RECAP: ‘Lanterns’ Episode 5 — “Lights Out”

Things reached a boiling point in Lanterns Episode 4. Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan) seemed to have been killed, with Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) believing that she faked her death. The latter option indicates that Zoe is the manhunter they’ve been looking for. Lanterns Episode 5, “Lights Out” is an explosive continuation of these threads — both literally and figuratively.

Lanterns Episode 5 starts with a flashback. The year is 2007. Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) pulls into the town of Rushville, Nebraska, and stops into the local diner for a cup of coffee. Two nameless thugs sit down, one on each side. Kerry’s father has just been killed by them after snitching on their boss. They’re here to tie up loose ends.

Kerry pleads for her life, denying any association with her father’s actions. Unfortunately, the boss doesn’t take chances, so the thugs give her permission to finish her coffee but threaten to kill everyone in this room if she makes a scene or calls for help.

This is enough for Zoe to step in. In a show of power and force, she uses her superhuman manhunter strength to snap one of the goons’ necks and force the other into submission. As payment for saving her life, Zoe requires that in the future, when people eventually come for her, Kerry will remain unconditionally loyal.

Lanterns Episode 5 has a lot of loose ends to tie. 

In 2016, the not-quite-dead Zoe Macon enters the family’s compound flanked by Billy Macon (Jason Ritter) and Sheriff Kane. As Kerry and Billy head into the house, Zoe stops to speak with her grandson, Noah (Cary Christopher). She explains that today a lot of people — probably people he knows and maybe even people he loves, are going to die. When Noah asks her if she’s going to die, Zoe can’t give him an answer.

Hal leaves John trapped in a totaled rental after crashing it into a light pole. The car catches fire, but John sees his former lover, Zoe, just beyond the flames and calls out to her. She stands by and watches as the car explodes and consumes him in flames.

Lanterns Episode 5 continues with Hal looking for the manhunter. After sending his holographic self from 10 years ago off to find her, Hal goes and confronts Sheriff Kane, who starts firing at him. He immediately puts up a green shield to block the bullets. Sheriff Kane explains that Zoe can’t hear them, but she can certainly see them. She uses the act of firing on him as cover to explain that she and the town in general owe Zoe and that a kill order for Hal is coming soon.

John wakes up in a hospital bed wrapped in gauze from the heavy burns. He accuses Zoe of being inhuman for letting him burn. She presses him into saying what he’s known for some time: that she’s the manhunter. When she asks why John never turned her into the Guardians, he explains that he doesn’t trust him.

John also explains that the aliens hunting the manhunter claimed that she’s under the protection of the Guardians. Zoe states that she obviously isn’t but wonders if John knows why. He rightly discerns that the manhunters were made by the Guardians. Zoe says that the manhunters were created by the Guardians to enforce justice — that is, until the Guardians decided they were too brutal and exterminated all of them but her.

Zoe believes that eliminating John will allow them to bring peace to Rushville and offers John a chance to not join his mentor in death. If he pledges his loyalty to her and supports the lie that Hal died bravely fighting the aliens, she’ll heal him. It’s a confusing choice considering that John just explained that the Guardians untrustworthiness is why he isn’t being more forthcoming with them.

At the diner, Hal shows up for John’s appointment with the aliens hunting Zoe. When they see someone other than John, they immediately open fire and empty their clips. After they finish firing, Hal speaks to the head alien, Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor), and claims John is compromised and colluding with the manhunter. He also explains that, in moments, a kill order will go out to everyone in town for Hal.

Hal Jordan is under a kill order in Lanterns Episode 5.

Antaan questions Hal when he claims that William Macon is the manhunter. A moment later, everyone’s cell phones start putting out a kill order through the emergency text alert system. Still not fully convinced, Antaan tells Hal that if the information doesn’t pan out, he’ll be back for him.

Back in the hospital bed, John has evidently agreed to Zoe’s terms. As she removes the bandages, John tells her that if he comes back white, the deal’s off. That leads to a conversation about Zoe’s philosophy for choosing a face. She chooses her face based on what will conquer from a place of adversity. Being a woman of color starts her at a disadvantage, and she can exploit that in her favor.

Then Zoe gets candid with John. She explains that the goal today is to kill Hal by forcing him to use his ring until it runs out of charge. Once she finishes him off for good, the ring will be John’s to control.

The alien healing technology starts, and John is wrapped in a metal cocoon. As the machine works, John’s life literally flashes before his eyes. Defining moments in John’s story that’ve been explored in Lanterns so far create a digital collage on the screen. When he emerges just moments later, John is like new.

Zoe leaves to take care of Hal once and for all. Before she can go that direction, she looks at satellites in the sky and sees that the aliens hunting her are headed for the compound. She calls William (Garret Dillahunt) and ensures that his loyalty is still intact. He thanks her for all the additional time she afforded him, implying that Lanterns Episode 5 is about to lose a main cast member.

At the compound, a lone driver shows up at the gate claiming to need directions. The security detail forces him out of the car and starts searching him. The driver is wearing a bomb, and when he explodes, he leaves a sizable gap for more vehicles to come through. The other aliens, also suicide bombers, start taking out any resistance, allowing Antaan to get through to William.

