Over the last four episodes, I’ve been fairly confident that after numerous instances of drip feeding Green Lantern lore into it’s gritty detective show stylings, Lanterns would finally haul off and give us the big blowout we’ve all been waiting for. While I wasn’t expecting a full tour of the planet Oa and the various, diverse Lanterns that whizz in and out of the place, I had metaphorically bet the farm that the escalating events in 2016 finally would come to a head – and guess what, here we are.
Quite a few elements have been stewing for a while here, and while the mystery of the Manhunter, the suspicious tech of Rushville, and the threat of exploding aliens has steadily been building, none of them have come close to the simmering animosity between the Green Lantern known as Hal Jordan and his determined trainee, John Stewart. With the mantle of the Lantern on the line, Jordan finally was the first to draw first blood – but has his attempts to beat Stewart to the finish line and nab the Manhunter sealed his own downfall?
After yet another flashback – this time to 2007 (damn, this show loves its flashbacks) – we see how Zoe Macon – aka. the Manhunter – was able to convince the various people of Rushville to protect her so totally when she intercepts a pre-Sheriff Kerry after fleeing Gotham and solves all her problems for a price. Back in 2016, in an attempt to secure Zoe first and thus proving to the Guardians that he doesn’t need replacing, Hal Jordan has tricked John Stewart by trapping him within a car wreck and flies off to put the next stage of his plan in action. But while the Green Lantern meets with the alien terrorists and feeds them misinformation to take both them, and William Macon’s anti-alien militia, off the board, Jordan’s plan takes an unforseen turn when the car Stewart is trapped in bursts into flame, burning him severely.
Letting him burn for a bit, Zoe eventually saves him and offers to heal him with her alien tech in exchange for his loyalty, but while Stewart is being restored, Jordan’s plan pays off when alien leader, Antaan, kills Macon and then is killed by Jordan when he’s whisked off in a construct whirlwind to explode harmlessly in the air. But this hasn’t stopped Zoe from strafing Rushville with surgical laser strikes from the various killer satellites she has stationed in orbit above the town, but after taking them out drains his power ring, Jordan discovers that there’s a reckoning at hand when a healed Stewart shows up to take him out.
But after a vicious brawl, it seems that despite a lifetime of training, John Stewart has decided to choose his own side, as he betrays Zoe and kills her while simultaneously taking the power ring from an incapacitated Jordan. But now he has the ring and a removed Manhunter heart in his possession, what will the trainee Lantern do next?
Basically acting as a mini season finale, “Lights Out” seemingly sees the 2016 portion of Lanterns come to an end with an episode that brings everything to a head. While the cosmic side of the characters are still waiting in the wings, this is the episode that finally sees Hal Jordan cut loose and go full superhero – even if his methods are decidedly on the shady side. No, Kyle Chandler doesn’t perform his Green Lantern duties in uniform, and no, he doesn’t particularly play fair either (in fact he pulls some underhanded shit here that would definitely make Superman blush), but watching the show finally take the stabilisers off and indulge in some sizable payoff has been well worth the wait. Big-ass explosions, betrayal and a long overdue showdown between Jordan and Stewart combine to skillfully deliver the goods.
Before we get into the juicy beef between the two Lanterns, we get something of a fascinating glimpse of how the Manhunters manage to inspire such loyalty. If they don’t seduce their targets sexually, then they put them in their debt, and the 2007 flashback, we see how Zoe takes out some criminals looking to kill Kelly in order to secure her as an asset. As the episode continues and Stewart roasts alive while trapped in the wreckage Jordan left him in, Zoe doubles down on trying to get the wannabe Lantern in her pocket. She had already brought John into her web by having sex with him, twice, and she reasons that curing him from being Kentucky-fried will all but secure her her very own Lantern. From here, we definitely see a much colder side of the Manhunter, who not only allows Stewart to cook just that little longer before proving her point, but sacrifices her pawns without a second thought and happily bombs her own town from space to slow her attackers down. It’s this level of cold-blooded sadism that marks her out as the major threat she is, but what nobody has counted on is that Stewart is tired of being manipulated.
Since the start of the season, we’ve seen Stewart toe the line from a whole number of people. He’s been under the thumb of his determined parents to become a Lantern in the first place, he’s jumped through hoops when it’s come to the wishes of the Guardian known as Lianna, he’s had to repeatedly eat shit when dealing with an openly hostile Hal Jordan and the Manhunter has been trying to manipulate him since he arrived in Rushville, so watching him fly in the face of all of them proves to be something quite exhilarating. To start, once Hal’s plan to turn everyone against one another pays off and results in the deaths in both Macon and Antaan, Stewart puts his main phase into place by delivering the mother of long awaited beatdowns on his flawed mentor, then circling around, sniping Zoe in the head when she comes to finish him off. This means that in one, deft move, he’s finally claimed the power ring, Zoe’s removed heart and delived a butt whupping to his mentor to score the W. However, in a final act of middle-finger defiance, Stewart ultimately declines the offer to become Green Lantern, which draws a line under the 2016 period of the show while also sort of revealing why the mantle eventually goes to Nathan Fillian’s Guy Gardner. The man’s got style.
Finally offering the scale we’ve been clamouring for, Lanterns pays off its gritty build up with Lantern shenanigans and twists aplenty that not only brings a sizable portion of the story to a close, but tees us up for the still unexplained events of 2026. OK, so more space stuff would be welcome, but when you consider that this show has managed to accomplish by keeping the boots of the Lanterns mostly on the ground, even the most defiant hater should realise that they should be kissing the ring.
Lanterns goes big with style, and proves to be all the more satisfying thanks to some skilled build up thanks to the previous episodes. But surely most impressive thing of all is how the show managed to end an entire storyline while still leaving so much more mystery for us to pour through. While we get a rousing end to the 2016 storyline, the 2026 one is only just beginning and with a missing Power Ring in the wind, it’s still anybody’s – or should that be everybody’s – ball game.
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Where to watch Lanterns – Season 1, Episode 5: Lights Out: