House of R - ‘Lanterns’ Season Finale Breakdown With Tom King

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Mal and Jo sit down with 'Lanterns' cocreator Tom King to discuss the season finale! They ask him about some of the big reveals from the episode, the creative decisions in this season overall, the relationship between John and Hal, and more! Plus, what kind of dip does Billy make? (00:00) Intro(02:06) ‘Lanterns’ as a murder mystery(10:53) The audience’s attachment to Hal(14:05) Hal and John’s Relationship(22:16) Kerry’s penance(24:46) The balance between grounded and cosmic storytelling(31:46) The future for Sinestro(36:30) What kind of dip does Billy make?(42:24) Hal’s most important lesson for John(45:02) John’s new oath Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinGuest: Tom KingProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to a very special, an interview special for House of R. We're doing a very special thing for this lanterns finale. We have the man, the myth, the legend himself, Tom King here on the show to talk about the lanterns finale. Malloribut, anything you want to say about that? Not only is Tom King the co-creator, one of the co-creators, along with Damon Lindeloff and Chris Mundy of Lanterns and an executive producer of lanterns. He is one of the great comic book, writers and creators in recent memory. So it was really a treat to talk to Tom about this finale and about the season of TV, but also just a about the story about apples, about Billy's Dip, about football, Star Trek,

and about being a nerd who loves this stuff. We really had a blast. It was such a treat to get to break this all down with Tom. This is a full spoilers, all of it. All of it. All the time. From minute one. So for the lanterns finale, if you have not watched that yet, go watch that and come back and listen to our conversation with Tom King.

And then mere hours after that, come back to the House of Our Feed, the Ring ofverse YouTube channel, because our deep dive on the season finale will be waiting for you first thing Monday morning. You know the drill from there. Watch, follow, hang out with us, send us your emails. Do it all. Excellent. So we're going to get to our conversation with Tom King right after this. More than ever, quality matters, but so does price. At Marshals, you don't have to choose.

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If you have questions or concerns about your game, gambling or someone close to you. Please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. I want to start, I've actually, this is a cheat. I've actually heard you talk about this elsewhere, but I found it so fascinating that I'm going to ask it myself, just in case our podcast listeners I haven't heard it. I feel it's a test, and if I say a different answer than before, I'll have screwed it up.

Yeah, exactly. No, this is so much a story about personal level. It's permitted. You're fine. Oh, great. Great. Personal evolution. Perfect. Yeah. That's the answer to it all.

I wanted our listeners to hear you talk about a murder mystery as sort of like a storytelling cheat or hack for introducing a new world for readers or viewers. Yeah, absolutely. But I said this off the air. I just want to say on the air. What a huge fan I am of yours. How much I love listening to you guys. How what big, am I let to swear, probably not eth in here. You are.

Oh, what big fucking nerds you are, how it just feels like I'm listening to my friends talk. Thank you for doing what you do and promoting what you promote. I have not listened to any of your lanterns episodes because it would drive me insane, but besides that, it's wonderful. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. So nice.

To answer the question, yeah, I mean, that's, is it the oldest trick in the book? No, because, like, the oldest trick in the book is Homer being like, no, you can't find your wife and you're looking for her. That's like the oldest trick, right? So this is the guy like the second oldest trick in the book is the murder mystery. And a lot of

people when they're building a story, and by a lot, I mean, it's got like 40% of stories. Like, it's a ridiculous amount of stories. Are you think of an incredible world that you want to explore as a writer? And that can be anything from another planet to a cruise ship, to a place in the past

and you're like, how the hell do I explore this place? Like, what is my character do to explore? I know, someone gets murdered and I have a detective investigate that and he can go through that. And so that's why how we get, you know, things like Watchman, a very famous comic is just a murder mystery comic

and how we get things like, you know, Chinatown exploring this sort of LA thing. But it extends, you know, beyond noir, it's almost every genre you can have. It's just, it's almost a cop-out that it's so easy and clear, cliche, but it's not, it's just, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's how, it's how writers do their work by doing the same thing, someone else's done, but put your own vision on it. Well, I'm curious, I'm curious then in terms of crafting a murder mystery at the center of a story, how important to you, especially, like, in the context of television, how important to you is something like, surprised.

in a finale and a revelation for for who done it. Like, are you looking for jaws to drop or do you want to lay a breadcrumb trail that's sort of thick enough that we all felt like we followed it together? I really should not be honest about this. But so I apologize. Yes, you should.

Yeah, I think you should. As a fan, right, as a guy who was very much a fan boy who didn't start writing comics until I was 34. war. So you've got to imagine I have many years of consuming before I became someone who created. You

care from the outside so much about the plot, so much about the murder mystery. Once you start to create it, you care less about the plot and more about the characters. Who does the murder? That's very interesting. She's sort of the first day you get it and you're like, okay, I got this murder. And not every writer is the same. I should say that. Like, different people

think differently. But at least for me, you're like, okay, that's the plot, but what matters to me is the execution, is the actual words, it's exploring these characters as they go along the way, because a very boring murder mystery is just a very boring murder mystery. What makes it stimulate, makes it interesting, is that you're super invested in the characters that you're actually exploring something, but you're actually saying something. And so it's so much, because the audience, you forget that part, because to you, that's become such a 1% of what you're working. You're working the other 99%. But the audience,

that's 80%. And so it's like a reversal once you sort of cross the line. Like, well, who did it? You're like, what do you care who did? Did you see the incredible suit John Warren what that said about his character? You're like, no. So, yeah, it's a bizarre thing when you sort of cross the path from creator,

from observer into observed. We, despite all of those beautiful and poetic things you just said about how it's less about the plot and more about the heart of the thing, we do actually still want to ask you about the carry of it all. Because, you know, we are, I just chatted with you know, you and Chris and Damon and Kyle and Aaron.

