Little league baseball played a prominent role in the seventh episode of Lanterns and today I’m going to examine the scenes. I’m sure it comes as a surprise to my legion of followers but back in 1975 I actually played little league baseball, although in St. Louis we called it Khoury League. Yes, I’m old.
The little league baseball scene is interesting in a number of ways from its metaphorical intent to the facts of the referenced game. We don’t actually see young Hal playing but we get, through exposition as usual, the nature of the scene. Let’s examine.
Exposition of the Little League Baseball Game
My first problem is the expositional nature of the scene itself. We see young Hal sitting in the coach’s office with a baseball in his hand. Hal’s father arrives and Hal explains what happened. He was pitching into the final inning of a game when the coach wanted to replace him with another pitcher, one Hal considers inferior.
A much more dynamic way to show this is to have Hal on the pitcher’s mound, show the scoreboard, the cheering crowd, the coach, perhaps being pressured by overbearing parents who want to see their son play, come to the mound and attempt to replace Hal. Doing the scene this way gets us involved right away. We see the injustice, we see why Hal is angry instead of simply being told.
Hal refuses to hand over the ball. A brawl ensues. Hal is dragged off the field and the game continues. I know this will come as a surprise to whoever wrote this episode but even back in 1975, we had more than one baseball. Refusing to hand it over is not going to cause a forfeit.
Hal’s Father
Hal’s father arrives and supports his son, getting into a brawl with the coach. Both Hal and his father end up with the same black eye fighting for the same cause. This is a good scene because it gives us insight into Hal and his relationship with his father.
The next scene is Hal and his father having a heart to heart. Again, it’s a fairly good scene although the business with the lock box is contrived and seems out of place. The bigger point is reinforcing the father-son bond, which is done well.
The enormous problem is that Hal’s father comes across as a stand up guy. A man who believes in family. We immediately like Hal’s father, this is a role-model we can support.
This becomes an issue later when we learn Hal’s father committed suicide by intentionally crashing his plane, that he always had dark thoughts. This violently contradicts the father-son conversation, it goes against everything we learned about Hal’s father. When Hal tells John about the suicide we, the audience, shake our heads. What? That’s not the man we met. This just seems like some sort of weird character reveal to make us sympathetic to Hal but it doesn’t resonate because it’s not in line with what we know. I immediately felt betrayed.
The Metaphor of the Baseball
The baseball is a metaphor for the ring. Hal refuses to let go of the baseball because it’s his. He earned it. The person trying to take it is not worthy. This correlates with his refusal to give up the ring later but the metaphor doesn’t quite work. I get the idea and the idea is fantastic.
The problem is an authority figure told Hal to give the baseball to someone else. As far as the ring goes, the Guardian told John to take the ring. The metaphor is wrong. What we need is a scene where the Guardian confronts Hal and John together and commands Hal to give up the ring, presumably for some imagined transgression. Then the metaphor works. We see the connection. We metaphorically see Hal’s dead father standing over Hal’s shoulder, supporting his son against authority. That’s emotional, that’s enthralling, that’s great writing.
And, of course, the episode is completely out of sequence. We need to see this scene much earlier so that we understand why Hal refuses to give up the ring. Showing the episodes out of proper order ruins the moment.
Anyway, that’s what I think. Do you agree?
Tom Liberman