Off topic but where was Hal Jordan during the Justice League cartoon?

yea ngl the racial aspects of this episode felt so forced

but asides from that was great

Did those Russian dudes get drone strike and Hal basically saved them but still took that guy to gitmo?

they got these performers really dealing with some bs writing… all in all what maintains unassailable is Chandler and Pierre, the last moment crackled with authenticity after so many bum notes throughout the episode

found it boring but I wasn't all that locked in

The only part that threw me off was when she was talking to the Guardian and saying s*** like "even up there, yall don't see us" as if these space aliens were gonna be tapped into the racial inequality within America lol. Otherwise, I liked her having this warped view of Hal. Makes John and Hal's relationship more interesting since he has this preconceived notion of Hal as just a privileged white guy that took his dad's job (which we know isn’t true)

the whole "they dont see us cuz we're black in America" theme fell kinda flat for me

would have landed better if John Stewart's family was impoverished and that could have informed their outlook. but instead his family looked cushy upper-middle class with a big ass house and with his dad being a Marine makes the whole thing comes off as forced commentary.

i also didn't quite understand his mom's obsession with raising him to be a Lantern. like to what end? both his parents seem absolutely insane and i hope they explore the psychological impact of that on John. they robbed a kid of his childhood to get him to potentially become a GL. but based on his last interaction with his mom this episode, I feel like they won't go down that road.

Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre together really carry this show. most of the episode felt boring but the minute Chandler was back on screen, its like show got all its life back.

Great episode and for those saying that they’re preaching and what not, pretty sure that we’re supposed to believe that the parents are crazy, to the point that they tried to build a machine out of their son to achieve something that parents couldn’t. Then you look at the struggle between military and art, he wanted crayons instead of a gun.

The parents being like that hit with me when you look at Joe Jackson, the Williams sisters dad etc, who u can't really separate from the context of racist ass society also. These crazy parents really exist. Maybe coulda done better by showing rather than just having the mom say it tho so I get what people mean by that felt forced. But absolutely comes from something real.

Yeah — watching this as a black person really makes you feel something. A little heavy handed, but you get it. Still think it was a great episode but would have appreciated it being a little less talk and a little more show

The little lines like

“By black, you mean brown?” And “…is it?” were good lol

my frustration with the writing is it did not feel specific enough. It felt as blackness was treated as an abstraction rather than a lived experience which always irks me. The unfairness and prejudice was just not enough context to make the parents’ nuts behavior / abuse believable. There just was never a compelling why to their actions, not to jonny’s fearful initial response nor to their subsequent maniacal desires for John. In ways i like the initial impulse but it rings so false im annoyed

Your point is well taken that you can draw a connection but Joe and Richard are supremely interesting characters and imo you need that clarity and specificity of vision to justify putting your Black child in harms way. I do think 1996 provides enough context to do something cool but they just had some pretty bland and predictable talking points for justification. Maybe that’s a note of them not wanting to get real but this is a purposefully adult show and i would think it’s worth it get really real

A lot of interesting ideas and i acknowledge the degree of difficulty/ daring choice but unfortunately it was a total whiff from my perspective. What it did accomplish was making John Stewart more compelling as a character but didn’t need an episode diversion for that in this case.

It may just be another example of declarative writing that often bothers me in genre prestige but works for others

Guess: John is gonna save Hal against the orders of those uppers or whatever hence doesn't get the ring. Also improves their relationship.

end of episode 1 (flash forward) maybe leads up to the end of the series + gives us 1-2 episodes of John solo missioning?

i feel like his suit reveal is gonna be some serious s***.

Awesome

Makes a lot more sense why John couldn't watch that Hal interview in EP1

damn this shows falling off

Disagree, just starts to show how people lack Media literacy to understand what they’re watching. Just because the mom says something, it does not mean it’s the final word on something. Characters can have various opinions but not actually be the truth. But people that watch don’t want to think and go with the lowest hanging fruit as they say.