‘Lanterns’ Finale Review: Episode 8 Makes the Hard Choices — and Leaves a Light on For Season 2

[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Episode 8, the Season 1 finale, including the ending. Find last week’s review here or, for a spoiler-free analysis, read our full season review.] “You talk too much,” Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) says, early in the “Lanterns” finale. “It’s annoying.” Although Hal (or, more accurately, the Hal-o-gram) is speaking to Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) — who, in a credit to the actor, establishes the villain’s rankling loquacity and vocal ticks in record time — he may as well have been speaking on behalf of a select group of fans who were expecting Season 1 to wrap up with a fistfight in the sky (a fistflight?) or big green objects smashing into stuff. But none of that happens. John (Aaron Pierre) doesn’t even debut his Green Lantern suit! Instead, as far as endings for superhero stories go, Episode 8 has a lot of chatter. Comic book fans have lobbed similar complaints against “Lanterns” all season: not for a lack of action overall, but that the ring specifically hasn’t been deployed often enough to demonstrate its staggering (and extremely cool) powers — certainly not often enough to justify our heroes consistent complaints about running low on charge. The ring once again seems like an afterthought in the finale, but for as frustrating as its absence may be, that absence is also part of the point. “Lanterns,” as a whole, is about knowing when not to use the greatest power in the universe. If Hal had shown a little more restraint in 2016, Rushville may have been spared. John only found peace by giving up the ring, turning down the gig, and forging his own path. “With great power comes great responsibility” may be Spider-Man’s motto, but “Lanterns” could remix its own version (like John remixed the Great Lantern oath): “With great power comes great responsibility… not to use it.” The finale follows through on the season’s theme, even when it comes at the cost of flashy pyrotechnics. Noah (Shea Pritchard) doesn’t kill John when he has the chance; in fact, he follows in his footsteps by giving up the ring and its unsanctioned lantern (which ends up saving his life). John also doesn’t turn in Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) for killing Hal, arguing that’s what Hal would’ve wanted. The most exciting sequence of the whole episode — when Hal’s house gets firebombed — isn’t even explained. We still don’t know who did tossed those molotov cocktails, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters to “Lanterns” aren’t the agitators — the angry townsfolk who won’t stop harassing Hal, or the alien race who threatens to blow up an entire community just to get revenge on one Manhunter, or even Hal himself, back in 2016, when he was constantly pushing people’s buttons just because he could. What matters are the peacemakers, and the true tension of the series rests in their decisions to either respond to provocation in kind or to respond to provocation with kindness. Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) wanted John to kill her, in order to prevent more killing in the future. Her grandson, Noah, wants John to do the same thing, rather than give into his baser instincts. Hal learned his lesson the hard way, going to prison for 10 years before spending the rest of his short life trying to make up for endangering the town for his own “selfish reasons.” John — wise, observant, ever-studious John — he doesn’t kill Noah, and he doesn’t seek vengeance on Sheriff Kerry for killing Hal. He walks away. Like Hal never could. As for Sheriff Kerry, her fear got the better of her at the worst possible time. All that terror she felt for all those years comes rushing to the surface when Hal tells her he knows Noah’s secret. He wasn’t trying to provoke her, but she was nevertheless provoked. She’ll live with the regret for the rest of her life. But her mistake doesn’t make her inhuman, or even a bad human. It just means she is human. In the end, John is trying to be better. He’s trying to be better than Hal, his pseudo-mentor and true predecessor. (Guy Gardner doesn’t count, that dummy.) He’s trying to be better than his parents, who endured an unbearable burden trying to be better for him. And he’s trying to be better than he used to be, when he pretended to live without fear. “Don’t be afraid, to be afraid,” Hal says, near the end of the “Lanterns” finale. Then he asks what his last words were to Kerry, and John tells him: “I love you.” With a knowing, self-satisfied smirk, Hal replies with