On Sunday, Lanterns ended its first season with a polarizing finale. The HBO series prioritized its grounded, character-driven storytelling to deliver a quiet, emotional closing chapter instead of the kind of action-packed conclusion that many fans wanted to see. What’s more, after an entire season of buildup to John Stewart’s unveiling as a Green Lantern (for real, this time), the finale doesn’t feature him actually using the power ring until its closing moments, when he flies for the first time.
The creators of Lanterns chose to end their story exactly as they wanted to: by maintaining their focus on its human elements even if it meant sacrificing some of the IP’s extraterrestrial and fantastical source material. That led to some impactful storytelling and good TV, but the result was more of a standard detective mystery than a full-fledged superhero series. And that ultimately puts Lanterns at odds with the wider DCU.
As Lanterns cocreator Damon Lindelof said in the finale’s inside-the-episode segment: “When we came into the writers room, it felt really important that we had a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. But by the end of it, we were going to be launching John into the future of the DCU.”
Lanterns did its job of delivering a complete story that set up John as Earth’s Green Lantern, yet there are still many questions surrounding his future in the DCU ahead of his return in James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow in 2027. My finale recap on Sunday focused on the episode and the first season as a whole, but let’s take a closer look at how the conclusion affected where a few key characters stand in relation to the DCU and the show’s unconfirmed second season.
John Stewart
The first season of Lanterns ends with John’s acceptance of the power ring, and the true start of his superhero career as Earth’s Green Lantern. The series has showcased John’s moral values and the kind of hero he wants to be, but it hasn’t gotten around to demonstrating what that will actually look like in practice.
In “Dirt and Stars,” John repossesses a unique lantern from Sinestro, which the alien forged on a dying planet where fear-inducing toxins released by Manhunters have contaminated the water and air. And by charging his power ring with it at the end of the episode, and creating his own oath that breaks off from the traditions of the Green Lanterns Corps, John has become more than just a Green Lantern.
“John is not 100 percent a Green Lantern anymore,” cocreator Tom King said at the Lanterns virtual press conference on Friday (moderated by The Ringer’s Mallory Rubin). “He has a lantern that has a bit of yellow in it. A bit of fear in it. It’s an unsanctioned lantern, as Guy [Gardner] says. And so, he’s not saying the same oath as every other Green Lantern because he’s not like every other Green Lantern.”
The traces of fear infused into the lantern have transformed the power ring into a different weapon than the kind the Guardians arm their space cops with. “The Lantern Corps thinks that fear makes you weak,” Sinestro tells John in Episode 8. “They couldn’t be more wrong. If harnessed correctly, fear can be the most powerful force in the universe.”
Lanterns doesn’t reveal just how powerful this new extraterrestrial weapon may be, or how its constructs will be visually represented on screen. In the comic books, power rings that wield the energy of fear are traditionally yellow. However, John’s ring in Lanterns maintains its green glow even after he boots it back up. The ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding John’s new jewelry—and the consequences that may come with it—could be a fascinating narrative path to explore in a potential second season of the series. The same goes for John’s tenuous relationship with the Guardians: In order to keep the ring, he’s essentially blackmailing them over their past transgression of creating the Manhunters. The only problem with this setup is that it won’t be up to Lanterns to make these narrative and stylistic choices, as it’ll now be on Gunn and Man of Tomorrow to provide the well-earned payoff of John’s season-long journey.
Aaron Pierre’s reprisal of his Lanterns role in the upcoming Superman sequel is an exciting prospect for the 2027 film, yet it’s hard to imagine that all of the nuances of John Stewart’s fresh superhero status will receive the screen time that they deserve—and may require—after his eight-episode origin story. If Stewart simply appears in Man of Tomorrow wearing a Green Lantern suit to do all of the ring-slinging that he never got the chance to in Lanterns, a lot of questions about his character will likely go unanswered in a movie that’s mainly about the Man of Steel. After all, it won’t just be Pierre’s Stewart joining David Corenswet’s Superman in Man of Tomorrow, as the stacked superhero ensemble will also feature Supergirl (Milly Alcock), Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña), the Justice Gang, and Adria Arjona as Wonder Woman in an undisclosed role. There’s only so much screen time to go around.
