk. He did. But yeah. He looked, I'm on a lie. I think he looked best in Spider-Man. Yeah. Yeah. He looked great. Yeah, look great. Oh, by the way, just to let you guys know, we live in the Spider-Man world. We're watching the entire movie of in game. Spider-Man comes on the screen. This is about, this is the battle, not the battle in New York. This is the Battle of Earth. The Battle of Earth. At the end, when Spider-Man came on that screen and encore, that audience went fucking crazy. In 2026. Like, have you ever seen it? No. Of course. Yeah. No. The Spider-Man swings onto the screen. He takes a thing off. Every Spider-Man, they went nuts. Your crowd went crazy too, man. At every point where like, when you watch it the first time, when there was a moment, so many go crazy. Catching the hammer, portals open. Catching the hammer. Crazy. Portals open. When Chadwick showed up, everybody, everybody in my, I'm about to cry now. - I started crying. - What? - Avengers. It really it really was like that was the one of one feeling. It really was okay, wait, we're really really quick. Is it bullshit that they were like the little hammer clink from Tony at the end of the original endgame? They're like, that was always Tony making the two. They did it in the movie. They did it. They did it in all. Yeah. I was like, all right. Okay. Real quick. Like that was the plan. We're talking about scene. We're talking about those scenes real quick. The. Yeah, rank them real quick. By the way, spoilers for Avengers Encore apparently. That way. Okay. Can y'all rank the four joints we got? I'm dead last is the the Doom one. It's like barely not even seen. He's about to clink in the end. That's that's that's that last third is the the scene with Loki and and captain and cap and Peggy. That's what I was dumb. Well, it's not one of his dumbest. It's just like you could have done that later. Loki could have showed him at any time. I think you don't need to do that. Like the second that they're dancing out. Exactly. You don't have to do that, right? You could have like had that have them come later, right? Second is the scene with Hulk and Doom because not only does I propel you to brand new day or from brand new day to Doom's days. It's just like it's cool to see Doom. Now the problem with that scene in particular is that that should have been in brand new day. It should not have been. But they were going to do that in the Sony joint. They could have. It would have been fine. But like for whatever reason, it was selling. But the scene that actually like enjoyed the most was a TVAC with Morbius and Casey, which is the one that you could tell, which is the one that you could tell all of those scenes are oriented around because to me, that's the that's the longest one. And that's the one where it honestly feels like it holds actual. The other ones are breadcrumbs. That like actually feels like dessert. After seeing, after seeing on court because like I feel like Marvel is trying to do this thing where they're like, Oh, no, this we were planning this. Don't worry blah, blah, blah. After seeing that TVAC, you know, are you kind of feeling like, Hey, you guys don't have to convince us that endgame is connected to this or would just make your story. Just tell you. They really did. I mean, obviously would have gone to seat either way, whichever. They're really trying to do some like, what's it called them? Some backlog and yeah, which like I kind of understand the end of the day, brother. You could give us a TVAC and I would have got it. I didn't need like all the other stuff. So the only thing I'd say about it is everything has to have a point and a purpose. And so being that we're going to get this whole multiversal thing, I think or this these incursions, I think it does make sense to show us like how the TVA is looking at it. I mean, they've taken the entire it's like it would be like, that would be like if the movie had taken this entire time to build up a bunch of life guards and then something's happening in the ocean. And then we don't fucking see the life. Right. Yeah. Right. These guys are the life guards of this. So I didn't have a problem with like seeing their deal. We know that there was a meeting in 2023 where they got together and decided to pivot to do. We read it and pluck. Okay. So like we know that that's what happened. Right. So do they need to backfill some story? Yeah. But to you guys's point, they do have to be careful about how much time they spend doing it. The funny thing about like the opportunity to be seen. So like they confirm some universes get destroyed. And universes at least confirmed the Eric Banahog verse, the 2015 fantastic four verse air devil, the X band verse allegedly. And you guys is favorite. The what of first gone all of it. All of it. All of it. They're all they all got the watcher can curred. You incur a debt ability and you know, I must see what happens. But this is about lanterns. And so we have to do the midnight meter. All right. Y'all know what it is. The midnight meter one to 12. One is the worst 11 and 12. I reserve for true game changers. I will start with you then where you going 11. It feels right. It feels right. 11. It's an 11. Speak on it. It's a truly, truly immersive, culturally resonant and impactful season of television. I give it an 11 both on the quality of the show. But also the fact that this show, this show occupied the Sunday night on HBO slot. Very true. And lived up to that slot. One supposed to do that. That's supposed to be a slot. That succession. Boys that gave a throw. This show did Sunday night on HBO and lived up to it. That is cultural. How's the dragon? Yeah, post super girl. My fuckers was digging the grade for DCU. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It kind of. I did not expect lanterns to be the thing where people were just like, okay, we're back in. We're. I would not be surprised if what we go to see men of tomorrow, John Stewart gets the biggest applause. Oh, he's going to get a pop for sure. I got to go 11 too. I was between like, I was between the 10 or 11. But I think there is a level of game changiners in the show to your point of, this is what this was culture feeling. You know, like people were really rocking with this show for the last eight weeks. And yeah, to your point, man, John Stewart is like, you're going to see the man. It's Marley get worried. I don't mean with me talking to money, you're like a bunch about like whether it's season two or not. But like, there's no way you don't bring this. You're bringing this character back, but you got to bring this character back and either in his own movie or his own another TV series. The only him in black pants are the only two black superheroes standing. They got played out of here. They got one man out of here. So like, yeah, I got to go 11 for this one. I'd say 11 as well. And it's it's also the. I also got it got like the alien earth feeling of this where not only were we talking about the show itself, but the bigger ideas that the show is clearly like chewing at and like consuming us with the discussions around it. We're like, we got so much substance of talk around this show and what it meant to be fearful love versus programming all of this stuff. It did the canon of comic books like amazingly well. And this show had an ending unlike alien earth season one. Very true. Very true. Here we go. What's your guy? The raw chuck? Let's see. Wait, before you say those new new here, before he says it, what do you think? I think he's going to the 90. I think it's a nine thing is giving eight. I will have to award Lantern season one. Very, very strong. Seven. Nine. There we go. All right. Okay. It's always minus two. Yeah. Yeah. You're not. I'm not. He's a very good. I know that it's all with the touch. I'm not very, very good. I'm going to say this. And we guys, what did Chuck give sugar? 12. But I say that he not a wee. Okay. I can't endure. We saw it. We saw it. And this show was saying Japan, I would have given it the same show, but in Japan, if you know, you know, one of my least favorite modes of conversation is you got to see this. I went to Sweden. No. And when I went to Sweden, that's great. The seven and elevens in Sweden is what I'm talking about. It's cool. They have fresh bait. I went there to seven, eleven in Sweden. The lady behind the thing, she was like a kindly old barkeep. She was there. It was like a complete request. But I did see, I did see your video, though. Black people not doing the head nod. What the fuck with? What? No. They weren't doing it. That's that's us. That is a uniquely American. Now y'all are saying this right now, but I have to tell you that there's a lot of people who's mad about this. A lot of people who are saying that I was being like a typical American, expecting everybody to do what we do. It's interesting. I'm going to let it go. Sometimes it's difficult for me, because it sometimes it feels like people want to have shit both ways. I tell you what I mean. What I mean is, yes, I realized that I'm a black American and not all customs and stuff like that, like escape America. I get that. I understand that. But at the same time, if I were to say that I'm a black American and this is black American culture and blah, blah, blah, blah, then you get pushed back where people go, hey, we're all black. Black is the same. It's a black diaspora. It's all it is. It's all that I understand that. We all black. We together. All I'm saying is is if I'm walking through the Grove, where there's a lot of white people. And I see a black person. I look at them. I do like that. They look at them. That's a lot of you. You good? And Niggas, come here. We're going to podcast. What's happening? That's yeah. I was like, oh, what are you going to do, Rachel? - I just had to come and see it in person. - No, come on here, you got thoughts, come on, you got to come and see it. - Rachel, come on. - Rachel, come on. - Rachel, no, no, no. - No, no, no, no. - No, Rachel. - That's not what we do in this. - Lantern. - This is a Lantern. - This is a Lantern. - Rachel, come on. - Rachel, you got far. - Because you are also a sweet. - I've always wanted to be one of the midnight boys. - Rachel, yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - Give it up for Rachel. - Rachel, Rachel, lazy. - Yeah. - Thank you guys. - You are also a sweet. What did you think of the 7-11 and/or Black people, not nodding to other Black people? - I didn't see Black people like that. To be even be, I mean, not in advance. - Yeah, we nodded to each other when we saw. - You didn't see no Black people in Sweden? - Like, just walking on the street. - I maybe saw two. - But look, but I'll say this though, I'll say this though. - It's fun. - I didn't see Black people in Sweden, but there were mad Black people that reached out to me. to me, like on Instagram was like, hey, if you're going to be in Sweden, like came out, come to the black side of Sweden and stuff like that. - So maybe they're not in Stockholm. This would have been great for you in Sweden. - Yeah, it would have worked. - This is. (laughing) - It would have worked. - It would have worked. - Did you like the 7-Eleven in Sweden? - I looked at it. I didn't go inside. It was beautiful. They had a thousand bars. - Are you good for 7-Eleven? - No, no, no. I just, I wasn't that curious enough. I asked the question. I knew it was, I knew that they were nicer there. I was impressed with the salad bar. Then I just kept it moving. - No, we can't do the salad bar. Did you do the salad bar? - I did not. - But I did what is the story we have to go. This is probably post credits. But what I did say, what I did see though, is I was walking down the street. I told this story before. And I saw everybody had a hot dog. I'd say. - Oh man. - I was like, yo, when a hot, I mean, like when a hot. - You were gobbling the glizzies? - I was not. But everybody got their hot dogs from the 7-Eleven. - Oh. - Everybody was like, I'm coming down the thing. Everybody got a hot dog. And what I'm saying, people standing around and they dressed up in like Hugo Boss. And they like, these are people they have in the hot dog. I'm like, oh my God, is there like a street fair somewhere? They was going into the 7-Eleven to get a hot dog. - The 7-Eleven was beautiful. I mean, it's so clean, so clean. I also appreciate the white man got up, gave me a seat. Let me sit down with the boys. - We got this podcast for a few years now. - There you go. Selma Steve is back. - Selma Steve is back. - All right, that's post-graded. So let's close out the show. So Steve can sit down for a while. - Okay, bye guys. - Bye bye. - Yo, guys, the guest keep a flow in on the midnight boys. We were honored to interview Chris Mundy, executive producer, showrunner, writer of Lanterns at Shornair. Please stick around. We ask him all of the great questions. - All right, the season is over, but our conversations about Lanterns are not over yet. We are here with writer, showrunner and executive producer, Chris Mundy to continue the Lanterns cow bell. Before we do anything, three to one, you gotta give us a pew, pew, Chris. That's what we do. Three, two, one. (tires screeching) All right, I'm getting right into it right now, man. (laughing) I'm getting right into it. Okay, before we even talk about the show itself, tell me about the how and the why. The Green Lantern is a character that we are so familiar with that is part of the fabric of the DC universe and really the overall superhero universe. This was deconstructed, this was humanistic, this was story first. Like why this approach to this character and how did you get it done? - Well, I don't know how we got it done. You guys can tell me, but I mean, the idea from the beginning was just like, okay, let's take this at face value. Let's take it that these people have these jobs and they live in the world and they're real people and what would that look like and feel like? And so, you know, if you're the Green Lantern how Jordan's the Green Lantern, he's doing that job a short amount of the day in a way. Do you know what I mean? So we just talked about them as people and then we talked about what would happen? Like what do you do as you start to like age out of a job? You know, it's like, what does that feel like because it's also, it's your identity and I think all of us can relate to that in certain ways and you watch it, you definitely watch it in sports, you know, all the time, but we have it in our own jobs. So we just started there and said like, let's talk about these people as these guys as people and see where we get. - Yeah, it's interesting, like I got this from my dad, but like my father used to say that athletes are born twice and they die twice. Like you're born, you're regular self and then you get reborn as magic or MJ and then you legitimately die in front of everyone. - Yeah. - You go to something where they unveil a statue of you or like you go to a professional funeral. - It's like, didn't you used to be? - Didn't you used to be that thing or that person and then like, and that he goes that afterlife is like hard, that's why you see people struggling and stuff like that. And it was interesting to see that happen on screen to a superhero because we never get that side of their life. Was there any pushback from attacking it like that because a lot of people aren't used to not looking up at superheroes and looking at them like that? - Yeah, I think because we went in, there was buy-in from the beginning and was like, this is the way we're gonna try to do it. And so those things kinda happened before it. And then it just became about, okay, how well are you doing the thing you said you wanted to do? I was saying when we were talking about before this but my thing on the show was always, okay, if this is a good idea about the way to do it, I think we can do it well. But the question just is like, oh, was this a good idea, and then you go from there and you cross your fingers and you work as hard as you can. - So with the finale, I feel like I was surprised because this entire time I was like, okay, Jon's gonna get the rig, everything's gonna explode, he's gonna be making all these constructs and in a way you guys sidestepped that a little bit. So in the beginning of the process where you always like, something radical happened where it's like, Jon is like, I'm the green Lantern of Earth guy, you can be the one in space. Was that always something in the beginning where you're like, this is the story we are telling? - It was pretty, pretty close, pretty close. I mean, you know, you put up like tent poles in the storytelling and then things shift a little bit, but the big ones were always kind of like, they stuck, you know? And so we knew at the end, Jon was gonna take the rig, then the existence of guy that we were like, okay, what do we do? We were about, I don't know, a third of the way through breaking the whole thing when all of a sudden we were like, it's more of like, he's almost like a Ronan in a way. It's like, and once we did that, we're like, okay, good. We're going, we know we'll get there, and we trust that we can get there in a meaningful way, but like, it helps to know where you're headed. - It was interesting as well in this episode because we see the new Lantern that Sinestro creates. We see the yellow cracks and fissures in it. And to me, I'm like, oh, this opens up so much storytelling possibility. How much of that was a push and pull of like, how much do we reveal? How much do we save? 'Cause as a comic fan, my mind was going crazy. - Well, I'm a big believer that like, in any season of TV, you need to end your story 'cause it's like, you need, otherwise it's like, you made a promise to the viewers and you didn't fulfill it. So like, we need to answer our mysteries and all, but at the same time, there needs to be things that you know you can build on or go back to and some of them could be like, oh, that lantern looks sus, you know, or it could just be emotionally shit's gonna go down between these people in the future. And you know that there's possibility and it's always, it's always part of your world. Then you might get back to it in a season two, you might get back to it in a season three, but it's there. So you build that stuff to have places to go that are organic and are always inside your story, but hopefully you end your story too. You know, the thing that people started like, 'cause it's like, you're asking for people's time. What, how does that work though with knowing that your character has to go on exist in a larger universe? I mean, when you're doing Ozark or you're doing a different show, you're telling the life stories of these characters, sometimes with this devastating brutality that they have to go through. So remember to see where she flips out in Ozark. Ah, fuck it, kill it! I was like, shit, you know what I mean? You're existing through the house and you fucking mad. I knew when they killed that boy, I'm not gonna get that ugly. But with this one though, you're taking care of your story. But also, we know that John's in "Man of Tomorrow." Yeah, did you know John was gonna be in "Man of Tomorrow" when you're breaking this season of TV? At a certain point we did, not initially, like when we were right in the pilot and started in the room. But we knew that part of our job was to launch John as a character, and we know that world exists. So I mean, like, you know, we're not done. We can do, we can do that. So how do you split the