And so I heard Chris's answer to this question, which is basically like, did you ever consider anyone other than Carrie? Was it carry from day one or were other contenders in the mix? And, you know, it sounded like the answer was pretty early on. It was going to be carry. But I'm curious for you, because we, on House of our, we've been speculating freely. You know, we always, Joe always says, like, hold a theory loosely, but also we like to go to theory corner.

And, you know, Carrie was a suspect of ours for sure. We considered Noah, considered Billy. We considered Leanna. We considered the idea that it had been, you know, Hal, given how the season developed. Was it always Carrie for you? Did that always feel like the right choice? Why did it feel like the right choice? And how does what happened with Carrie and the reveal on the finale, you know, feel like it connects to the overall season-long examination for Hal, certainly?

of opening up, right, of forming these real relationships, because that's a tough thing. Tough. That's on brutal beat for Carrie to be the one to put the bullet in hell's head. Pain. I mean, when something goes from zero to something, like this wasn't based on any previous property. It was just, first just me in a room and then three dudes in a room

and then six writers in a bigger room, sort of these sort of different phases. And so, like, every possibility was considered. We knew it was going to be generally thought would be a murder mystery for those reasons I said before. So we, like, who's going to get murdered? It was like the first. Like, what's who's the, like, sure. And we definitely all threw out candidates.

So we told him and I landed on how. And including Carrie. And then once we had a, we had a murder victim before we had a murderer for sure. And then we were sort of going through like this world we had built and like who would this and this. in this. But yeah, we got to carry pretty early on. I think, I talked about this in the bigger press conference, so forgive me for, but one of the big things was undermining cliches. And when we were undermining cliches this whole thing is it's a, it's a superhero show, but it's not bombastic. It's doing true detective. That undermines the sort of a superhero cliche. But there's also the fact

that we're doing a detective show cliche in a small town. And that's like a second set of cliches that comes in, which is more relevant probably to Christian Damon, who have written the those kind of show before, as opposed to me. But one of the things that's a cliche in all those shows is the small town female sheriff, usually a single mom, sometimes not, basically all modeled after the, you know, the platonic ideal of the Fargo sheriff, right? Like that. And so the idea, and then she's helpful and she falls in love with your lead, but she's

actually tougher than you think she is. There's all sorts of cliches beyond that. And so one of the ideas was like, how do we make that character deeper? and the idea that she would be the murderer that that character that usually is the helpful kind of person who solves the murder and is the love interest is actually at the center of this conspiracy and is causing the conspiracy

rather than reacting to the conspiracy was very appealing to us in sort of our calling card of resist the normal and get the surprise. Can we stay on the death for a minute here because I want to talk about the person on the other end of that bullet for another minute here, Hal, you have spoken about and shared, you know, how Hal is your favorite character, but also how in an effort to deliver on this promise for Lanterns to be a show that felt

like it was really about real life and rooted and grounded in real life, that grief and loss had to be centered in the story, right? What is it like, I'm wondering, because you've shared your own feelings about that. What has it been like for you to watch other people now go through their version? of that with Hal, with mourning Hal. You know, people who have both the people who've loved him for ages who've been attached to him from prior stories

and had a relationship to him and also people who, this is their first experience with Hal. They discovered Hal here. They fell in love with him for the first time after meeting him in the show. And they have the shock of the death at the end of the premiere, but then also this second wave

of mourning him anew when the halogram flickers out. What has that been like for you to see other people form this attachment and grieve a character who has meant so much to you as a fan and a creator alike. I mean, there's quite a few sides of it. First of all, it's just I've never related to an audience more.

Trust me, like, when we were at the table read for the first time and Kyle was reading, you know, Harry Potter went to Hogwarts to ignorant alien fuck, which I very much remember. And I remember just like, you know, Chris Damon. So it was like, how are we going to bring him back to life? like Kyle is so good Like we cannot have this end And and you just

You fell in love of that character even more And yeah I've written him briefly in the comics And then I wrote a comic that was like a parody Of a terrible world where Hal like puts his ring Just and blows his head off And that was to show how awful the world was That it was so bad that this could happen to Hal Jordan I'm going to say Kyle and Hal they're going to flip in my head

And I apologize I'm sure John and Aaron will do the same But, so another level of this is just convincing people that I don't hate Hal that I love this character. I just think he is so fantastic. One of my deep nerds is Star Trek. I'm a Star Trek. And to me, Hal Jordan is Captain Kirk. Like, he's that, I don't believe in a no-win scenario.

That was like my hero growing up, the idea, like, why does God need a starship? Like, he's the guy who just, he has no fear, but he's always willing to take that next step. I love him. And so I utterly, I utterly sympathize, but I think that's just, you know, we're, we're living in a time of this sort of this superhero fatigue where people can look at superhero content and say, oh, this means nothing, it's noise.

