Anatomy Of A Finale: Does Lanterns soar or sour in the end?

We aren't afraid to give the saga of John Stewart and Hal Jordan a few final close readings.

By The A.V. Club | October 5, 2026 | 11:00am

Photo: John Johnson/HBO

TV Features Lanterns

Anatomy Of A Finale: Does Lanterns soar or sour in the end?

And so it is done, the prophecy written in the stars (and the terrible parenting decisions of Bernadette Stewart) fulfilled: John Stewart is a Green Lantern, albeit one with a specific, self-assigned jurisdiction laid out in the (season? series?) finale of Lanterns. And, in the course of accepting this destiny, John has solved the murder of Hal Jordan, assembling the puzzle pieces in a series of extended, heavy conversations befitting a superhero that lit off its biggest fireworks in the middle of its run. In the wake of John’s triumphant liftoff, The A.V. Club’s own Lanterns corps convened to pore over the last eight Sunday nights’ evidence, giving the show one last close read as its star rockets toward his predetermined future on the big screen and his uncertain one on HBO.

Erik Adams: As we consider Dirt & Stars and what it says about Lanterns as both a standalone TV show and a thread within the tapestry of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe, I want to start with a simple question: Were you surprised by the identity of Hal’s killer? I watched the episode after editing Dennis’ recap, and so going into the episode with the knowledge that Kerry pulled the trigger, I got really absorbed in how much effort the script—credited to co-creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King—put into throwing us off the true culprit’s scent and onto the one that suggested Noah was the killer.

Dennis Perkins: Living deep inside the show’s somber world for so long, all my initial suspicions eventually fell away until poor Kerry was standing all alone, Kelly Macdonald’s remarkably expressive face registering the enormity of what the sheriff had just done. Of course it had to be Kerry—nobody else would hurt as many people as badly. Sinestro would be too big a concession to those desperately willing Lanterns to edge back into superhero action. Billy? C’mon.

I admit that Noah’s confession had me going—Aaron Pierre and Shea Pritchard sold the hell out of the moment—but, honestly, Noah being the killer of his mother’s lover would only truly have devastated Kerry (and the hero-worshipping town of Rushville). For Kerry to have done it means everybody loses—and everybody has a chance at redemption.

Saloni Gajjar: I can’t say I was too surprised, and not just because of Hal’s hologram immediately pointing out that Kerry killed him. Ever since it was revealed that Hal and Kerry were in a proper relationship after he got out of prison, I was wondering why they didn’t want the audience to see them as a couple. Even the finale didn’t indulge this—at least not the extent I wanted, although that restaurant scene was great. Sure, the two of them had chemistry in the season’s first half, but this semi-off-screen development was rushed, in my opinion. So when Noah tells John in the car that he did it, I was slightly taken aback, but as soon as John stepped up next to Kerry at the game, I figured a heavier conversation was about to unfold. Still, like you said Erik, I appreciated the efforts to try and trick us, especially when you think about how Noah asks John to kill him mostly so that Kerry is free of this burden/worry she has over him, which drove her to impulsively kill her own partner, further amplifying one of Lanterns‘ themes of how fear can often dictate the person you end up being.

Danette Chavez: Before the finale, I wouldn’t have thought that Kerry had any reason to kill Hal, which just reflects my own inability to see what some redditors guessed a while back—that Noah was a Manhunter. But once that was revealed, and Noah’s confession scene lacked a flashback to when he shot Hal, that left only one other person. Billy Macon. Haha, no, Jason Ritter seems to have just dropped in for the opportunity to show off that mustache.

But seriously, Kerry was the only other possible suspect, and that development makes Hal’s death all the sadder, and so I guess it was the right choice, storytelling-wise. But I don’t think the episode really reckons with her deception over the preceding days; with only so much time left on the clock, it has to move on to tying up loose ends and driving home the point of parenthood—or, as the case may be, guardianship.

EA: It’s funny that you mention the show keeping Hal and Kerry’s coupledom offscreen, Saloni, because that was something that really jumped out at me about the early parts of the finale: When you know Kerry’s the killer, those scenes of them together really twist the knife.

DC: That does seem odd, though I also wonder when the show would have had time to delve into their romantic history in the two episodes between the reveal of their relationship and the reveal of Hal’s killer.

I think this roundtable’s going to reveal that I liked Lanterns considerably less than everyone else.