John’s involvement in the DCU crossover film could also put Lanterns in a precarious position if and when it returns for Season 2. The events and treatment of Stewart in Man of Tomorrow could create new narrative ripples that the series might need to address to allow a smooth, or at least comprehensible, transition between the two DCU projects. Of course, John’s cameo could also end up supplying the satisfying superhero payoff that some fans yearned for in the Season 1 finale. Such are the potential risks and rewards of occupying a cinematic universe.
The second season of Lanterns is in early development, though it hasn’t received an official green light from Warner Bros. Discovery (scratch that; Skydance). Regardless of what happens in Man of Tomorrow, the show has already teased where Stewart’s next case will be if Lanterns comes back for more: Earth. “Think of me as an independent contractor,” John tells Guy Gardner in the finale. “No Guardians, no Corps. You take the stars; have fun. I’ll take the dirt. I’m completely confident we won’t get in each other’s way.”
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner and cocreator Chris Mundy confirmed that Stewart’s line to Gardner was meant to suggest that Lanterns—should it continue—will maintain its focus on Earth-based mysteries. “We obviously left the planet, so that’s in our wheelhouse, but we like the idea of the show being very grounded,” Munday explained. “It’s a little more tactile ‘of this earth,’ ‘of this world’ kind of thing. So it was for us to plant that flag. But again, we’ve proven that we can sneak in other stuff, too, if the story warrants it.”
Guy Gardner
The finale was certainly a tough look for our Guy. He let John walk all over him as the latter practically taunted him with an unsanctioned lantern and stolen ring. John then relieved him of his superhero duties on Earth, called him an errand boy for the Guardians, and commanded him to deliver a message to his alien bosses. For good measure, John even insulted Guy’s gold tooth and told him he looks like a “fucking idiot.”
Maybe Guy still feels beholden to Stewart for passing up the ring in 2016, which allowed him to leave behind his life as an athletic director to become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. (Even he doesn’t deny this debt when John throws it in his face in Episode 6.) Or maybe Guy knew that he wouldn’t be able to measure up against the former Marine who trained his whole life to earn the position Guy merely stumbled into. Whatever his thought process, Guy just acquiesced to John’s brazen behavior and the potential danger that his new lantern posed. After he delivered the pathetic warning of, “This ain’t over, hotshot,” Guy simply flew away, likely to complete his new errand for Earth’s new Green Lantern.
Nathan Fillion’s Guy is also set to return in Man of Tomorrow. The Superman sequel will mark his fourth DCU appearance after his introduction in Superman and subsequent guest spots in Peacemaker and Lanterns. Superman established him as the leader of the Justice Gang, a superteam of corporate metahumans backed by LordTech CEO Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), which also includes Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi). If Guy (and the Guardians) accept John’s seemingly nonnegotiable terms and leave Earth under John’s care as Guy looks toward the stars, the shift in his coverage area could affect his leading role with the Justice Gang, not to mention his everyday life. Someone who’s part of a corporate superteam and who’s always concerned about his branding might not end up accepting this new reality so willingly.
The growing tension between the Green Lantern Corps and John could also prove to be a point of interest in a second season of Lanterns. But first, we’ll see how Guy and his Guardian bosses have responded to John’s demands. And maybe we’ll see if he kept the gold tooth, too.
Sinestro and Noah Macon
At the end of Season 1, John allows two nonhuman threats to live: Sinestro and the last Manhunter, Noah Macon.
In Episode 8, Sinestro reveals that Noah sprang him from space prison so he could forge a lantern for the young Manhunter. The former Green Lantern then tries to manipulate the Halogram into freeing him by offering the younger, sentient backup of Hal Jordan a second chance at life. “I know a way,” he says to Hal. “If we have your ring, I could bring you back to life, for real.”
Not only does Hal not take the deal, but he pretty much ignores it altogether. It seems as if Hal and John both assume that Sinestro is lying, because neither of them is even curious enough to ask him how such a resurrection could be possible. Without hesitation, Sinestro then turns to John to manipulate him into using the lantern to charge his ring instead. And John ends up doing exactly that, though he waits to do so on his own terms. In the moment, John leaves Sinestro stranded in chains on an island on the dying alien planet, and in Sinestro’s final plea to Hal to free him, he screams that he’d be “like some castaway” if they left him behind.
