Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Mike Redmond | TV | October 5, 2026
So, there is good news and bad news for the Lanterns finale. The good news is that the HBO series stuck the landing and pulled off the rare feat of telling a complete story. The show did what it promised on the tin: Solved the mystery of who killed Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and made John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) the new Green Lantern of Earth.
In fact, over the past eight weeks, Lanterns absolutely ate Marvel's lunch at passing the torch from one hero to the next. If I'm Anthony Mackie watching this show, I am pissed. For starters, Aaron Pierre is dynamite casting right out of the gate. More importantly, the script gave him a feast to work with as his John Stewart evolves from a rigid, stick-in-the-mud trainee to a rich, fully-formed character who becomes more compelling to watch with each episode. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier this show is not.
The bad news is, well, Lanterns tells a complete story. As of this writing, HBO has not renewed the series for Season 2, but there have been reports that writer Christopher Cantwell is working with showrunner Chris Mundy to break a potential story. Lanterns also put up solid numbers, so there could very easily be movement on that front. However, to its credit and this is not a complaint, Lanterns completed its mission. Every moment of the finale is devoted to the story at hand, and not a single scene is spent setting up a second season. There are tiny openings, but only in the barest sense.
So, why is it bad news that Lanterns did its thing and refreshingly avoided the superhero trap of collapsing under the weight of servicing a broader franchise? Say goodbye to Hal Jordan.
Kyle Chandler has been lightning in a bottle as a weathered, but still cocky Green Lantern. He's jaded by a lonely existence wielding the ring, yet absolutely terrified at the prospect of being replaced. After an entire season of doling out hope that maybe Hal isn't really dead, or could stick around as a hologram, the finale took him right off the table. Kyle Chandler dying in a show should not come as a surprise, but up until the very last frame of Lanterns final episode, you're hoping against hope that you'll see his crotchety Hal stick around. That's how good Chandler is in the role, and his chemistry with Aaron Pierre is icing on the cake.
Let's get down to brass tacks: Who killed Hal Jordan and is he really dead? All season there have been theories that only intensified in the home stretch. I've seen everything from John Stewart's mom to clones. Because Lanterns has been a masterclass in teeing up theories and instantly subverting them, the show went a surprising route by going for a straight-forward narrative: Noah Macon (Shea Pritchard) is a Manhunter.
Obviously, this development was expected: Lanterns planted the seed in the brutal moments that led to Rushville's destruction in 2016 and John putting down Noah's grandmother, and the original Manhunter, Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan). He was the "miracle" that made Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly MacDonald) even more loyal to Zoe than just saving her life ever could. We also were offered hints to Noah's true nature during the family dinner when Kerry told John that the star quarterback had ambitions to become a senator.
As for how all of this led to Hal Jordan catching a bullet in the head, well, the charming bastard romanced his way into that mess. Hal wooed the pants off Sheriff Kane from prison, and everything was going fine and dandy outside of the entire town of Rushville wanting him dead. Case in point: They firebombed his house. Like John before him, Hal is revived by a Manhunter. Only this time it's Noah. However, his deal is much easier than Zoe's: Don't tell his mom that he knows what he is and leave him be. Hal does not do that.
Turns out, Noah is the one who broke Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) out of space prison and stashed him away on Antaan's planet that was destroyed by Zoe. Sinestro knows how to kill a Guardian, and more importantly, how to build the necessary tool: a ring lantern. Hal discovers all of this and winds up dead shortly after. But the lantern never makes it to Noah.
Picking up from the penultimate episode, John and Hologram Hal -- Halogram if you nasty -- also learn all of this from Sinestro. More importantly, John takes possession of the lantern. But there are two catches: It's infused with fear, and there's no telling what will happen if he uses it to charge his ring. But when he does, Halogram will no longer exist. On the flip side, Sinestro tempts Halogram that if he takes control of the lantern, he can be brought back to life.
Leaving Sinestro to rot, John and Halogram bug off back to Earth, but not before having a tense boat ride where Halogram proves that he's not the same Hal that let Rushville burn over a ring. He straight up tells John to use the lantern and stop Noah. Otherwise, John is going to die. Once again, the decision weighs heavily on John. He has the ring on his finger and a lantern. All he has to do is charge it, but the end of that road is killing a kid and losing Hal forever.
Operating under the assumption that he has until after Noah's football game to think on it, John steps back into the portal to Earth only to get the crap immediately kicked out of him by Noah. The kid not only wrecks him in a matter of seconds, but goes ahead and takes John's ring. Afterwards, he asks John if he's good to drive, and in my book, here's where Lanterns truly sings.
I'm a big Tom King fan, and with this ending, Lanterns beautifully captured the feel of reading one of his graphic novels. In their car ride to Noah's game, he has the power ring on his finger and basically everything he needs to complete his goals. He can feel himself being pulled to maneuver his way to the presidency and control the levers of power. But like John's parents training him to be a Lantern, Noah doesn't want to do what somebody else programmed him to do. He just wants to play football and live a normal life. Noah's at war with what the Guardians made him to be, and there's only one solution: Placing the power ring on the dashboard of the car and asking John to kill him after one last game with his teammates. Noah even confesses to shooting Hal as incentive.
As Noah exits the car, John is legitimately shook. He has no idea what to do, and for the first time, he stops pretending Halogram is a nuisance and practically begs for him to appear and tell him what to do. But no one comes. John has to handle this one on his own. True to character, he proves that he doesn't miss a trick and steps up to the challenge.
Finding Kerry on the sidelines, John has a heart-to-heart with the sheriff because he knows what's really up. Noah didn't kill Hal. Kerry did out of panic when Hal came to her after learning that he's not just a Manhunter, but is building a lantern. Hal is understandably concerned that sh*t is about to get very real. He demands they run to figure out a plan, but Noah is Kerry's whole world. She's worked so hard to raise him to be a good man, and she protects him by shooting Hal.
John instantly clocked that Noah confessing to killing Hal was a son protecting his mother. It was yet more proof that Kerry's parenting was beating out Noah's programming. In keeping with doing the right thing, Kerry says she'll turn herself in for Hal's murder after the game, but John tells her not to. Hal wouldn't want that. Nobody's dying tonight. Well, not entirely.
After making the call to leave Kerry and Noah alone and get the hell out of their lives, John makes his way over to Guy Gardner's lantern symbol. The big goon arrives, and he gets put in his place. From here on out, John Stewart is the Green Lantern of the Earth. He works on his own as an independent contractor. No Corps, no Guardians. Guy can content himself with keeping the stars safe. Earth is now John Stewart's beat. If the Guardians have a problem with that, John delivers a threatening reminder of who took out Zoe before sending Guy on his way.
Finally, Halogram appears, and at first, he's concerned about John just letting Noah go. That could end badly. But mostly, Hal is impressed with his trainee and lets him know as much. There's only one thing left to do, charge up the ring. The two have a touching goodbye, and just like that Halogram is gone. It's officially the end of Hal Jordan, and the beginning of John Stewart: Green Lantern.
Where does the story go from here? Your guess is as good as mine. John will appear in the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow, so we have that to look forward to on the Green Lantern front. As for Hal Jordan, I'm going to be real: Lanterns tied his story up in a bow. I would absolutely love to see more of Kyle Chandler chewing scenery, but the finale was a solid ending. We're talking about space cops with magic rings, so there's all kinds of way to bring Hal back. But if his tale stops here, Lanterns was a satisfying meal and easily the strongest entry in James Gunn's DCU. The entire show was a better proof of concept than Superman by a country mile. If Lanterns has another charge left in its ring, I'll be there.