baby on that? It's in terms of ending your story, but preparing him to be useful to somebody else's. You know, I really, we just tried to end our story and then say, here he is, go with God. And if there's any problem with it, let us know if we need to tweak anything, but we didn't need to tweak anything, you know? But it was really just like, okay, trust that we created hopefully a character that's a 360-degree character. And then, you know, it's storytelling. It's like, okay, your turn. Like, I wanna watch that, I wanna watch that. - You gotta launch John, right? Like the whole point of the show is to launch John into this large universe. But part of that, you give him his own oath. Right? - Yeah. - In the comics, like, multiple characters have different oaths, so that's not new. But like, what was the thought process in like, this is gonna be John's oath? Like, why was it written away that it was written? - It's funny, like Justin always said in one of our writers that it's like, okay, we're not rewriting, we're just remixing it, you know? But it's like, John's whole path to it wasn't that same as anybody else's path. Like, the ring didn't choose him, you know, he got interviewed for it, but then he needed to choose that he wanted the job. He turned down the job and then came back and needed to want it on his own terms, not his parents. You know, not just because of the guardians. And we talked so much about fear, obviously, because it's a big part of the mythology and the canon. And we really landed on, there's a line in the finale. It's like, fear is actually just emotional intelligence. Show me a species without fear. I'll show you something on the extinction list. It's like, it's true. So it's like, you can use it. You can, you want to be fearless, but like, you want to be intelligent too. Fear is probably a solution here. Exactly. Yeah. So, so we're like, all those things, we can't put him through this thing and have him learn all this stuff. And then just say an oath to people that he's not entirely pledging allegiance to at the moment in terms of the guardians. So we just want him to be his own man. But at the same time, it definitely nods toward the original earth. We don't, we don't want to disrespect it, but like, we just wanted John to be his own man. I'm curious how you, because like, it's reflected very well in how's final line to him. Don't be afraid to be afraid. The growth and like slight regression of how as he's giving the dismantle to John, what was like kind of the best balancing point that you needed to find after how passes and yet giving John the how he needs postmortem? Yeah, it was really, it was really tricky. It's like, and it's you know, you can write to it, which obviously we tried to do, but it's really too, part of it is just like what Kyle's doing, because there's not like, it's, there's a, there's a warmth and an openness to the hologram that there wasn't to how later. So, so we just try to find those moments where all the sudden John glimpsed how as an open and being like, oh God, well, he ended up this other thing, kind of beaten down a little bit by things, because it's a hard job and it's lonely. And I don't want to glimpse my future and be a little beaten down. And does that answer the question? It does, because I'm just curious about like the idea like, were you ever afraid to know that he's getting this catharsis effectively from a ghost or somebody that isn't real? That isn't really how? Yeah, no, we did. We wrote right to it in in in the seven that numbers changed at one point, but on the on the boat, and he was like, you know, John's like, I want his apology. He's like, I said, I'm sorry, he's like, I want his apology. And some of the heartbreaking thing in this is that he doesn't quite get, he comes to understand how. So in that way, there's some closure, but, but I think there's a sadness in the fact that he didn't do those two actual characters didn't get that moment, you know? In your headcaded for the greed letters of so interested now, because house ring, it seems a little bit different from guy's ring. It seems a little bit older. He has all these tricks. You don't do all of the comic book stuff where it's like, oh, the suits are actual leather and stuff like that. So when you are making this world, how are you guys trying to figure out what to take from the comics, what to keep, how to keep it grounded, but also expansive. Yeah. Oh god. No, it seems like some shame. No, I mean, I mean, really, I mean, we wanted everything to feel like a tool. Okay, the ring is a tool. The lantern is a tool. The the suit is a tool in a in a in a way, even like even things like the gun that shot that Anton uses the shoots the the memories into John's head. We wanted to feel like an actual thing that would be in someone's like, you know, tool shed. So that like, you always felt that like the job and the mission of it in that way. We always felt tethered to things. So so we really just leaned in that direction all the time. We wanted it to be like, this is a job and it's like, it's a cool job and you're a superhero, but like it takes a toll and the suit gets scuffed up, you know, and the lantern gets scuffed up and the ring gets scuffed up, you know, because we wanted to we wanted to believe it as much as we could that is we're going to get a suit. Well, did you guys ever have conversations where you're like, we gotta see him in the green lantern suit? We did a big game. I mean, yeah, they're drawings out there in the world. That's for sure. Yeah, we talked about it a lot at a lot at the beginning, but just by the evolution of the story that wasn't when we could have had him take a get a suit at the very end, but it felt more like him flying on his own as his own man, mirrored howl in a way. That doesn't mean he won't have a suit, but like in where our story ended, that just felt like the most poetic. Yeah, I'm so glad that Vanessa and them in the room too, because the bad version of that is that like he gets his suit and his suit be like Fubu. Oh, right, man. You know what I'm saying? But look, I've asked you something just about how I actually have a couple of howl questions before we move on to John. Number one, have you guys decided what manner you will resurrect Hal Jordan? And then number two, Hal Jordan is an interesting character because he is a classic comic book character that still has enough anonymity that you can do different stuff with him. Right. Like if you guys were trying to do this with Bruce