“Dirt and Stars,” the season finale of Lanterns, really brought it all together. Everything we’ve seen so far this season, narratively and thematically, all came to a head in a mostly quiet, but densely packed episode. We not only found out who killed Hal, but we found out what was really happening in Rushville, the status of the Green Lantern Corps on Earth, and why this story was worth telling in the first place. So now, for the last time this season, let’s recap Lanterns.
Over the course of the season, there were two big chunks of time that had, for now, been mysterious. The first was what happened to Hal after the battle in Rushville. The other was what happened to Hal on those bleachers ten years later. This episode showed us both, starting in 2016.
Fresh off the end of the massive battle in episode five, when Rushville was destroyed and John killed the Manhunter, Sheriff Kane finds Hal at the hotel at the same time John talked to the Guardian and gave up the ring. Sheriff Kane expresses concern for Hal, and he basically explains that she was right. If he’d left, everything would have been okay, and he was ready to face the consequences.
Ten years later, the Sheriff picks Hal up when he’s released from prison. If you remember, we learned that Hal started a correspondence with her, which blossomed into a romance, and now they’re finally together. They go to dinner back in Rushville, where everyone is furious that Hal is around. So, the Sheriff gives a fantastic speech explaining that no matter what everyone thinks, she likes Hal, he’s working for their forgiveness, and they should, if not forgive him, at least give him peace.
Apparently, the townsfolk didn’t get the memo, though. Someone firebombs Hal’s house, and after he grabs his carnivorous alien plant, Earl, the two fall into the flames and end up unconscious. Hal wakes up in what looks like a Saw movie with the same little mark John had when Zoe gave him his skin back. In walks, drumroll please, Noah, the Sheriff’s son who, after much online speculation (but maybe not as much real, on-screen teasing), is revealed to be another Manhunter.
Before we can explore that anymore, the episode shifts back to the alien planet with John and Sinestro. There’s a lot of exposition packed into the scene, but basically we learn that Noah broke Sinestro out of prison in exchange for him building a lantern to charge a ring (a lantern charged with fear). Noah knew Sinestro would be open to helping a Manhunter because he’s the only Lantern to ever kill a Guardian and, ultimately, Noah wants to get revenge for the death of his grandmother.
This scene was fun because it provided a lot of answers, but maybe it was a little too much. It felt like the idea of Noah as a Manhunter was almost a skeleton key for every narrative question we had. And, before getting to spend any time with Noah, it gave us some pretty definite opinions on him. Opinions that didn’t really match up with the “aw shucks” kid we’d seen over the course of the season. There was a sense that, maybe, this was all going to fall apart. But it did not.
John and Ghost Hal abandon Sinestro on the planet (to fight another day, we assume), take the new lantern, and travel back to the portal. John’s plan is to arrive during Noah’s football game to give him some time to figure everything out, but the second he returns to Earth, Noah is there and captures him.
Noah makes John drive him back to town. In the car we, again, get a mega exposition dump, but this time, because it’s John and Noah, it becomes something more. We learn that Noah is struggling with the fact that he’s been raised to be human and loves everything about that, but he also has a deep-seated desire to do harm. To secure power. And John relates to this because he too was brought up to be one thing when it wasn’t who he really was. In this long, very intense conversation, Lanterns basically laid out exactly what the whole show has been about.
It’s been about the struggle between what you want and what others want for you. For John, that’s his parents wanting him to be Green Lantern. For Noah, it’s his DNA telling him to be a killer when he wants to be good. For Hal, it was being the flawless hero the ring chose versus the impulsive, reckless person he actually is. And, for the Sheriff, we find out her dilemma pretty soon too.
During their conversation, Noah explains that he can see his life in front of him and that he could very easily play football, become famous, get into politics, and gain more and more power. “If you could see the inside of my head, you’d never stop screaming,” he says. But he doesn’t want to embrace that. It’s why, when he and John reach a literal crossroads, Noah chooses to go back to Rushville. To his friends and family. He wants to be a good person. And he says that’s why he killed Hal, to make sure Hal would never tell his mother what he really was. In the end, he asks John to kill him out of mercy, just like John killed his grandmother.