It's just the same thing I've seen a thousand times. Yeah. And so one of the ways to cut through that noise is to do what writers terribly, the one no writers hate to get from every other writer, which is kill your darlings, and to be like, look, we love them as much as you love them, And that's the stakes we're willing to do to tell you this universe is big and this universe is real,

this universe match. Can I ask you, I also love Star Trek. Right. If Hal is Kirk, is there a temptation then to put some Spock in John, like that sort of logical cooler demeanor inside of? Oh, man, it carries bones. It's fine.

Yeah, you're seeing through the Matrix now. You are 100% seeing. It's all that. I love it. The first writing lesson I ever I worked for Chris Claremont who's Yeah. If you love X-Men,

he just basically did X-Men. It's more complicated than that, but if you love that sort of thing, I was his assistant when I was like 18 years old. And the first thing you ever told me about writing that really penetrated my mind is like, Kirk is the best character to write in fiction. I was like, why is he best?

He's like, because his brain is outside his body. Like as a writer, when he has a logical thought, that's Scott, when he has Spock. That's when he has an emotional thought, that's bones. And so you can have, have sort of his it and a super ego argue with each other while you're right. I never thought of character. I was like characters being separate things.

And the idea that all three of those were pointing in the same direction. And I think you, in this show, yeah, there's definitely that dynamic that I learned from Chris when I was 18. This is like that golden trio episode we did, Mallory. It is. Yeah, exactly. Love it. Just thinking of that.

Can I follow? Okay, so this show, this relationship between John and Hal, or the Hallogram, if you prefer to delineate it that way, ends with an exchange of I love you, which is just my favorite thing that has happened. Amazing. Just amazing. I love love stories, however they manifest. And this series, as we were covering it, we were talking about the show, hacks. Like, we were talking about these like sort of mentor, mentee love stories that are platonic,

but it's about learning to love this other person and also learning to love yourself in the process. So can you talk about this idea of this, you know, there's the Carrie Howell love story, which we are both very invested in. But there's the John and Hal love story. Can you talk about that as a foundation of this show? I also love love stories. I write them too much into my work. No such thing.

No such thing. No such thing. I'm writing my first romance now with Superman. Thrilling. Oh, my God. It's so good. Oh, my God. Wow.

But not just because I was inspired. by your talk of all the of all the things but partly because i appreciate that um but yes i i do when we first talk about a buddy comedy in the beginning damon echoing you know learning something when i'm as old as that 30 years later um immediately was like i've written buddy cops before and buddy cops are just romantic comedies by other names he's he's he's like that and i was like oh my god he's he's 100% right like like it's it's you do the meet cute you do the build you do the break up, you do the get back together. It's the

same thing except, you know, you say bro instead of honey. Yeah, or buttercup. Or Buttercup. Or Junior. Or Tex. Yeah, and I watch the, in prep for this, I watched, I didn't watch the finale in months.

And much to my kids dismay because we're watching it live, they haven't seen it at all. I was watching at the breakfast table this morning. Like, shut up, I don't know. Oh, man. And yeah, when we came to that, I did not, I think Chris wrote that last scene, so I'm not, I'm not complimenting myself. But yeah, it got me choked up with the I Love You Too, like those two. Because it feels like, even though it's only been eight episodes, and even though if you actually track it, they weren't together that long, it feels like they've been through something.

And the great romances that make me cry as when people have kind of gone on a journey together. And it's been up and down. And at the end, you're like, but we're still here, you know, we matter to each other like that. And I felt all of that. I mean, and it's so much in Kyle and Aaron's performance. I mean, Kyle's got that sort of Harrison Ford's smile. And Aaron has just, he stands like a superhero among men, so that helps. Let's stick with the emotional heft that we feel between so many of these characters,

because this season engages with and grapples with some very difficult subject matter. You know, we have Martin Jordan's Suisse. aside, the idea of the Jordan boys' legacy, it's in your blood. We have John telling Noah that, you know, Zoe wanted him to kill her and then Noah asking John to kill him. We have Carrie worrying about whether Noah has her, you know, quote, shitty genes. We have John, of course, confronting, you know, across the season what his, what his parents did, the choices that they made for him. you know, the idea of whether we can escape our nature and the ways that we can come to fear what is lurking inside of us. You know, I was just so struck by that Noah line in the finale.

If you could see the inside of my head, you'd never stop screaming. Like, I'll be thinking about that forever. Same. What a bar. That's a Damon Lindelof basketball. That's like the Miz coming in with 105 there with the heat. Just unbelievable. But there's also just such an empowering and hopeful emphasis, right, entwined with all of this.

There's Hal telling John that Martin couldn't bear to let him see him. And then we watch Hal in his second chances find a way to do that, to open up, to build new bonds, to let other people see him to share. We hear John say that Noah's actions aren't programming, that they're love. Obviously, Hal and John, you know, in addition to the I love you, Hal tells John, don't be afraid to be afraid. So the show interrogates what people do to each other, but also then champions connection with each other as a path to healing and growth and betterment. How did both of those missions feel equally important

and ultimately inextricable? Because there is a less deft and well-executed story where it feels like dissidents. Like those things are in conflict with each other, but here they just ultimately like heightened each other. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely a wonderful compliment. Thank you for seeing all that stuff that we worked so hard on and hope would be in the final product.

