LANTERNS Episode 5 Goes Big With a Brutal, Action-Packed Showdown

If you told me this was the season finale of Lanterns, I probably would have believed you. Episode 5, “ Lights Out,” goes big, bringing several of the season’s major conflicts crashing together in Rushville with betrayals, alien attacks, brutal fights, huge revelations, and a major shift in the future of Earth’s Green Lantern.

But, the season isn’t over yet! The episode opens in 2007 with a young Kerry Kane, years before she became Sheriff of Rushville. Kerry has driven from Gotham City and ends up stranded in Rushville after her car breaks down. We already knew she made that trip, but now we learn why. She was running for her life.

Kerry enters the same familiar cafe we’ve spent so much time in, where two men eventually catch up with her. They’ve been sent to kill her because of her father’s actions, and Kerry seems prepared to accept what’s coming. Then Zoe steps in.

Zoe kills one of the men and threatens the other, saving Kerry’s life. She only asks for one thing in return, when Zoe eventually needs help, Kerry has to return the favor.

Suddenly, Kerry’s loyalty to Zoe makes a lot more sense. She hasn’t simply been protecting a mysterious resident of Rushville. She’s been carrying a debt for years, knowing all along that Zoe was far more than she appeared to be.

Back in the present, John Stewart is still trapped inside the car Hal Jordan crashed. The confrontation between the two gets ugly, and Hal tells John his training is officially over before leaving him behind.

Zoe eventually finds John, and she watches as the car explodes with him still inside. Of course, John isn’t dead. He does, however, come out looking pretty jacked up. He’s burned beyond recognition, and Zoe is the only person capable of putting him back together.

Her advanced Manhunter technology can completely heal him, but she wants something in return. Zoe knows Hal is heading toward his death, and she needs John to lie to the Guardians about her involvement.

John agrees, which isn’t particularly surprising after the Guardians refused to help him take the ring from Hal. Whatever faith he had in them has taken a serious hit.

This is also where Lanterns drops an important piece of Green Lantern history. The Guardians created the Manhunters before establishing the Green Lantern Corps. They were their original attempt at maintaining peace throughout the galaxy, but they proved far too brutal and were ultimately destroyed. Except for Zoe.

Zoe was the only Manhunter to survive, which makes her existence a major problem for the Guardians and a target for anyone hunting the Manhunters.

Rushville, meanwhile, is preparing for war. Zoe has spent years protecting the town, and its residents are ready to defend her from the aliens coming to kill her. Hal needs to locate Zoe, so he brings back his Sentry, which we haven’t seen since the pilot, and sends it searching while he confronts Kerry.

Kerry wants Hal gone. From her perspective, Hal and John caused this nightmare by investigating Zoe and drawing attention to Rushville. Hal refuses to leave, while Kerry refuses to betray the woman who saved her life. She makes it clear that whatever blood is spilled next will be on him.

Then Anton arrives. Anton, the alien who recruited John to hunt down the Manhunter, enters Rushville with his people. Hal meets him at the cafe and lies about Zoe’s identity, sending Anton and his forces toward Macon’s ranch instead.

Getting inside requires a few suicide bombers, after which Anton confronts Macon. Zoe has prepared Macon for exactly this situation, giving him the information he needs to convincingly pose as the Manhunter. He almost pulls it off.

Anton tears open Macon’s chest and finds a human heart. Macon isn’t the Manhunter at all. He’s another person Zoe saved who has been repaying that debt.

From there, Rushville explodes into chaos. Zoe’s alien weaponry begins firing across town, killing people and destroying buildings, although the episode gets strangely unclear about why so many areas are being targeted.

Anton’s forces appear to be scattered around town, but much of the fighting we actually see is happening elsewhere. It makes the destruction feel a little disconnected from the battle unfolding around it.

Hal still gets some cool moments fighting back, including taking out a couple of satellites. His Sentry eventually locates Zoe, and Hal moves in to capture her. Before he can, Zoe brings down Rushville’s water tower, revealing that it isn’t actually holding water. Instead, it releases a massive cloud of black smoke designed to neutralize the Lanterns.

What follows is one of the episode’s more intense sequences, with Hal trying to move through the darkness while tracking Zoe.

Anton has also figured out that Hal lied to him, and he comes flying toward the fight with plans to blow himself up and take Rushville with him. Hal burns through the remaining power in his ring to contain the explosion and stop Anton.

Zoe uses the opportunity to escape by cutting off her own hand. At this point, Hal is running on empty. John is gone, Zoe has disappeared, and his ring has no power left. He returns to the hotel to recharge, only to discover a fully healed John waiting for him.

Finally, the fight between these two that Lanterns has been building toward all season erupts. Hal goes after John personally, telling him that he’ll never replace him. Their fight is interrupted when Zoe’s deadly red lasers target the hotel, forcing Hal to save them both.

John then leaves Hal buried in the rubble, giving Zoe the opportunity she’s been waiting for. She arrives to kill Hal and finish the job. Except John has played her. He used Hal as bait.

John turns on Zoe, kills the Manhunter, cuts out her heart, and takes Hal’s ring. Even then, Hal warns John about the Guardians, telling him that they betrayed Hal and will eventually betray him too.

It feels like the moment the entire season has been heading toward. John finally has the ring. He has the lantern. He meets Lianna, the Guardian played by Laura Linney, and everything he wanted is sitting right in front of him.

All John has to do is take the oath and he refuses. Instead, John confronts Lianna about the Manhunters and thinks about what possessing the ring did to Hal. He sees how desperately Hal held onto it and what that power turned him into. John doesn’t want the same thing happening to him.

So he leaves Earth’s Green Lantern ring sitting on the bar.

That’s a pretty wild place for Lanterns to leave its central Green Lantern story with the season still going. Zoe is dead, the Manhunter mystery has been resolved, Hal has lost his ring, and John has willingly rejected the opportunity he spent so much time chasing.

There are still some massive questions hanging over everything, especially the fact that Hal Jordan is dead ten years in the future. We still don’t know exactly what happened to him, who was responsible, or why.

There’s also the question of who ultimately takes possession of that abandoned Green Lantern ring. But, it has been revealed that Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner ends up with it. We just don’t know how that happens yet.

Episode 5 genuinely played like a season finale. It paid off storylines, unleashed a ton of action, killed major characters, changed the status quo, and then left Earth without its Green Lantern.

Thankfully, Lanterns still has more story to tell. I’m loving this show. The mystery surrounding Rushville, the crazy complicated relationship between Hal and John, the Manhunter history, and the way the series has been playing with Green Lantern mythology have completely hooked me. Each episode has given me another reason to be excited for the next one.

At this point, I don’t want Lanterns to end. At the same time, after seeing how much Episode 5 delivered, I’m incredibly excited to find out what this first season is actually building toward for its finale.

If this wasn’t the finale, what the hell are they saving for the finale?!