his last, and most important, lesson: “I love you, too, Junior.” Love conquers all. Even fear. And extremely cool magic rings. Kyle Chandler in ‘Lanterns’Courtesy of HBO The Case OK, there is simply too much exposition in Episode 8 to cover everything, so let’s take this in broad strokes: Noah is a Manhunter. – Ding ding ding! As was predicted, Zoe’s grandson turned out to be a secret second Manhunter. Back in Episode 5, when Zoe saves the future Sheriff Kerry from the thugs from Gotham who were tailing her, she says, “When the time comes, you’ll protect me like I protected you.” Well, that “me” was meant in the figurative sense, given that Zoe really needed Kerry to protect Noah — kind of like when Zoe says, “Let’s grow you a new pinky,” she also meant, “Let’s grow you a new Manhunter, too!” (OK, those aren’t that similar at all, but hoo boy, Kerry had to cut off her own pinky and was forced into surprise motherhood? That’s brutal. Good thing it worked out? Kinda?) Noah kidnapped Sinestro so the former Green Lantern could make him a new lantern. – Why? Well, a few reasons: First, Sinestro is the only known being in the galaxy to ever kill a Guardian. Noah is a Manhunter, a species made by the Guardians that the Guardians are eager to eradicate, so Noah must’ve known he’d need some way to defend himself from his all-powerful creators eventually. Or — and this brings us to reason No. 2 — Noah gave into his worst instincts and wanted a lantern to ensure he could conquer humanity. He alludes to as much in the truck with John, when he shares the dark thoughts that pop into his brain out of nowhere: going to Annapolis, using football to amass a following, wielding his naval connections to build political capital. You know, Manhunter stuff. Thankfully, Noah chose a different path. Why? Because as John tells Kerry, “You raised him well.” Zoe wanted John to kill her. Technically, this is more of a belief than a fact, but it’s John’s belief, so it’s essentially canon. During his fateful car ride with Noah, John tells the last remaining Manhunter that his grandmother was “tired” — tired of hiding, tired of running, tired of killing, tired of all of it. She knew what she was, and while she couldn’t bring herself to simply lie down and accept her fate, she could encourage someone she trusts to help her find a way out. Enter John Stewart, a fellow outcast Zoe connected with, whose investigation drew him closer and closer to her hidden truth even as their attraction drew them closer and closer to each other. Capable, clever, and caring, he’s the ideal partner — and the ideal opponent. Given how everything played out, it’s impossible to say Zoe really wanted John to stop her or if she was simply bested by him (and Hal). But given her prowess and pedigree, it’s easier to believe a part of Zoe, at least, wanted to be stopped. John Stewart is a Green Lantern, but he’s not a Lantern (or vice versa, I’m not sure). “In brightest day, in darkest night, I embrace my fear, I’ll do what’s right. I choose this ring, I choose this fight, in service to this Lantern’s light.” John’s new oath — which is pretty solid considering he basically winged it (a skill he developed from listening to his brothers’ Outkast records?) — deftly distinguishes the kind of Green Lantern John will be from the rest of the corps, while summing up his journey throughout Season 1. He acknowledges and embraces his fears instead of hiding from them to appear fearless, and he chooses to serve as a hero, rather than follow orders from other Lanterns, the Guardians, or his parents. Still, he’s indebted to his folks, who raised him to be the man he is today, his predecessor, who he loOoOoOves, and the Green Lantern legacy. What that means in practical terms going forward is anyone’s guess. He and Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) will probably squabble over jurisdiction from time to time, and the Guardians won’t be happy to have a rogue agent wielding an unsanctioned lantern running around (especially one made by the alien who killed one of them). But that’s what future seasons are for: What will John’s next case look like? Will he circle back to Rushville to check up on Noah, or is that chapter permanently closed? How will he balance his responsibilities to the ring with protecting his loved ones (aka how will he do what Hal couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do when he was a Green Lantern)? And, of course, when will we see a Season 2? Come on HBO! Use your green light to bring back Green “Lanterns”! Hal Jordan has sex in nothing but his cowboy boots. That’s it. What? It’s important! And despite the ambiguous