I mean, I think that's what makes John unique at the end of the story is his ability to kind of see that. Damon, we all have kids that are about in their teenagers and are sort of about to leave. And I think a lot of this is sort of built on the fear of are they going to, if you're a writer, you're full of anxiety and emotion and insanity. Like, that's what it means. That's why you do this for a living instead of, you know, be a lawyer or a doctor, like a normal or a normal, like that's obviously. Oh, yeah, that's normal. We're normal. And so, of course, we also share the anxiety of like, have we even this for kids and have and have we not. But the idea at the end that John's trauma, I never remember about this a lot. It's a horrible thing. It's horrible.

It's horrible. It's horrible. All of us can go through it. But it also becomes part of you. It also becomes part of your strength. It's not just something that you need to be scared of. It's something that you can also eventually be proud of. Your scars become your armor, become your ability to fight, right?

And the fact that John went through this childhood where he was sort of put through such hell and had to come to grips with that and rebel against it and go back means that he can see people in three dimensions. He can see Noah's struggle the way I don't think even Hal would see it. He can see Carrie's struggle. I don't think the way Carrie would see her own struggle

and get the sense that like, you see that moment with Bernard. He's like, yeah, my mother was horrible to me, but she was also wonderful. Like, my father was scared as anything, but he was also brave. And I can see both sides of that. And that's what makes him evolve. It's making him the ability

to have the bird without the ring. It's that sort of next step beyond sort of one dimension to three dimensions. And then that's why he's at the hero. The end, and that's I feel the story of the finale looking back on it. And I think you especially get that with Kelly's performance, just being struck by it again this morning where

I think in a normal drama, you draw just a direct line between what Sheriff Kerry does in terms of she kills him and then she calls hell. And you'd be like, I killed him and then I had a plan to hide my murder. Like you'd Colombo, I love Colombo. You'd be like, there's my whole plan to get away with Colombo. But her plan doesn't make sense. And I remember in the writers room that kind of bothering us, like, why did she call John? She's going to get discovered.

But then she hides it from John to not get discovered. And it goes back and forth. And I was very bothered by this just as a storyteller because it wasn't a linear line. It wasn't Colombo. But when I see it now, it just feels so much more human and so much more like, She's making mistakes and regretting them in real time. Yeah. And she's not in control of her emotions.

Who would be in that circumstance? Who would do the right thing exactly correct? And she doesn't know herself even entirely. And to me, it reads as more human. I think that's what John sees. Yeah. I also felt that it just, it felt like carries, maybe a more shielded and, like, private version,

but Carrie's version of penance, you know, which is obviously so much a part of the argument. for Hal and others. Yeah, we've emerged just discussed, like, I'm a big film noir fan, and it used to be, because there used to be a film noir in the 50s, there was a code, and like,

if you committed a murder, you had to go to jail by the end. That was the law, like, the FCC would get involved. We don't have that anymore, but it's still, like, kind of ingrained in the DNA of our watching. They were like, oh, someone committed a crime

and they have to be punished. There must be, and so we had a big debate, it was like, does Carrie get punished? Like, nothing could punish her more than the fact that she did that thing and she has to live with it. There's no, like, jail isn't worse than that. Like that, she, um, and that, so that was a big part of thing.

It sort of carries and how she ends up in the end. It's funny because, um, I'm a huge Kelly McDonald fan from everything she's done. Oh my God, right. But most of all, my most rewatched, my one of my most beloved movies of all time is Gosford Park and spoilers for Gosford Park. But this is a Gosford Park ending. What purpose could it possibly serve? And I just like, I got really excited by that. Um, and I think it's a brilliant ending. Um, I wanted to circle back. Talk to, you know, you mentioned the goat, Bernadette.

I'm mixed on her parenting. I'm writing Mr. Miracle and the one that has a villain called Bernadette, so sing some of it's like, oh, I got her name, so you're all right, yes. Last year, Variety announced a different actress to play sort of like an older version of Bernadette. And so I'm curious if there was ever, and, you know, here in the finale we get Jasmine Seafs Joan, who's been amazing in sort of older age makeup here. the finale. And I'm curious if there was ever a different, I don't know, split between 2016 and

2026, a different balance of the Stewart family story inside of the larger story that you decided to recalibrate or what was the decision there? I mean, Chris can talk to it better than I can, but it was nothing more than logistic stuff of could we make an actress who's in her, you know, who's 30, look like they're in their 60s. Like it was like it was. It was, It was nothing more than would the makeup look silly and could we pull it off. And I think at some point we're like, no, we can do this. So we're going to sleep with one actor. So it was nothing more than the practicality of how makeup goes on a face.

