SPOILER ALERT: This is a full episode recap, so if you want to avoid spoilers, please watch the episode first.

Things went south last episode, when the conniving Guardian Scar betrayed Hal and the others and attempted to kill Aya and Razer, but failed.  Scar teleported away, but Aya smashed the Interceptor.  In a last deseprate move, Hal smashed the ship into Aya and made it jump to warp drive, but that leaves Hal, Kilowog and Razer stranded in space.  The Lanterns are split with Kilowog insisting that they must shut Aya down.  Razer’s red rage energy flares, but he employs the meditation technique that Saint Walker taught him on Odym and he calms down.  (See the episode “Blue Hope.”)

Hal has been receiving a strange signal on his ring when Appa appears via hologram and orders them to the mostly abandoned planet Ranx, but he states that this is the first time he has tried to reach them, so the earlier signals are still unexplained.

Before they can arrive, Guy Gardner and seemingly the entire rest of the Corps arrive, but are swiftly detected by the Manhunter armada and must retreat.  After driving the Lanterns away, the Manhunters return to their assault on Ranx, while Hal, Kilowog and Razer join the others.  Gardner reveals that he has been bumped up to Honor Guard and that replacing him as the Lantern of Sector 2814 is John Stewart, to which Hal replies, “The fake news guy?”  Hal then realizes that the closer they get to Ranx, the stronger the mysterious signal he has been receiving gets, but Guy says that there hasn’t been any life on the planet in hundreds of years.  He tells Hal that they are making another attack in 30 minutes and he can either join them or sit it out.

Razer hatches a plan to employ his meditation techniques in order to block out all emotion, thus rendering them undetectable by the Manhunters.  He hastily explains how it works to Kilowog and Hal.  Guy once more leads the charge against the robots, while Razer and the others serenely float past the energy blasts, cloaked to the Manhunter’s emotion-sensors.  But when one of the Manhunters speaks in Aya’s voice, Razer breaks and is detected.

They drop their ruse as the Manhunters attack en masse.  Hal ring flickers strongly and he flies directly at the force field protecting Ranx and it opens up for them, although a handful of Manhunters also sneak past.  Several Manhunters, however don’t make it and explode against the force field.

A tower rises up and fires missiles taking out more Manhunters, while Hal follows his ring’s signal.  A passage opens up and they slip in, away from the robots, but eventually five Manhunters catch up to them.  The Lanterns are overpowered and trapped… then suddenly the robots are crushed by a giant door… but moments later, it seems the heroes are also about to be crushed.  Hal asks why they were asked to come here just to be killed, when they are suddenly released and the being calling to him reveals itself… it’s the new Anti-Monitor!

The Anti-Monitor reveals that Aya simply tore his helmet off of a suit of armor, but that its consciousness remained intact.  He was drawn to Ranx, where he set about rebuilding himself to be even more powerful, but Aya somehow detected a time travel device in his helmet and sent the Manhunters to take it so she could travel backwards in time to remake the universe devoid of life.  The Lanterns argue, but Hal convinces them that it’s in their best interest to help the Anti-Monitor in order to foil Aya’s plot.

Off planet, the Lanterns are combining their powers to create huge energy cannons.  Guy states that intend to blow Ranx’s force field but they fail… just as Aya arrives.  She wipes out the Corps and  then quickly disables the force field.  She then enters the Anti-Monitor’s chamber where she disables the Lanterns, before she rips open the Anti-Monitor’s head and takes the time travel device.  She doesn’t bother killing the Lanterns because soon they will no longer have ever existed.  Razer realizes that there is no saving her at this point.  To stop her, they must somehow destroy her.

Things look pretty bleak!  Do the heroes have any hope of defeating a force as powerful and ruthless as Aya?  And is there even the tiniest glimmer of hope that she can be salvaged?

What do you think?  Leave a comment below!