ending to this eternal mystery, I firmly believe Sheriff Kerry told him to leave them on. Aaron Pierre and Kelly Macdonald in ‘Lanterns’Courtesy of HBO The Killer Speaking of Sheriff Kerry, after eight long weeks, we finally know who killed Hal Jordan, and it’s the most heartbreaking choice possible — made all the more so by the finale’s emphasis on Hal and Kerry’s love story. They get a good one, too: intimate and fun, tense and sweet, years long and far too short. It also avoids cliché in a key way that I appreciated: It’s not that falling for Kerry made Hal become a better man so much that Kerry was there to see Hal rediscover the hero he once was. If he did it all for her, why would she be interested? (Desperate, clingy men don’t seem like her type.) But “Lanterns” showed enough respect for Kerry to make sure she got the man she deserved, not just the one who deserved her. She sees him in the before, when he first shows up to Rushville as the arrogant, selfish charmer. She sees him in the moment he starts to change, when she finds him in the rubble of the motel — the rubble of his own bad decisions. She hears from him in prison, when he writes her letters, and she sees him when he gets out, greeting Hal with a case of Schlitz and savoring a knowing silence with a man who used to never shut up. Their first public date sees Kerry step up and become Hal’s hero. Their next date — going to Noah’s game together — cements their serious intentions. And their first fight (that we know of) ends with Hal saying “I love you” for the first time… and the last. To be honest, I don’t love the execution of Hal’s, well, execution. It’s a little fast, it’s a little extreme, and although the explanation makes sense — Kerry lived Noah’s whole life in fear of someone finding out what he really is, so of course she’d panic when it actually happened, all of a sudden, with a man who’s already killed one Manhunter (and who destroyed a whole town in the process) — the emotional logic and physical response needed more time to line up. Maybe if Sheriff Kerry was known for being trigger happy, jumping from hearing “let’s flee the country” to pulling her gun and shooting Hal in the forehead wouldn’t feel as forced. But even when she says, “It all happened so fast,” it feels like the writers trying to paper over a turn that needs more time to breathe; for Kerry’s shock to curdle into anger, and for that anger to build to killing the man she loves. That’s not a slight on Macdonald’s performance, which remains a season-long highlight, nor is it an argument against Kerry being the killer, which helps bring closure to John and Bernadette’s (Jasmine Cephas Jones) arc, as well. Both mothers lived their lives terrified for their sons. Both mothers let that fear go too far. Both mothers deserve immense credit for what they endured, just as they deserve empathy and forgiveness for their mistakes. But both of them should probably avoid guns from now on. ‘Lanterns’Courtesy of HBO The Co(r)ps “Lanterns” Season 1 is an excellent origin story for John Stewart, and I can’t wait to see him again soon. That being said, I’m not sure if the series works without Hal Jordan, the Hal-o-gram, or Kyle Chandler, and the finale kept the door open for his return in more ways than one. Most bluntly, there’s Sinestro’s claim that he can bring Hal back to life “for real.” Now, there are plenty of reasons not to trust the devilish ex-Lantern who killed a Guardian, betrayed his oath, and urged Hal to kill John multiple times. But he did build a brand new Lantern (which can’t be easy), and bringing someone back from the dead seems like a pretty big promise to make if you can’t back it up. While the Hal-o-gram shuts Sinestro down cold, there could be future scenarios that force John to reconsider the offer — and I’m including “because Kyle Chandler is so damn good in this role” as one such scenario. But even if they don’t want to resurrect Hal’s physical being, the Hal-o-gram doesn’t have to disappear. The Hal-o-gram is tied to the ring, not the Lantern, so even though Sinestro claims the backup consciousness will zap out of existence as soon as John charges up, that’s just like, uh, his opinion, man. Sinestro isn’t always right, the writers can do whatever they want, and the Hal-o-gram does tell John that he’s “here when you need me.” Sure, maybe he just means that day, before John swears a new oath, but it feels bigger than that, and there’s no definitive reason it couldn’t be. We’re in unchartered waters! This ain’t over! Bring on Season 2! Grade: B+ “Lanterns” is available on HBO and HBO Max. The series has not been renewed for Season 2 as of publishing.