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Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. That very different subject matter, but talking about like how will things look on the screen makes me think of another question I wanted to ask you. There's been, you know, rightly, such an emphasis across the season. about how grounded,

how grounded lanterns is, and that is obviously true. But the show also manages, this is something that Joe and I have really appreciated and talked about in our coverage this season, never seems to feel embarrassed of its cosmic and comic book elements and roots. You know, you can think of the constructs

or finally seeing Anton's planet or everything with Sinestro, or obviously, most importantly, of all our Guy Earle, Were you the keeper of those keys as someone so steeped in comic book creation and also celebration? And just more generally, like, how did you and the team approach ensuring that lanterns would honor both its dusty, true detective mission and the larger Green Lantern's ties and universe that it is a part of? I mean, I think there was a spectrum in the room with Chris, Chris Munny, who's the showrunner, who readily admits he has a, no nerd access I don't think he's seen endgame

like I don't like he's like What about end game encore? Yeah that's yeah maybe he went this weekend No I mean like Chris like plays tennis and basketball He's like I don't even know how to relate to that shit I'm on the floor reading To you know Some of the writers who were in the middle

You know a Bree and Justin and Vanessa And then to Damon who's who's deeply nerdy and knows this stuff very well and grew up reading comics and then to me who's just like a meshed in the stuff and so but I mean

I think one of my I need to say roles in the room because sometimes the roles get reversed but it goes from both polarities of me one of my roles was to be like this isn't a detective show this is a superhero detective show and to constantly remind people

that our audience is that none of us got in this room because we want to write True Detective Season 5 we want to write lanterns and to sort of stick up for that and to say don't be proud. But the other side of that equation

was the pull from the other side, which is a lot of, and I've seen this over and over again, having worked both sides, Hollywood and comics, is that when Hollywood touches comics, they tend to think comics are, I don't know what the right word is, but dumb is one of them.

Like, they tend to look down on comics and think, oh, I'm working with this meeting of superheroes, therefore I can make this, it's not lazy, but it's like I can lean into the boring, the cliches, the, like, the, the capes will get me as far as I need to go. And I've seen, like, incredible creators who would treat

regular people with nuance and beauty get to a superhero and they're like, no, they just have to fight at the end, right? That's what just, like, final. And so from the very beginning, on the other side of this was to be like, I'm here to tell you, take risks, push this, you know, put

your true detective into the, this, into this, don't talk down to this audience. The comic audience are very intelligent. They're very smart. They've seen everything before. They, they, they, they're just as, people watching these superhero shows are just as smart as the people who are watching, uh, the fancy shows that are on HBO all the time. Yeah.

So I, I try to play both roles. I, well, so I'm, I want to push you a little further on your role in the writer's from because I've heard you, uh, give credit to Chris Money. I've heard you give credit to Damon Lindeloffer, line. I've heard you talk about Justin, Vanessa, and all of them. I want to hear you talk about a pitch or decision that you made in the writer's room that you were sort of most excited, wound up being in the final product that you're like, this is an idea I had and we executed it and I'm super proud of it. Brag on yourself, Tom. Flax. Do it. Yeah.

I'm going to brag on myself. I mean, I remember what I thought of the, um, the apple on the head and the Are You Afraid, which opens everything. I just remember that I couldn't sleep one night. It was we were writing the pilot and I was, and I just was like, how do we, how do we get John's origin story to be something slightly more interesting? And we added to it so much as it went along, but just that initial like, I just saw in my mind that sort of opening scene where this father puts an apple on his son's head and says, Are You Afraid and shoots it off?

And I pitched it the next day to Damon and Chris. And this was my, I've worked in a lot of television that, like, hit walls. This is my first thing that we were like, we were on the Warner Brothers lot. I was working, we were in Damon's office with his fucking watchman, Emmy, like, still in there. Yeah. Looming. Incredible.

And, you know. And Chris is, you know, telling stories of, like, working on Deadwood back in the day. And, like, you're just like, you're so intimidated. It's like, to go into that room and be like, I think this is how we should start the pilot. And for those two guys to say yes. was a good day. Did you pitch a red apple specifically, or did it matter one way or another?

This is big for us, the Apple Wars, Green versus Red, always. This is such a writer's room kind of thing, but sometimes you do these things where you pitch the obvious idea because you're like, and then we'll build upon this. And then as, as, because things keep going,

the obvious idea is still there. And you're like, I can't believe this. They have an apple on the head, like, if you think that's like the first thought anyone has that William Tell Apple on the head. Yeah, sure. So you pitch that like, apple and head or whatever we think of.

And then it kind of just, well, this apple that's still there? All these years, like, I thought we would think of it's like he jump up off a diving board or something. But no, it's apple on the head state the whole way. I mean, he sidestepped up the answer, so he's not taking sides. He's not taking sides in the green versus red apple world, which I think, you know, he, who is not team red at the end of the day, other than you, Joe. Lentany of people, Valerie has it turned down. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You ask you what I like better red or green apples?

Yeah. Oh, my God. No, the best is the red with yellow. Like it's the, yeah, no, not all red, but... A honey crisp. A honey crisp, it's been talking about, yeah. Fucking delicious. Thank you, Tom.

Tough to hear it. All red is too mushy. It's too mealy. You got to get the... It's about the bite. Green apples are very crisp. You just had bad green apples. Listen, red apples centered in this television show,

a beautiful, brilliant idea from Tom that allowed us to access questions about nature and programming and fear. I mean, where would we be without red apples? Oh, sure. Where would we be without red apples? without red apples taking the place of dead bodies in a poltergeist-s haunted horror sequence, Malia Rubin.

Let's talk about that for a second, actually. Our guy, Sino's. That was a Damon pitch. Okay. Yes, the apples floating in the water. Very much for a day. I mean, spirit of collaboration is really what we're hearing here. So beautiful, beautiful.