Wayne or with Clark Kent or with someone like that, they'd have been pitched for us out for you guys. There was some of that with Hal with people going, that's not my howl Jordan, that's not my howl Jordan, that's not my howl Jordan. But how did you guys decide just how much you could take this character and challenge the audience with it? We wanted to, we just tried to find things that were interesting to us and the things that were real things you could talk about, about real people that aren't perfect. There's nobody that's perfect in this show. You know, it's Hal and Kerry and John and John's family. I mean everybody, you know what I mean? They're just like kind of like constantly, they're just people, you know what I mean? So they're all they're all flawed. So we, we just wrote what was interesting to us and waited if there was pushback from the people that we were making it for. They could tell us and we'd respond. But like, I mean, Damon, I used to talk a bunch of just like we're like, like in the tradition, someone does the, does their comic and then they put it out in the world and then the next, the next run, somebody else does it. Yeah, and it changes. And like, so like we're super aware that like we're the keepers of this story for a minute. And then if some of this sticks, people will take some of it and run with it and change it and I'll be psyched to see it, you know? I think that's what's kind of cool about the form. It's like, it's shared storytelling, you know what I mean? And uh, and it's all killed Kyle Chandler. Like you, you, you are getting the day. You're like, fuck, I'm like, they're going to be the last thing we've seen of Hal Jordan. What is this the last you heard me? I'm sorry. It's the last we've seen it. Absolutely. No idea. You don't know. Okay. Hey, you're thinking of season two. So you actually, I mean, there's a million, there's a million YFs. That's a good thing about fiction, right? And you didn't not allude to some of those things in this finale itself. Like, we have Sinestro talking about, talking about bringing him back to life for real. And the idea that again, we know that he's in, uh, mana tomorrow. Is there any sort of like idea in your minds of like, are we going to table set for a possible season two? Are we going to have something that like is going to like, at least allude to some other ideas? Cause you see that a lot in other shows that are almost too reliant on waiting for a second season to kind of give us like some big, oh shit moments. We didn't write toward platforming for a season two. We always wrote, assuming there would be a season two, do you know what I mean? We didn't think of it as a limited series. We thought of it. This is the show just going to keep going on. But it wasn't like, like we were just trying to, we were trying to buy the skin of our teeth or finish this season. You know, it wasn't like, oh, we've got a great idea for two and three. So let's like, let's layer in. Okay. Um, some of it is just, uh, you take a look at what you made and what's interesting to you and what's useful and then, and then you go from there. And hopefully you created characters that you could do different things with and put them in different situations. Let's talk about Noah for a second. You know, we were early adopters in that Noah was a man hunter. Like the no, the man I was and it took me a second. But then the man had a ring. He even had to carry everything peaked it from the first. Yeah. The moment that he walks over to him and teaches him I was like, watch that kid as the man hunter. He's a convert them. Yeah. I was, they were on it. I, it took me a second. And they have the conversation at the end with John. That's like really point in. And he's like, you got to kill me. I thought it was incredible. But like, what I really want to ask is, why did you give him an online like that? Oh my god. Oh my god. I switched it though. Because in the actual game. Sixty four years. So I could say about that. Yes. I mean, it's lucky he's a man hunter because of that online. He's not getting any traction. That's, I wasn't upset that day. I will just say, I will just say, I will just say it's unfair to our incredibly talented, lovely Russian director who I don't think has ever watched the minute American football. When they put. the extras out there, like, one kid was like five, nine, one 30, and he was like, there was what would number 29 and number 40. I was just like, oh, shit. And you can't really cut around it like this. I'm just like, he's scrambling for his life. Like I don't feel like we, I feel pretty good. We didn't mess too many things up, but like, it's so funny. You said that because we've been talking about that internally forever, like in the editing room. I'm just like, oh, God. I'm telling you work, though, 'cause in the last episode, but he's running for his life. He is running for his life. That's always good out the fling. Yeah. No, exactly. No, but like, as him as a man, and like, you guys are like, seeding that plot line, you get to that conversation with John in the car, and I can't remember the actress name for the life of me right now, but he like really sells it about how. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How he's like, I want to be a normal kid. I want to play football. I want to do this, but I have this like deep inside of me that wants to take over the world. Like when you are creating that character, again, we don't, we're not supposed to know this until episode eight. How do you like threat that needle? So when we get to that moment in the car, we're like, oh, snap. Like, this is a kid who just wants to do good, but has these internal demons inside. Yeah. We, I mean, we tried to like have like tiny little hints at it. It's like the, the day when all the shit goes down in, and Rushville and Zoe comes over to him and just like remember everything I told you, like those kind of things. But then we also, you know, and him, like I'm interested in politics when you, you know, that first night that comes over to dinner. Yeah. So we wanted those, those little things. But you don't, if you layer in too much, then everybody, I mean, Vance not coming from the beginning, but like, but like, then everyone sees it coming. And they're like, why are we looking at this kid? I'm like, oh, we're looking at this kid because he's the murderer in the end, you know? So it was a little tricky. And, and for me, we talked so much about parenthood and nature versus nature and, and