John finds the Sheriff at Noah’s game where, eventually, he throws the game-winning touchdown pass as time expires. The two have what will end up being the most important conversation of the entire season as John tells her he knows about Noah, and while she, at first, denies it, she eventually fesses up. Not just to knowing Noah is a manhunter, but to the fact she killed Hal.
The show cuts to that fateful night on the bleachers where Hal confronted the Sheriff about Noah’s true nature. She confirmed that he’s the last Manhunter and that Zoe basically impregnated her without her knowing. Noah was an immaculate conception, but she did everything she could to raise him right anyway. Hal argued that they needed to leave town and, in the scuffle, she killed him.
John wants to know why then, having killed Hal, she called him. The one person on the planet who would probably find out the truth. She said it’s because she wanted someone to tell her if she had raised a monster. If Noah was capable of good. John thinks he is. Noah not only lied about killing Hal to cover for his mom, he asked John to kill him, and came back to play this game for his teammates. He could very well turn out to be the kid she raised him to be. But, John says, the world is going to need someone who can stop him—and keep his secret.
Sheriff Kane says she’ll turn herself in, but John doesn’t think Hal would want that. And while we don’t know exactly what happens to her after that, these scenes really cemented the fact that while Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler may be the stars of the show, Kelly Macdonald was the real MVP. Her seemingly innocent character is constantly revealed to be dealing with so much baggage that it completely reshapes her performance scene to scene, episode to episode. We see the pain and burden behind her eyes. We see why Hal helped her deal with that. She’s just the most complete, fascinating character on the show.
John uses the lantern signal to call Guy Gardner. Guy is not just pissed that John called him, but that he sees he has Hal’s old ring and an unsanctioned lantern. John proposes a scenario to Guy: Guy can be the Green Lantern of the rest of the sector, but John wants the Earth. He wants the dirt while Guy can have the stars. We know that’s not how things work, and Guy knows the Guardians won’t allow it, so John tells Guy to tell them something. He says, “If they search their hearts, I know they’ll find it within themselves to let me be.” Guy asks if it’s code, which John confirms it is, and leaves.
Remember the one way to tell if a person is a Manhunter? You have to cut out their heart. So John’s message to the Guardians is basically like, he’s looking for Manhunters, so let him be, and he’ll be of value. At least, that’s how we took it.
In that moment, Ghost Hal shows back up. He’s been listening to everything—about the Sheriff killing him, Noah, John’s decision to let Noah live his life with the insane risk that he could become a galaxy-changing genocidal maniac, etc. But Hal endorses him. He thinks John is ready. And he leaves him with a piece of advice: “Don’t be afraid to be afraid.”
In the show’s final moments, we wrap up a few final loose ends. John pays the waitress who blackmailed him, not because it matters anymore, but because he’s sorry. He reconnects with his family, though it’s unclear if he’s told them he finally has the ring. And, finally, he recites the Oath. But not the regular Green Lantern oath. He’s doing things his way, a new way, and it deserves a new oath.
“In brightest day, in darkest night, I’ll embrace my fear. I’ll do what’s right. I choose this ring. I choose this fight. In service to this lantern’s light,” John says. He then does the one thing he hasn’t done this entire time. He uses the ring, and he flies away.
So in the end, Lanterns ends with a new beginning. John Stewart is a Green Lantern. Kind of. Whether or not the Green Lantern Corps will embrace him or challenge him, we don’t know. We also don’t know if trusting Noah to be a good person will work out. Will John need to use the powers of the lantern to stop him? And how does it work with Guy Gardner and the rest of the Justice Gang?
There are so, so many questions left to be answered, but those are for another time. Now, we simply know that John Stewart has become what he was always meant to be. And he came to it his own way.
What did you think of the season finale of Lanterns? Let us know below.
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