Lanterns Recap: Episode 4 - The Weenie

Ash Walker • 08 Sep 2026 Features

“Jazz. Well, this can’t be good.”

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SPOILERS AHEAD!

After a complete detour last week (in an admittedly great flashback episode), we finally get to see the full meeting between Hal (Kyle Chandler) and his former mentor/father figure Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), imprisoned after an attempted coup. It’s brief, but full of unspoken tension and betrayal, and it actually might be the best scene in the episode.

We’ve seen precious little of Ulrich Thomsen’s Sinestro - and I suspect we might not see a whole lot more of him this season - but he’s a magnetic presence, and this whole Hannibal Lecter-Will Graham thing he and Hal have going on is a really interesting dynamic. Still not convinced by that ‘tache though.

Back on Earth, John (Aaron Pierre) continues to investigate Macon’s compound - side note: the gun shop scene is hilarious - and discovers that there appears to be a hidden structure in the middle of it. A structure he refers to as a ‘weenie’, after a term coined by Walt Disney, that likely houses the Manhunter everyone has been looking for.

John also receives a visit from the Guardian Lianna (Laura Linney) who, finally tired of Hal Jordan’s insubordination, tells him that the ring is his for the taking. All he has to do is touch it and say the oath - which John gets the chance to do almost immediately, when Hal asks him to tunnel into the compound.

Interestingly, John doesn’t do it.

This is the guy who has been raised to always follow orders, unquestioningly. Who, only moments before, declared to Lianna that the ring has always been his, and Hal has only been keeping it warm for him. Does this mean that John has started to actually like Hal? It certainly seems like the two are bonding…

Within the weenie, our two heroes discover a cache of alien weapons - some of which shoot clouds of darkness and seem specifically designed to disable Green Lanterns - and are promptly captured. There’s a deeply weird, quite funny interrogation scene in which Will Macon (Garret Dillahunt) strips naked and forces John to draw him like one of his French girls, and we get a little backstory on Macon and his mysterious ‘benefactor’.

The boys are sprung by Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald) and strongly encouraged to leave town by multiple people, including Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan), who pops by for a late-night booty call with John and gets exploded for her troubles by a laser-equipped satellite. That satellite leads directly to industrialist Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazábal)… which kinda turns out to be the show’s first big misstep.

For the uninitiated, Hector Hammond is a longstanding Green Lantern villain - up there with Sinestro in terms of importance - so his introduction in this show should have been a huge deal. As it turns out, Hammond is actually Hector Gutierrez, another red herring orchestrated by the Manhunter to throw the Lanterns off its trail. It’s a bit disappointing, to say the least.

Swiftly after, though, we finally get the reveal that the elusive Manhunter has, in fact, been Zoe all along. Her ‘death’, and the whole detour with Hammond/Gutierrez, was a fake-out, and now the truth has been revealed - not only to our heroes, but the alien hit squad who are now headed to Rushville.

Random Thoughts:

• Abin Sur is bright pink, in case you were wondering.
• Another mention of one of the weirder Green Lantern Corps members from the comics! This time, Hal mentions that one of the other Lanterns is a squirrel, which is a clear reference to fan-favourite character Ch’p (or his replacement B’dg). I do hope we actually see some of these weirder characters at some point…
• The blossoming relationship between John and Hal is actually kinda lovely. Just two incredibly lonely guys bickering and sniping, while secretly learning to love and respect one another. I hope we see a lot more of these two on screen.
• I’ve thought from Episode 1 that Garret Dillahunt looks way too young to be Jason Ritter’s dad - but maybe that was on purpose? If the Manhunter used its ‘magic’ to heal him, maybe it made him look much younger too. 

Verdict: A big reveal and some great humour are balanced out with a wasted major villain in a mixed bag of an episode. Still great though.

Lanterns is available to stream every Monday from 2am on HBO MAX, available now as part of Sky Ultimate TV.