We love a creative partnership here on this podcast. Sanestro, just a complete delight across the board. Particularly fun in the finale to see him just shift in really. time from pitching John to pitching Hal to pitching John based on how his comments were being received. It was hysterical. Obviously, you know, we know there's nothing that you could say about a future story, but in terms of what comic book fans and people who are familiar with the wider lanterns canon might have been thinking as they saw Sinestro in this setting, you know, our guy is sitting

here trapped on a yellow planet drenched in fear toxin, shitting himself in terror, but also also making speeches about weaponizing fear. Would it be appropriate for comic book fans to be thinking about Senestro Corps to be thinking about Parallax? I mean, everything is appropriate, and I've loved everything I've seen. It's such a goddamn political answer.

I should say some more interesting than that. So I absolutely apologize. But I think what's appropriate is to see that I think Sanestro hints at the larger world, that's worth exploring, both behind this one and, you know, in the future of the DCU, as we already see John's coming back and met him tomorrow this summer. And so I think all of that is there. And I think, you know, if you watch this now, the fact that he built this lantern,

not just a green lantern that has the streets of yellow in it. And that John is now drawing from a lantern that is, is both troubling and inspiring, which is what's going to make for good HBO TV. So I think all of that is in there. What I like most about the Senestro is the untold story of sort of Hal and Sinestro's breakup.

Yeah. And that's, looking back on this season, how impactful that is, because it's really what the difference is between the Halogram and Hal, is the halogram hasn't gone through that moment where his best friend, the person he, you know,

he loved as much as you see him, love John at the end of his episode, betrays him. And he's the one who has to go off and sort of, you know, and get him, you know, that's sort of of mice and men, you know, like taking him behind the rabbit shed at the end, you know, like, he sort of had that, yeah, right. Sweet land.

He never did anything wrong. That's what made how so honorary. And so, like, the fact that he wouldn't open up to John was because he'd been through something where he'd opened up to someone and gotten completely closed down. But that's all off screen and in the performance that Kyle gives. And I think it's an incredible story that has yet to be fully told. I was really curious about that. In this finale confrontation, Hal seems quite ready to be like, shut up Sinestro. I'm Team John here.

That Hallogram, who has not gone through that traumatic event with Sinestro yet. So at what point does the Hallogram, you know, who we were thinking he would be conflicted because here's his mentor who he doesn't know betrayed him, but maybe did the Hallogram get a download about, Did he like go on Wikipedia like Carrie did and look at like what Sinestro did? Like how did he know to to not take his word for it? I mean, we have eight episodes of how he's saying trust Mike, he trusts his gut. And I feel like he's on a, he's on a weird planet. He sees a guy who's very old and strapped to a chair, ranting like an evil person.

I think I'll trust it his gut and said to trust John over Sinestro. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I thought it was like in a surprising but really satisfying way. It felt to be kind of more impactful, actually, that Hal chose to reject Sinestro's temptations that he wasn't vulnerable to them,

despite not having gone through that because it felt like a way to kind of, you know, solidify and cement really what the halogram and John in this just short, a little burst of time, we're able to achieve together, which then really, you know, amplifies all of the other messages about if you open yourself up, if you're able to not feel like you need to repress or tamp down your fear,

but you're able to examine it, you know, and work with other people to try to navigate it. So I quite loved that. Great stuff. We only have a few more minutes. Do you have a few more minutes? Of course. Thank you so much.

I'm sitting here feeling guilty for the Apple thing. So I can just look on face. I don't think you should. I think siding with Team Red was the right decision. And you should feel great. There are plenty of luminaries on Team Green. I'm doing fine. They name the most harsh candy after green apple.

If you want to punish a friend, you give them the green apple flavor. I love green apple jelly ranchers. They're delicious. More of them for you when we buy a shared bag. Yeah, cherry is better. So it's watermelon. While we're talking about food, should we go to the source here? Should we ask Tom about Billy's dip?

Please. What kind of dip does Billy make? What is Billy making a signature dip? Special dip. I threw out like seven-layer dip or taco dip. Joe thought maybe like a buffalo chicken. What do you think? Is this actual canon?

Is it head canon? Is there an answer? Oh my God. So the show takes place in Rushville because my, that's the time my grandmother is from. I grew up in Los Angeles. My grandma was from a very rural town. And I was a single mother when like a lot of single mothers, a half raised by my grandma. And so she was sort of telling me stories about a little bit.

And after she passed away, I got a rest of a little bit. recipe book from her. And it was like an old Nebraska and there was something in it called the dip. And it just reminds me and my wife always make fun of it because it was literally like a pound of velvita, a pound of chuck and a pound of heavy cream and supported a bowl and mixed.

Yes. And that's the dip. I knew it. I knew that it was meat heavy. I knew it. Incredible. Beef though, of course. Amazing. Disgusting. Sounds great. We should try it. You should try the dip. Sure, it's delicious.

A Midwestern special. And it comes with a salad, which is just a head of lettuce and a bottle of ranch dressing. Incredible. Correct. Yeah, with some bacon, hopefully, sprinkle on top.

Mallory, Mallory just asked a very neat question. I'm going to ask a very Mallory question, which is... Is it about sex? I'm loving this. I'm loving this. Sorry.