As Antaan walks through the front door of the house, William sits behind his desk and activates a device that puts many laser points on the face and torso of Antaan. This obvious threat doesn’t do much to deter Antaan, who begins speaking to William in the manhunters’ language. William, pretending to be the manhunter, is able to respond to all of his questions in the correct language, but it still doesn’t convince Antaan.

Lanterns Episode 5  reaches a boiling point for the season.

William makes a costly mistake by implying that, as the manhunter, he’d welcome death, which Antaan immediately picks up on. Because he knows that the manhunter would never welcome death, he throws a dagger straight into William’s chest. After jumping on the desk, Antaan carves out William’s heart and declares that it is human.

Antaan looks at the tablet monitoring Hal’s whereabouts and sees Hal flipping him the bird. The perspective in Lanterns Episode 5 moves to Hal, though, as Zoe’s satellites begin activating and Hal takes off in the sky toward the blast zone.

Meanwhile, Lanterns Episode 5 is about to reach a boiling point. John breaks out of his hospital room from Zoe’s guard that’s keeping an eye on him. He takes off in a borrowed car and calls his parents, demanding to be put through to Lianna (Laura Linney) to get Guardian presence in Rushville. They seem more interested in whether or not John took the oath. He angrily explains the situation to them as he steals a sniper rifle from the gun store.

Hal lands near the blast zone. Buildings around him burn as more innocents are being targeted by Zoe’s satellites. In addition, the literal explosions attempting to kill innocent people; others are driving by trying to shoot Hal as he saves as many people as he can. He knows he can’t go on too much longer because the ring is running out of power.

Eventually Hal is forced to flee. He goes to the water tower, where Zoe is about to take off in a chopper. He tackles Zoe, but she calls on her guards to take out the water tower. When the tower crashes into the ground, instead of water, a cloud of darkness like what was used against Hal and John in Lanterns Episode 4 comes spilling out.

Hal quickly takes out a guard and snags his nighttime goggles so he can fight his way through the darkness. Antaan begins to approach, and his beeping alerts Hal to the reality that he’s set his suicide bomb to detonate. Hal walks out of the darkness long enough to whip Antaan up into the air where he explodes.

Hal uses the helicopter to flee without Zoe. When he arrives at the motel, it’s time to charge the ring. Just as he starts to connect the ring, he’s attacked from behind by a furious John. John is attempting to steal the ring off Hal’s finger, but Hal won’t let go. John Stewart, a former Marine and the absolute standard for physical fitness, outclasses Hal in every way.

Even though logic dictates that this fight should be over very quickly with Hal laid out unconscious, Hal just keeps getting back up. Over and over again, Hal finds the strength to go one more time. His luck runs out when the satellites destroy a big chunk of the motel, and Hal gets caught under the wreckage. John simply leaves the motel.

Hal’s luck starts to run out in “Lights Out.”

Zoe shows up at the giant hole in the wall and asks where John is. When Hal explains that he gave himself a promotion, Zoe gloats that it was she who gave him a promotion by trading John’s life for Hal’s. Hal corrects her and says that for all the trouble they’ve had, he knows John isn’t a coward and if he wanted Hal dead, he’d execute him himself.

Unconvinced by Hal’s hubris, he asks why, if that’s true, he let Hal be left to be found by Zoe. Hal explains that, knowing John, he was being used as bait. Zoe turns around to look for John, only to be sniped in the head from a great distance. John returns and pulls out her heart, which immediately turns to diamonds. He shoves the heart into his bag before grabbing the ring and lantern and leaving Half to fend for himself.

In the final scene of Lanterns Episode 5, at the bar, John finds Lianna. When she asks what’s in the bag, John responds, “Your sins and consequences.” Lianna opens the bag to find Zoe’s diamond heart. Lianna admits that even Guardians make mistakes.

John isn’t interested in her excuses. Like Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit, the ring turned Hal into a different person that he didn’t want to become. He ponders aloud if Hal even remembers the reason he wanted it in the first place. Regardless, he isn’t sure he wants it for himself anymore. He places both the ring and lantern on the bar and leaves as the closing credits begin to roll.

Lanterns Episode 5 is all action and very little else. While being mostly set in 2016 helps with continuity, It’s beginning to feel like DC has forgotten that there’s a wholly different mystery happening in 2026 where Hal is frozen to death and missing the ring.

Hal not backing down to John and continually getting up again and again seems like a great detail until the idea gets blown over by a stiff breeze. The idea that an aging washed-up has-been like Hal Jordan could last more than one knockdown with a physical specimen like John Stewart is laughable at best.

Still, Lanterns Episode 5 is an exciting chapter in the story of two of DC’s most iconic superheroes.  One can only hope that, with as much as was resolved in Lanterns Episode 5, the remaining four episodes can measure up. Perhaps they’ll even investigate Hal’s 2026 death.

Lanterns Episode 5 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes airing weekly on Sundays.

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