nature versus nurture and programming for the manhunders, but also John's upbringing and like, what's, what's me and what's just, what my parents want for me and what's the difference and all those kind of things. So for us, some of what layers into that conversation that he did such a good job on in the car is knowing Carrie and knowing, like, is knowing, like, she raised him. And she's, he's part human and he's part that it's like, oh, she says the line in the, in the, in the final scene with how it's like, I just thought if I loved him enough, and like, is that enough? And it's the gamble that John takes at the end, you know? So we, so we were, I was kind of hoping you'd see a little bit of it from Noah, but then you'd feel the other from Carrie and even, and even her fear for Noah, mirroring Bernadette's fear for John, and John's realization of like, oh, my mom was like scared every day of my life. Like, she was, she was teaching me to be fearless, and like, she was terrified of about what she was doing. So, um, so we wanted it to kind of live inside those two moms in a strange way. That's an amazing balance. I'm very curious because like to orchestrate that level of narrative precision between characters, it's a lot of time to make sure that you're spending it adequately. There's not a wasted scene. Was there anything in the development of this that you're like, I unfortunate, we don't have time to lay this groundwork for something else? And not maybe not so much the storyline, but like, were there any beats that you missed that you wish that you could have had? No, there's actually a scene for, no, not for the most part. Like, there are, there are a couple scenes that we shot that aren't in that were, um, there's a scene with another scene with Noah and John that preceded that dinner scene, where he talks a little bit more about that, and he talks about going maybe going to the Naval Academy and all these kind of things. That we were afraid might just might have just tipped it, you know, and there was a scene actually in the, um, in the finale where carries there with a, to pick up, to pick up how. Right. There's a scene where Bernadette's there too in the script. Oh, oh, and there's a whole scene between them, and then Bernadette's, because Bernadette didn't know the carrier is going to be there and sort of put inside so she leaves and then there's carry. And, uh, and, um, that we thought was going to like help explain the Bernadette Hal thing, because it's weird thing like their friends, you know, and it's all off. You just got to take our word for it because I have enough screen. Um, so we had that, but it just felt cleaner on the emotional line with just carry in that, and how. In true detective fashion, you know, the detectives change, I got to ask, Kilowog, Kyle Rainer, Simon Bez, you know, Hal is dead right now. If you had to choose who are some of the lanterns on the board that you're like, I would like to play with these people. Vanessa's been talking a big kilowatt game for a long time. A long time. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's funny. I mean, it's like we've tossed out a lot of different things. I mean, again, we want to treat it all, you know, we won't be back in rushville. Unless something crazy happens in rushville, you know, every 10 years. But like, but you're going to be, it's going to be an earth based story that we continue most likely. I mean, would you, we've shown that you can leave the planet. So that's good. Right. Um, but because of that, we want to make whoever's here as sort of grounded and real as possible. Our idea was just to like, ground everything and then layer on the other layers. It's like, okay, you with us. Great. We're going to layer a little bit more in. It's like even in the pilot and the constructs. It's like the first thing Hal uses, it makes us a $20 bill. And then he makes, you know, a bottle opener. And by the end, he's like stopping that explosion. But it's just like, it's like, okay, are you, are you with us? Great. Now we can expand. And it's the same thing with introducing like all the other, all the other lanterns and stuff. Is still John story is John the character that you're like, this is still what kind of grounds us and the world is around him. Yeah. I mean, I think all of them. But yes. I mean, I think I think so. You know, it's like, I mean, we set out to make a story about John Stewart. And we set out to make him a fully dimensional character. You know, there's a reason why the origin episode is John. You know, I mean, you get a glimpse into how at the top of the top of seven. But like, and he talks about it was hopefully we added a lot of depth to Hal too. But like, we worked really hard to try to make John a real fully fleshed out human. So for John in a way to create him the entire archetype of a superhero was subverted, right? Before he becomes a superhero, you could argue that he is at least partly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people. Before he, before he even ever makes a save, right? It's almost like you guys subverted it. You really leaned into this guy starting off as a guy as somebody who has his own vision and version of what his destiny should be. And then he will become this thing is John Stewart of this world, even a superhero. Is this even a superhero show? Because what we've seen what we've seen recently in this this mythology is people grappling with things as human beings and stuff like that. And so I'm wondering. Do you see John Stewart? Yeah, it's a really good question as a superhero. I mean, yes, but like, but I also, and this is not me like evading the question, but like I see superheroes as people too. And so like, so I think absolutely yes, I don't think you can be someone that has that power and puts that power and can use it. But like, okay, well, how do you use that power? And those are very human decisions. You don't like get blessed with full clarity the day you get the ring. You know, so I think it's really interesting. It's like, how do these real people deal with these real powers? But I think absolutely he's a superhero. To that point, I don't know if you know this, but he's black. So he is a black superhero. And there is a lot of tension within even our community, the community of nerds about the idea of black superhero black heroism, right? The reason why Superman and Batman almost look like they could be brothers is because when America conjures a version of a hero, that's what they see, right? This