HBO's 'Lanterns' Finale Officially Kicks Off a Whole New Era for the DCU | Review

Published Oct 4, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT

Michael John Petty is a Senior Author for Collider who spends his days writing, in fellowship with his local church, and enjoying each new day with his wonderful wife and precious daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, interviews, and breaking news on select occasion. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own, from supernatural thrillers to historical fiction. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" in 2025 from the Western Writers of America, of which he is a member. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family.

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Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for the Lanterns finale.

With its final episode, Lanterns has answered the question that has been on viewers' minds all season: Who killed Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler)? As John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) picks up where his predecessor left off, he unravels the truth about the Manhunter presence in Rushville, and although the revelation is no real surprise, we get a taste of what kind of Lantern he'll be with his newfound power. Lanterns' finale is a mixed bag that wrestles with both the notion of accountability and the tension between nature and nurture. The HBO drama may be over, but it appears that the actual Green Lantern adventures are yet to come.

'Lanterns' Finally Tells the Story of Hal Jordan's Final Weeks

The finale opens with a return to 2016 Rushville. The town is decimated after Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) unleashed her energy weapon from above and Antaan's (Paul Ben-Victor) forces went to war with William Macon's (Garret Dillahunt) militia. After John leaves Hal at the motel, Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) goes to check on him. He's in bad shape but refuses to see a doctor. “Was it worth it?” she asks him. The question sticks out to Hal because it was the same thing that he asked John before he stole the power ring. Although the Manhunter was most directly responsible for the surrounding carnage, Hal admits he put people in danger for selfish reasons. Thus, he believes that the Guardians will punish him for “reckless endangerment,” ridding them of his presence now that he has been stripped of his ring. This proves true. The episode then jumps ahead to 2026 — Hal gets out of prison, Kerry picks him up, and they start a new life together in Rushville. Things get a bit awkward when the pair have dinner in town, and everyone stares. Hal tells Kerry that he doesn’t want her to lose the respect of those in town because of him. So, Kerry speaks to their fellow diners, publicly forgiving Hal (who she notes has done his time) and telling the others that nobody should even think about threatening his peace.

That night, Kerry asks if Hal would like to go with her to Noah’s football game on Friday night, and he agrees. “I would like that very, very, very much.” (We know you would, Coach Taylor.) Later, after Kerry leaves, Hal makes dinner for Earl, and things go swimmingly until two Molotov cocktails are thrown through the house windows. As the structure burns, Hal is seemingly left to burn alive before being saved by Noah (Shea Pritchard), who reveals himself to be a Manhunter, just like his grandmother. Now, anyone paying attention at this point — especially to his interactions with Zoe earlier in the season — probably already saw this coming. In fact, although the reveal is treated as this big thing, it's probably the most predictable part of the episode. Still, Noah saves Hal for the sake of his mother, though he warns him not to reveal the truth to her.

The episode then returns to the alien world seen through the portal in Hal's safe, where John interrogates a chained Thaal Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen). It turns out that Noah was the one who used a portal and broke Sinestro out of prison, though the convict insists that was about the end of their dealings. Naturally, John knows when he is being lied to. He doesn't believe that all this is as simple as Sinestro is making the plan out to be, that there must’ve been a different reason why Hal was killed—and by someone else. So, John waterboards Sinestro for the truth, asking why Noah broke him out in the first place. After some interrogation, Sinestro reveals that the boy convinced him to forge him a lantern of his own — it seems like Noah has plans beyond anything his grandmother could have imagined. On the surface, the lantern in question resembles Hal's, but a longer glance reveals the truth.

Riddled with yellow streaks, Sinestro intentionally made this lantern a device that harnesses fear, an emotion he believes makes it one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. John goes to charge the ring, but the Halogram stops him, not trusting what Sinestro has done. It's here that the villain reveals that Hal followed Noah through the portal — and it was Sinestro who told Hal to kill the Manhunter, but Hal wouldn't do it. John figures out why Noah wanted Sinestro — he was the only one who ever killed a Guardian — and decides that's exactly what Noah plans to do. All he needed was a weapon to do it. Afraid of being left on this alien world, Sinestro offers to bring Hal back to life for real, but John and the Halogram reject the offer. Upon sailing back to the portal, Halogram helps John understand Hal's last words to him. The reason Hal warned John not to tell anyone he was there the night he died was so that nobody assumed he had revealed the truth about Noah. It was all to protect John.