It is. It's about the location of where we find Earl in the post-fire Bachelor pad, the, like, shotgun set-set-up bachelor pad that we see that Hal has moved into after the fire. Earl is perched right next to the bed, and we were both little concerned about that. We're not sure how much time Carrie and Hal had together after the fire,

but if they did, do you feel like Earl was traumatized by what Hal and Carrie got up to? Hal we know canonically leaves his boots on during sex. Sure does. So, like, what do you think Earl bore witness to? I think Earl, he's been around the block a few times. I'm seeing some things. He sees some things. And, you know, I'm not going to yuck someone's yum, whatever, whatever was working for them, work for the three of them.

That's all. There you go. Okay. Okay. Chronical threesome. Love it. You know, again. Not confirming it to the eye.

I'm just saying the world is open to pot. That's what Hal says at one point. The world is a big place, you know, it's all of that. When you've experienced the pleasures of the galaxy, you know, we can just amend the second clause of that sentence. It's like, why shouldn't your, um, you're. your greenhouse plant who eats how many pounds of raw bison a day, watch you fuck. There you go.

It all tracks. I'd like to ask you now about football. Not confirming that. Remember? The possibilities exist in the universe. Remember when Tom started this conversation asked me if you could swear? Yeah, I know, because it's okay to swear? And also like, oh, like, let's start with these, these, this beautiful poetry.

And now we're just like, can we ask you about dip and whether Earl watched Hal and Carrie have sex? I'd like to stick with the really profound stuff for a minute and ask you about Noah Macon's football career. This is animated. I mean, The Ringer. We do sports and pop culture. This has just animated so much conversation here at The Ringer and the group chats on Slack in the office.

Everyone's buzzing. I'm ready to defend some indefensible things. Well, I mean, we could talk about whether you could become an all-state quarterback with that offensive line, All of it. But I'm curious if you have in mind either an NFL or a college football comp, because obviously based on some of the schools that know I was considering, but also we got to glimpse him in action in the finale.

We saw him, you know, we saw him handing off. We saw him scrambling a lot, right? He's definitely a dual threat quarterback. He's running. It's too small to be Josh Allen, but maybe he can match the rushing touchdowns. Is he supposed to be like Johnny Mansell, just in a football respect, obviously? is he supposed to be Tim Tebow? You know, on the Nebraska front,

is he Tebow Light? Is he Taylor Martinez? Like, what, what is Noah Makin's makeup here as a quarterback? I feel like the size doesn't quite line up, but I'm going to say Steve Young. I'm going to go. Steve Young? Wow.

Okay, so Noah's is bound for a big career here. Wow. This is exciting. What I'm saying is like, Steve was, you know, he was patient. He watched, you know, he walked Montana play for all those years. And he knew, like, someday would all be his. And if you've ever seen Steve, he's talking like, he's like the most philosophical guy.

He's, he got the X as and O's, but he's also like, let me also get my law degree on the side. And like, like, you're like, oh, this guy could also run for Senate, but he just happens to be throwing a football. But he also is like an incredible runner what we see. So I feel like Steve Young is a pretty good comp. I feel like we'll see no on PTI eventually every Tuesday breaking down games. Yeah. Can I seem very calm. I was wondering if he was going to be like a nervous scrambler like Baker Mayfield.

but no, he seemed very composed in the pocket and the shotgun. He's a thinking guy. He knows all the place, for sure. In the world of sports figures you could have referenced, the fact that you mentioned Steve Young and Joe Montana, 49er quarterbacks from like the 80s and 90s, the only people I could possibly recognize is like very, very kind. So thank you so much.

That one was free. Thank you. Sports show. What a time to be sports show. Those are names I know. Okay, listen, let's keep it sports-esque. you talk a lot about the coaching tree of Sinestro to Hal to John

and sort of how these things get passed down. Abin-sur's in the mix, of course. I'm curious, you know, we get this parting wisdom of don't be afraid to be afraid. Is that the most important Hal, a lesson of Hal that imparts to John? What's the most important thing that Hal

taught John, whether it's the halogram or OG flavor or Hal imparted to our new official Green Lantern inside of the the universe, live action. I mean, I think it's up for debate and people can say, I think don't be afraid of being afraid as big. But to me, especially when I look at that episode where he lands, to me it's the idea of forgiveness and of,

of that when you forgive someone, you can let your anger go. And you can, you know, it's that old AA thing that at some point your crime is not about, you know, you did the bad thing, you did the bad thing, but it's weighing so hard on me, I have to let it go and I have to let you go. And I think he has so much, we've all had these people that were just so close and we care so much about how much they think about us and whether they like us or hate us and we just live or die by little microaggressions. And that can just eat you up inside and you're just like

going over moments and moments in your head. I think what he learns from Hal is that you can, you can forgive that person for those microaggressions and sort of you can see their trauma and see it from their perspective and see how they got to where they are and that they are capable of coming to you and giving you the love they have denied you and I think that's that's it yeah I love that so much I mean you heard me say this you did apples it is yeah yeah you heard me say this already today but I just I was really across the season and the finale in particular with you know with Carrie with Howe with Noah with his parents, just really struck by the grace John is able to find for other people

and the forgiveness that he is able to grant them and thus help them grant themselves is really affirming, I think, thing for a lot of people to see. And just, you know, of all the heroic attributes that we get to witness. And John, I think really one of the most remarkable and undeniable. You know, and I love thinking about all of the things that we witnessed in his journey that helped him get to that point. But then, of course, it's exciting for us as fans who have become so attached to this version of the character to think about what it does for him moving forward in the future, how he lives his life, how he navigates his relationships, and how he assumes the mantle of Earth's Green Lantern, which is a mantle that he reforged, you know, in an episode where the

idea of forging and reforging comes up many times that he reforged for himself. So, you know, we couldn't get off without talking to you about the oath, of course, and the idea of John crafting and reforging the oath. in a way that genuinely, in this question of programming and your nature and the path and the choices you make, felt like a way to pay off all of those things. For him and for the larger themes of the show, that this was a character who worked his way to this place by assessing and navigating and trying to understand all of the things that other people had done and all of the things that he had done and then how to make the choice that was right for him for the reasons that meant something to him.