guy got a fate. A crispy one at that. So we've obviously had brilliant people from your right of room on this show of Vanessa and Justin. What did you guys think of the challenge of introducing a black superhero to the world? I mean, it's sort of daunting because it is like it does feel like a responsibility and it's a real responsibility for whoever's going to play it. You know, it's got a it's got to own it. So, I mean, we talked a lot about it's weird. He's a hero. He's a superhero, right? But we also wanted him to be we didn't want him to be perfect like we didn't he wanted him to be able to like make mistakes. It's like even like sleeping with Zoe in the pilot. That's not mistaken. That's what I said. You got to get busy. Sometimes you got to get busy Chris. I don't know. Exactly. Sometimes you got to get busy. It was a long day. Did you guys see it that John, he likes, he likes a milk. He likes some older, was this, like, this seems like a great place to put this character. Yeah. Well, we were just like, okay, we want him to make very human, like, maybe a mistake, maybe not a mistake. We looked like something complicated, something complicated right away. And then we could use it and call it back and it could be funny and all those things. But like, from the beginning, there was a lot of talk about like, it's like, we don't want to, and I would talk to Aaron about, it's like, look, you're a marine, but marine is a job, not a personality. You're also an artist, you know, you're also an architect and all those things are in there. So like, you know, so we wanted him to be, we wanted him to get into making an imperfect person, but you also, it was a real trick in the pilot, especially because it's, you've got Kyle, who's, you know, the guy in his late 50s, and a white guy, and John, who's like 30, and John's very yes or no, sir. And there's a real danger in that, like, right off the bat of the power dynamic by the power dynamic. And it's in the Marines, but you also wanted to be able to be like, like, it's why I had him say, it's like, how come every time you say, yes, sir, it's more and more, like, fuck you. You have to find that balance in there, and you always felt like you could sort of like trip over with the micro aggressions that some people perceived coming from how to John real. Do you see how Jordan, because this is a big deal about anytime you, there's a racial dynamic in the show, people are going to ask, is race a factor here? Race is always a factor. Right. So do you, from, from how Jordan to John Stewart, do you think part of the reason why he was a little growing him is because there's something inside of him is this character or a racist? I think so. I think probably I don't think he's a racist, but I think he's not fully educated in terms of he, how Jordan probably wouldn't know what a micro aggression was, right? And I think would have go to dinner with all his black friends and have a really good night and not think anything of it, but also like, doesn't understand, you know, if, if, if you've, if you've had privilege, you just accept it, you know what I mean, you know, you don't think it's weird. And default. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, how needs to be taught a little bit just about, you know, it's not his fault. Mm-hmm. But like, but also learn. Yeah. Like, you know, and like, even in the writer's room, as we talk about this stuff, I mean, I have ideas about stuff and Daemoness ideas, stuff about stuff and Bri has ideas about stuff, Vanessa and Justin are both black people in the world that they say something that's like, oh, no. That's what you think, but, but I think this and it's like, oh, great. I just, learned. Like, just listen. Mm-hmm. It's like, it's like, it's sometimes, I mean, it's not that simple because of course, you know, but like, but some of it is just like, we all listen to each other and the character, like how, like, I think hopefully would evolve and listen a little bit more. Right. Because I think he's got a good heart. Yeah. My last question for you is like, you guys started this process. I believe two and a half, three years ago and superhero culture, superhero movies. Things have changed. Obviously, this is a big hit. But have you kind of learned about what it takes to make a show that, like, maybe avoids a lot of those pitfalls that other superhero shows or other super media, superhero media might fall into? I don't know if I will. That's, I don't know if you learned anything, that's a terrible thing to say. No, but like, I think for what I learned is what we thought going in, which is like, we're not making a superhero show as much as we're making a show in which their superheroes walk around inside it. And so just think about it, like, eight episodes that tell a story about these people and inside it, all those other things exist. Yeah. But like, we're just trying to tell a story about people. I mean, I know that sounds silly and stupid, but like, that's what we tried to do. And then we're smart enough to know that we're inside this cana that has all these things. And like, you can do all sorts of cool weird things with it and we're not sort of dumb that we would use them. I mean, stuff we're in the room. So like, are you guys having that dynamic where it's like, okay, what are the things in this world that we can use? Is this too much? Because you have the Green Lantern movie where it's like, yeah, I was just never going to happen. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, just in the movie, but just like, there was never, it's never like, oh, let's get all the stuff. It was like, what's our story? Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, it's like, I mean, we would talk about like, if I talk about ring charge another five minutes in my life, I'm like, that ring was never charged. Yeah. Well, just how look like the kind of person is like going to be able to keep on the ring charge. I'll tell you what the while we'll say about that ring is it holds on to that one percent better than my phone. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm like, it's like, we got seven minutes left, 20 minutes later. Yeah. Use the ring one more time. Right. But no, but I actually appreciate the fact that the story was grounded. I think the last thing for me is the last thing that. But John says to how is, or at least, you know, version of how as I love you. Yeah. And then how says I love you to like, and I had to watch it. I had to watch this thing like three or four times to get it. I'm like, he's tricking him into saying that, right? And even in death, his craftiness is still there when you guys like, when you're like, this is the last time we'll see how, but I mean, like, I mean, we talked about like, they killed it. They killed him. He's dead. Is Halagram like, you know, vanishes it there? When you're like, like, everything, everything you've dragged these characters through, I would, I could have imagined them at the end being like, I love you. I love you too. When you bring it to that like apex in your head, do you like, are you like, hopefully the audience understands what that means? Or are you just like, they don't say it. Let's let it fly. No. We want it. Like, we wanted to have earned that. And even like in a little way, like, the whole time the Halagram never called him Junior. He always called him trainee. Huh. And the last line is, I love you too, Junior. And so it's like the closest thing he's going to get to real Hal in that thing. And to us, it's like, crazy comp, but we talked about the movie Ghost, a bunch. Really? Yeah. And because in Ghost, there's like literally like, it's a love story between Demi Moore and Patrick Swasey and like, but by the end like he's he's gone, you know, we didn't have to make a pot together. Right. I think in the second act, maybe at the end of the play, you know, Ghost, you know, how Jordan is the specter in the comic book of visiting spirit. So I've heard, we just love Kyle Chandler, man, like that's what it is. You can't leave that. How can you not? How can you not? I mean, we also got, especially like with Hal being a little grumpy, like if Kyle wasn't so likeable at his core, like you couldn't get away with it exactly. I mean, he's he's so good. And he's also like, I think just because he's Kyle Chandler, he's like, oh, yeah, he's just like you just forget how good he is. Yeah. And how much skill he has, you know, but but some of that too is just like, oh, like because it's like he can be a bit of an asshole to John because like in the end, like, you know, he's kind of playing. He's kind of hazing him. But it's also like Kyle just like does it perfect. Chris, we're going to get you out of here, man. We really appreciate your time and also a thank you to you for creating a world where a white woman can kill her partner with absolutely no consequences. Hey, he's just trying to line his head and she's got brunch at the cafe on Sunday. The police. The cops. I tell you what, man, you get some good to get some back, thank you. We appreciate your time. We really appreciate the show. I was so glad you guys appreciate it. I like you guys have been so thoughtful about it. Like it's incredible. Like for real, it's like, it's cool. You guys like really get inside it and like, it's awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it, brother. All right. Monday was fantastic. By the way, shout out to the cast and crew. Not the cast. No, no, it was on. So I'm just not just joking. Shout out to the crew of Lanterns and everyone who's been really, really involved in this conversation. We haven't really enjoyed covering this show and not because of any relationships that we have with anyone just because this was good television. Yeah. We actually like, we didn't know that lanterns was going to become what it became. I don't want people to think like, oh, shit, we were, I was like, no, the show we liked the show and people over each other. Best seasons of superhero television ever. No listeners though. It was the best season. Oh, new listeners. Oh, new listeners. Guys, if you found us for lanterns, we should give them a little bit of a taste of what we doing for the rest of the year. We got doons day coming up. Doons day. Vision Quest. Yeah. Godzilla. Play face. Oh, yeah. Street fighter. Maybe. Street fighter. Maybe. She's got a lot of content. We got a lot of content coming and you guys are more, more than welcome to revisit any old episodes if you're new to the midnight boys and you want like idea of how this all got started which episodes do they listen to the black superhero's draft, the black superhero's that was our surf track. They are, they are out there. Is that on YouTube? I think that was our first video, what a debut. First video pie. We appreciate all the support. And this show is hugely sensitive for HBO and also for also videos. Oh, yeah, that's okay. All right. Programmer mind is on Monday. The House of R continues their lanterns coverage, which is going up. He's going up over there. Easter eggs, break curbs, theories, all that stuff. You're not going to want to miss the finale, uh, as covered by Mountain Joe on Wednesday. Reversed recommends is back. Bicca limber. Bicca limber. Bicca limber putting it down. Bicca, you know, we got to check in on Friday, Budmash covers Valor Mortis and forever ago. Yeah, that's a weird one. Yeah. Valor Mortis and forever ago. Forever ago. These are, I can't not wait to play forever. You're not going to play that you will play girl. Galactic grace or though? Galactic grace or I will play. You love that. Yes. Are producers today are Devin Brody, Jamie Eukits and John Jones, Jamie Adinner on on social. That's the old one. I was going to go production from Arjuna Ram Gopal hashtag. Uh, it was going to be Bob and weave. Jomi. Well, Bob and we've got Bob and weave. Jomi. Bob and weave. There you go. Bob. We'll Bob. We'll Bob. Uh, check. Take us out. We're not going to do the oaf. Oh, God. I'm not doing it. We didn't talk about that. Fuck that new oath. You're not special, nigga. Just say the regular oath though. Well, he can't say the regular oath because he's not a Green Lantern. You didn't like his new oath. We didn't talk about it. We shouldn't talk about it. It's actually holding the show. You didn't like the, um, you didn't like his new oath. No, Nick's trying to remix it. Like, just don't be special. Before we do, we make, we, we make it our own. He is special. He's not, he's, yeah. He said that old. Just like he wrapped fucking outcast. Right. So you didn't like the oath. Can anybody remember the oath off the top of the head? I cannot stop ahead. I wrote it down, but I don't have enough time ahead. Okay. Well, is it in black as day and nigga night? No white man will ever steal my light. Hey, you do it. Bring it home. Bring it home. Bring it home. Black as day and nigga night, no white man will ever steal my light. Let all these crackers that think they write. Beware of black power. Mother fucking right.