John Stewart Learns the Truth About the Manhunters in the 'Lanterns' Finale

Image via HBO

When John returns to Rushville through the portal, Noah is waiting for him. He beats up John, steals the ring, and forces him into a car as they drive through town. Noah asks about his grandmother, and John informs him that he knew Zoe was a Manhunter, adding that she wanted him to kill her because she knew she couldn’t stop her programming. This way, nobody would ever come looking for Noah. When they end up at Noah's football game, Noah admits that he didn't burn down Hal's house. “I saw the smoke, and I went in to help him,” he explains. Noah also insists that he didn’t want to kill Hal, but when Hal followed him through the portal, he couldn’t risk Kerry learning the truth. “You don’t think I can overcome my programming?” Noah asks, to which John unpacks his own life. “If I can ask myself the question, then I can answer it for myself,” he replies, implying that Noah can too.

Although part of him wants a normal life, Noah explains that other ideas push him to pursue power. If he got that power, he could do with it whatever he pleased — and with a ring and lantern, he would be unstoppable. Noah then takes off the ring and puts it on the dashboard before asking John for a favor. “You killed my grandma out of mercy; I’m asking you to do the same for me,” he says. His only conditions are that he gets to play one last football game, and that John makes sure he doesn't see it coming. After Noah gets out of the car, John calls out to the Halogram, asking if he was listening in on their conversation, but there's no answer. So, he walks to the sidelines alone to meet Kerry. It isn't long before John plays his hand. He explains that though his own mother was fighting to make him fearless, she was completely terrified. “My mother held her breath for my entire childhood,” John says, recognizing the same look in Kerry. He reminds her that fear and love make people scared, and scared people can do anything. “I wasn’t scared, I was terrified,” Kerry confesses, before the show confirms that she killed Hal Jordan.

While Noah's reveal is perhaps a bit more obvious, not everyone might see this twist coming. That said, considering Hal's gut is famously never wrong, and the Halogram believes Kerry did it the moment he talks to her, this "twist" may not be so twisty either — but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking. Lanterns jumps back to the night that Hal died, when he arrived at the football stadium and told Kerry that he knew the truth about Noah before asking if there were more Manhunters beside him. “No,” she revealed. “He’s the only one.” Kerry admitted that the Manhunter was just supposed to grow her lost finger back, but instead, she ended up pregnant after Zoe's procedure. Kerry was convinced Noah hadn't figured out the truth, but Hal revealed that the boy was planning something big. When he tried to explain that they needed to leave town and do something about it, she angrily pulled her gun and killed him.

In the present, John asks why Kerry called him specifically after killing Hal, and she offers an interesting answer. “I ran to Rushville to escape a monster,” she says. “I needed to know if I was raising one.” John tells her that Noah is trying to be good, and that he confessed to Hal’s murder to save her. “You raised him well,” he tells her, only to reveal Noah’s petition to him. John tells her that, with the right guidance, the boy could be raised into the person she wanted him to be, but if not, the world will need someone who can stop him. Kerry vows to turn herself in, but John says that he doesn’t believe that’s what Hal would have wanted. With that, the killer of Earth's first Green Lantern goes free. After the game ends and the home team wins, Noah, with his parents by his side, seems to finally pick a school.

'Lanterns' Concludes With John Stewart Embracing His Heroic Destiny

Image via HBO

After leaving the game, John lights the Green Lantern beacon, and Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) promptly shows up. Guy isn't too happy that John used him to get Hal's ring, and that he now has a lantern, but John doesn't really care. He tells Guy that he can take the rest of Sector 2814, but Earth is under his protection now. Essentially, he'll now be operating as a private contractor, outside the Green Lantern Corps. Guy tells John the Guardians will send an army to put him down, but John demands that Guy pass on a message to the Guardians that “if they search their hearts,” they may be able to find it within themselves to leave him alone. After Guy leaves, the Halogram returns and tells John that he’s taking a massive risk. However, he seems to trust John, adding, “My gut tells me that you’re going to be better at this job than I ever was.”

With the ring about to die, Halogram tells his successor not to be afraid to be afraid — and to charge the ring, which will delete Halogram forever. But before he goes, he asks for Hal's last words, which, per Kerry's recollection, were “I love you.” “I love you too, junior,” the Halogram jokes one last time, winking before disappearing. Thus, Lanterns ends with John wrapping up all his loose ends. He returns to the diner to leave the money for the waitress, reunites and reconciles with his family (who have adopted Earl), and charges the ring for the first time with his own new oath:

“In brightest day, in darkest night. Embrace my fear, I do what’s right. I choose this ring, I choose this fight, in service to this lantern’s light.”

Lanterns is available for streaming on HBO Max.

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  Hal Jordan

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  Aaron Pierre

  John Stewart

Pros & Cons

• John Stewart is Earth's next Green Lantern, and it's about time.
• Halogram trusting John's judgment feels pretty dang cathartic after all the times the real Hal jumped out of a moving car.
• Ulrich Thomsen is wonderful as Sinestro, but he needed more screentime.

• With the end of the Halogram, it appears that the DC Universe might be saying goodbye to Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan.
• So, there's just no justice for Hal's murder? None?