Not only has Macdonald been the most effective counterbalance to the earnest buddy comedy of Lanterns, but she’s also given the show a greater emotional heft at key points. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: She’s the unsung MVP this season—the cast member making sure this now-cosmic superhero saga keeps at least one foot on the ground. Just as she’s done in films like No Country For Old Men, Macdonald delicately draws you into scenes that, while deceptively simple on paper, always rip the air right out of you in execution.
In the case of Lanterns, this has been no easy feat. She’s had to capture the biggest post–time jump changes of any character while also having the least amount of room to do it. That’s given Macdonald quite a lot these last few episodes, taking her relationship with cocky Hal from butting heads to deeply caring to grief-stricken. Where both John and Hal are struggling with questions that have been with them since the beginning of the show, Kerry’s been through a complex evolution, captured at every stage in Macdonald’s portrayal of the Gotham City exile—even when she only has a few words to do so.
Macdonald makes each scene of “The Jordan Boys Legacy” her own, holding the camera with the subtlety of her facial expressions: At first carefully controlled, but over the course of her scenes, they begin to shift. Kerry, more than anyone, has had to remain poised in the face of catastrophe after catastrophe. Macdonald communicates both her quiet resolve and accumulating weariness perfectly; during the scene where Kerry’s son is supposed to declare which college he’ll play football for, Macdonald shows us a mother going from jubilation and pride to uncertainty about what comes next for their family after the kid chooses to delay his decision. Just the way her eyes dart around—as if she’s searching for someone—and the way her posture shifts ensures you feel genuine surprise along with her.
It’s only one surprise of many in the episode. Shortly after the aborted hat ceremony, Kerry is suddenly brought face-to-ghost-face with the man she had grown to love. But instead of this being a triumphant moment of reunion, it’s a tragedy that only she can fully appreciate. There are no big explosions or superhero action to be found in this scene, but it’s an eye-catching spectacle nonetheless. Even the way the scene is blocked gives it maximum impact. When the holographic Hal—manifesting as his even more wise-cracking younger self, who never met the sheriff—suddenly appears behind Kerry, we see the pain rising to the surface, accompanied by a sliver of something else (Is it hope? Is it fear?) as she turns around to face this projection of her dead partner. Her performance cuts across the barrier between reality and fiction: The way Kerry looks at Hal silences him, and seemingly silences Chandler, too. Despite all his bluster, Hal is taken aback by the emotion he sees on her face. He then asks a few questions, some personal and some about who killed him, which Kerry answers as she tries to hold it together. But the latter questions about who might have killed Hal are less important than how this serves as yet another moment of Macdonald bringing a greater emotional depth to the show.
It’s a moment that represents the culmination of Macdonald’s Lanterns performance, building on earlier scenes of Kerry bringing John to see Hal’s body and being one of the few mourners at his funeral. What Kerry’s arc lacks in flash, it more than makes up for in real, emotional engagement. Her scene with Chandler in “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy” passes rather quickly—the episode is soon on to space adventures with the boys and flashbacks to a defining childhood loss for Hal. But it’s still the episode’s most resonant moment, thanks to Macdonald’s continuing efforts to conjure a soul for this televised extension of a multimillion-dollar comic-book franchise.
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