You know, for you, what did that feel like for John as one of the people who helped bring this version of John to the screen? What did it feel like to watch Aaron perform that oath? I mean, it was just astonishing. It was gobsmacking. And, you know, what did it feel like in that larger kind of macro and meta sense to be able to put this show's version of this iconic thing out into the world, which obviously just parallels so beautifully with those ideas about forging your own way? So well put First I mean in talking about sort of where John lands What I think is there's two sides

There's the forgiveness side we see But also there's the idea that he's not like Oh I forgive you therefore I can walk away because you're all good He's like because I forgive you And because you're going to be a manhundred out in the world I have to put on a ring and be the one who guarantees You don't become a crazy person like it's He doesn't say forgive them and walk away

He forgives them and says okay now I have a because I forgive you, we're now connected, and now you become a burden to me, it becomes you become a responsibility to me. And I think what's distinct in that, and what goes into what you were just talking about, is John's a lot of band who's been given a lot of responsibility throughout his life. From very big, you are responsible for this family.

His brother called him chosen. Like literally his parents were like, we're going to get divorced. This whole family is going to fall apart unless we put it all on John's shoulders and he can carry us. And they're like, it's not fair. And they know he's going to hate us. Literally, they say that.

But they're like that. So he's been carrying that. So he's been carrying all those burdens. And at the end of five, we see him say, fuck it. He lets go of the burdens that people have given him. And that's one step in Revelation is to let go of the burdens. The next step is to say, okay, I don't want burdens given to me, but I don't mind taking on my own burdens, right?

And that's what this last step is about where he's like, there's a difference between what's put on my back and what I put on my own back. And then he, so when he takes that oath, he's not chosen. anymore. He's making a choice. And so he's saying, I, and part of that is being like, I'm not going to say this oath that everyone else says. I'm a different kind of person. I'm making a choice to be my own person. And so that was all in that last open. And Aaron, I mean, from day one, the first time I met him, like I media just called him superhero as a nickname. I just, you can't understand this

six three gorgeous. It just looks like he came out of, I said this before, but it really feels like you're talking to Chris Hemsworth and the Avengers. You're just like, you know that movie's going to come where he's going to come from where everyone's losing and then he appears from the sky and the audience goes nuts. And that's how you feel when you meet Aaron. And that's one thing to look that way and to embody that way, but also

to get the other side to get all the emotional content and to do it all, not in his own accent, except for the one line, which was actually a pretty fucking awesome. It's absolutely stunning. And the dude is down to earth. Like no, tensions, no movie star, nothing.

Like, I remember when they were on set and like a little short list of like, who's going to be James Bond came out and he was on it. And I was like, how do you go to work? And like, everyone's like, are you James Bond? He's like, all right, let's go. I was like, do I ask him about this? He must know, like his agent must have called. Oh, my God.

But no, totally down to earth and just making jokes and super cool. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Tom King, for your time and for your work and for your larger body of work, which I'm such a fan of. And we appreciate you. much. Thank you, Tom. This is awesome. Thank you for being there. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for talking about this show is a show that only exists because people talk about it. It's like, it's a hard show to recommend, but it's not everyone's talking about everybody watches it. So you have

made, you've literally put food on my kids table and I'm incredibly great. Come back and join us again sometime in the future. Please. Anything fun. All right. So tough look for me because Team Green lost another one. Big Apple Wars L for Joe. It's true. It's true. Big win on the dip front, though, I would say. And big win on the potential intergalactic plant threesome's front for both of us. Quite agree. Look, we did a taste test at this very table when we were talking with Tyson and Riley about Survivor. I think we should make that dip. I agree. Great. It sounded disgusting, but also probably... It sounded delicious. Absolutely delicious. It can be both. You know what I mean?

No question. Delicious in real time. And then full of regret. Then you have some regrets later. Tale is all this time. You know, will we actually do it? I don't know. That's why you have to follow Out House of Our... I keep saying Outhouse of Our Pod got one. But listen, for this one, it might be Outhouse of Arpod. At House of Our Pod on Instagram.

But maybe like a collapse crossover with Outhouse of R for this particular... The moment might have arrived. We'll find out. As we mentioned, come back for the full deep dive on Monday morning. Thanks so much to Tom King. Thank you, Tom. Thanks to our team. Squad.

Thanks to you, Mallory Rubin. Thank you to you, Joanna Robinson. And we'll see you soon. Bye. My rec league goalie says he plays for the love of the game. You gave up six goals last week, Steve. Maybe play to win, huh? Like with Bet365.

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