SG: I appreciate that in the limited time they have, Kelly Macdonald and Kyle Chandler successfully mold their performances to show us how Kelly and Hal have evolved and are honest about their feelings (like at the restaurant or even outside the prison), but it was still rushed. Or maybe I liked them together and wanted more? It points to the other big thing about Lanterns, in that it feels like two separate shows stuffed into one. Episodes one through five were so focused on the Manhunter’s identity, with the remaining three about who killed Hal, a mystery teased in the premiere itself but one that seemed to just linger in the background without urgency. The finale certainly somewhat ties everything together, but I think I’m with you Danette. If I reflect on season one overall, I like it less than I thought I did on a week-to-week basis.

DP: I completely agree that we needed more Kelly Macdonald (and more original-flavor Hal, for that matter). The streaming-brief episode order no doubt robbed us of more scenes like Hal vainly trying to come up with cute nicknames for Kerry. And I think my pre-air B grade came in response to the post-Zoe introduction of the weak blackmail plot, to be honest. But once I settled into the show’s vibe, I think its overall arc was manufactured more sturdily than I’d thought. (Barring the scarcity of Kerry.)

EA: But that’s the thing about Lanterns, isn’t it? At nearly every layer, the show is stuck trying to fulfill multiple roles, and only satisfying a few of them. Its story is larger than our currently industry-standard small containers can hold. It’s cosmic, yet it’s earthbound. It’s a prestige TV whodunit, but it’s also the latest chapter in an ongoing, multimedia superhero franchise. Its ensemble boasts big time supporting players like Laura Linney and the aforementioned Ritter—but then it also sort of doesn’t?

DP: I’m with Danette on Billy—as much as I like Ritter as a performer, the sweet ’stache did most of his work. Linney feels like a missed opportunity in that the Guardians’ influence on the overall Green Lantern mythos is far larger than her presence hints at. But once again, I appreciated the show’s refusal to give us more of what we comic book nerds want in favor of its own thematic agenda. The glimpse of a towering blue Guardian tossed some red meat to the continuity-minded (the Guardians being famously wee), but by swanning in to incompletely comprehend messy humanity and then disappear, Linney’s Lianna was right in line with Lanterns’ stubbornly grounded storytelling—and its deconstruction of the whole “I’m a hero because they said so” GL origin.

DC: Sure, Lanterns isn’t unique in being more ambitious than the current TV landscape allows. (A shudder just ran through me as I thought of what WBD episode orders are going to look like once the merger with Paramount is finalized). I don’t think we gain much by going on about how TV shows need to be longer (because sometimes they don’t!). But Lindelof’s made a surplus of ideas work within short episodes count before: Mrs. Davis and Watchmen (okay, which actually had nine episodes) both told great standalone stories. As Joshua Rivera and I think others here have pointed out, too many cooks.

EA: And if the desires Mundy has been whispering to the universe come to fruition, there’ll only be two people in charge of a prospective second season’s kitchen: Him, plus Halt And Catch Fire‘s Christopher Cantwell. With John accepting the ring and Sinestro’s clandestinely assembled lantern, do you think there’s enough for a second season here? And do you want to see a second season of Lanterns? I’ve run hot and cold on the show, but I am intrigued about what the duo of Mundy and Cantwell could whip up.

DP: Honestly, I’m good. I see John’s first flight in the finale as lifting him to his earned place alongside the big screen DCU. And I’m not sure I’m that interested in, say, Noah’s struggles to balance college football stardom with his Manhunter urges. Sinestro makes a fine addition to the cinematic universe, and, as much as I love Kerry/Kelly, I don’t trust the showrunners to give her much more centrality than they did the first time.

SG: I’m pretty satisfied by how season one ends and how it sets up John’s arrival in next year’s Man Of Tomorrow, so I would be alright if this is how Lanterns wraps up its run. And if at all there’s a season two, I’d be more curious to see how Mundy and Cantwell kick off a new story for John as opposed to circle around the Noah/Rushville of it all. No offense to Kelly Macdonald, of course, whom I loved in this role. But there’s a really poignant conclusion to Kerry’s arc, so I fear dragging it out will mess that up.

DC: I do want to see what it means for John to navigate being an independent superhero in this particular superhero universe (or world, since he’s left the stars to gym teachers). To paraphrase Kerry, I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.

And I didn’t mean to imply that Lindelof alone could have kept this thing on the rails—he worked off Tara Hernandez’s vision previously, and those of other TV writers and producers.

Maybe a singular focus on John will help avoid some of the pitfalls of this first season, which could never figure out its “aliens as other” approach. We could have a whole other roundtable about that, and just how poorly conceived the show’s approach to parenthood was. I don’t want to derail this one, but I do need to get that off my chest. There was some nice symmetry between the “parenting” by the Guardians and Zoe—their attempts to look after others led to some spectacular failures. (And you might say that Zoe was only ever looking out for herself.) But it gets increasingly messy when you add Bernadette and Kerry into the mix. It’s nice to see John forgive his mom, but the warm Macon family reunion on the football field after the revelation that Kerry killed a man—a fallen hero at that, and one that she loved—feels… off.

EA: The finale is not shy about raising questions of nature versus nurture—and/or spelling them right out in dialogue.

DP: Seriously. And when you have Sinestro of all people touting nature above all, the show’s stance is pretty clear.

Completely agree with Danette that Lanterns’ invocation of “outsider” tropes is very worthy of interrogation. White plutocrat William Macon playing cowboy while both coopting a “we were here first” Native American ethos and railing against “aliens” is… let’s say under-examined. As for Kerry and Bernadette, there’s definitely an undercurrent of “monstrous motherhood” cliché going on, although I genuinely find Bernadette’s obsessive drive to create a hero abusive and nuts. Kerry found herself (after a virgin birth, even) tasked with raising a potential monster and doing the best she could.

SG: Yeah, it’s why I liked the football field scene, which felt more like a momentary celebration (and relief, at least for Kerry and maybe Noah, who likely expected John to kill him) than a proper reunion. The show does a much better job at getting to the core of who Kerry is than it does for Bernadette and, to an extent, Zoe, who also clearly had a maternal influence on Noah. I also really liked Zoe’s POV of being an outsider in episode five, as she explains it to John, and wonder whether Lanterns could’ve done more with this. Alas, there were too many storylines to juggle for now.

DC: I think we’re supposed to be aware of how ridiculous it is for William to posture that way. But after “OutKast,” white motherhood—in the form of Kerry and Lianna—is portrayed with greater complexity than Black motherhood. Again, there was just too much going on to do much of it justice.

DP: Completely on board with both your analyses of Bernadette’s characterization. She had one episode to teach Lianna about Earth race relations, through the sort of effortfully earnest dialogue that just demonstrates how much more real estate Watchmen had to filter that topic through a superhero-comics lens.

And I’m with Saloni on the football scene. Just watching Kerry’s face shift from rueful (after her confrontation with John) to genuine, unalloyed mom-joy at her child’s success was eloquent stuff in Kelly Macdonald’s hands. (Maybe I just miss my mom.)

EA: Is it telling that we’ve chewed all of this over without getting into the finale’s genuinely touching farewell between John and Hal? Or are we all in such agreement that the Pierre-Chandler dynamic (and the individual performances that comprise it) is the one part of Lanterns that indisputably works, and therefore needs no more discussion?

DC: Oh no, now I’m thinking about how much I’m going to miss Hal! Lanterns does seem to leave the door open for his return in Halogram form, what with his appearance (or disappearance) being tied to John’s subconscious, and all the previous mentions of John’s preternatural ability to keep his very detailed creations alive.

SG: I liked the implication that this version of Hal—the slightly less jaded one—had it in him to compliment, encourage, and open up to John, like an actual mentor would do. It made me believe that final exchange between them. I really enjoyed everything Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre brought to their characters, especially in episode seven. Let’s hope John uses his ability to keep this Hal(ogram) around!

DP: As much as I admired Lanterns for resisting all urges to make the show more “nobody dies” superhero-y, I can’t remotely say I would be disappointed if Kyle Chandler were back in some form. And, yeah, John and Halogram’s thawing camaraderie got to me, big time. Even if, in true Lanterns fashion, it’s tinged with John’s knowledge that the “real” Hal could never be so open.

EA: Any final thoughts? Whatever’s next for our Lanterns (and that includes tattle-tale Guardian bootlicker Guy Gardner), I’m going to be stuck thinking about that hole in Hal’s Noah-remade arm.

DP: Ulrich Thomsen needs to be a big screen Space Hannibal.

DC: Maybe season two will inherit Marvel’s previous exploration of how independent superheroes make a living.

EA: I mean, what could be more grounded and contemporary (and more reflective of the Silicon Valley brain worms wriggling around in the heads of Lanterns‘ new corporate overlords) than pitting John against our circa-2026 definition of “independent contractor”? Just imagine what this guy’s 1099s look like!

Join the discussion...

Keep scrolling for more great stories.