Again, we don’t know exactly what effect this fear-infused lantern will have on the ring, or what consequences its heightened power will have for John. But it creates a compelling connection between John and Hal’s disgraced mentor that could keep Sinestro relevant in John’s DCU future. As for Sinestro himself, Lanterns doesn’t acknowledge him again, leaving the castaway with no immediate hope of escape. It’s possible that John will go back to tie up loose ends and return Sinestro to his prison cell in space, or that the Guardians will learn how John acquired his unsanctioned lantern and send Guy to do the same. The only other possibility—aside from Sinestro’s unlikely off-screen death—would be that Noah will go back to the alien and renew their arrangement.
That last outcome speaks to the kind of risk that John is taking by allowing the last Manhunter to live, despite Noah’s noble wish to be killed. As the Halogram reminds John before saying goodbye, Noah could be the president one day and “have his finger on the button.” But after John sees so much of himself in Noah and recognizes how hard the kid is trying to fight against his Manhunter programming and be good, he opts to keep the power ring in case he ever needs to use it against him.
One of the frustrating byproducts of the series’ grounded, human approach is that it often tells us about its extraterrestrial elements rather than actually showing them on screen. Beyond Noah’s ability to heal Hal’s burns at the start of Episode 8, we don’t see what he’s really capable of. As for his grandmother, we see Zoe Macon successfully manipulate the entire Rushville community, use some powerful alien tech, and take out a couple of henchmen from Gotham City, but we never witness her ability to shape-shift or do anything dangerous enough to rise to the level of planetary extinction (even if we do hear about it). The threat that Noah Macon poses is purely theoretical—and that’s exactly the dilemma that John finds himself up against.
As John allows Noah to live a normal life, the Manhunter quarterback will have the opportunity to play for Matt Rhule at Nebraska. If this kid could win a state championship with his minuscule Rushville offensive line, he might be unstoppable behind Cornhusker-size blockers. But somewhere down the line, the inherent desire for power that manifests as voices in his head could lead him to finish off his revenge quest against the Guardians or wipe out all of humanity. As Sinestro suggests, that outcome may be inevitable. “The boy’s just struggling between his nature and his pedestrian human nurture,” Sinestro says in the finale. “Nature always wins, it just takes time.”
Both Noah and Sinestro could prove to be threats to be reckoned with in Lanterns or even other DCU projects. Season 1 teased how powerful the Manhunters and Sinestro are, but Sinestro, in particular, was never given nearly enough space to demonstrate why he’s often considered one of the all-time-great DC villains, even if Ulrich Thomsen made tremendous use of his limited screen time in the role. In Season 2 or beyond, there’s still plenty of room for Lanterns to show exactly how dangerous they can be.
Hal Jordan
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least entertain the possibility that Green Lantern fans have been hoping for ever since Hal Jordan’s corpse was revealed at the end of the series premiere: Could Hal somehow return?
It’s a testament to Kyle Chandler’s phenomenal performance as Hal, and his chemistry with Pierre, that this remains a question even after every cloning- and Halogram-related theory failed to pan out at the end of the season. Hal’s sudden death became almost more cruel after the 2016 timeline showcased how perfect a role this was for Chandler. But how John processes that loss is integral to his emotional journey. That the Halogram is likewise forced to confront the mistakes of his future self enriches the show’s unique characterization of a superhero who’s relatably fallible. And as John and the Halogram investigate Hal’s murder together, while reconciling their differences and shared traumas, the eventual reality of the loss makes Hal’s fate all the more devastating.
“We knew that we didn’t want it to be a fakeout, in order for all of the emotional progression to feel real, and earned, and lived,” Lindelof said at Friday’s virtual press conference.
Even though Hal may be dead, and the Halogram may have been extinguished when John recharged his ring with his new lantern, there’s still a chance we could see Chandler as Hal again, in Lanterns or elsewhere in the DCU. Lindelof, who won’t be returning for the show’s prospective second season, recently hinted at the possibility in an interview with Collider, but he emphasized that he didn’t have any direct insight into the matter.
“I do not know anything about the creative, and I wouldn't want to hamstring those writers in any way for what future storytelling mechanisms they could indulge in,” Lindelof said. “Knowing what the comics have done with Parallax—and Hal, I think, has died at least three or four times over the course of the canon, and celebrating everything that Kyle did in his performance to get the audience to fall in love with Hal.”
As Lindelof suggests, Parallax—a cosmic yellow entity who is the physical embodiment of fear—would provide a clear path for Lanterns to resurrect Hal, further explore the show’s concept of fear, and create a more prominent role for Sinestro. Parallax was directly involved with Hal’s death in the 1996 comic The Final Night, along with his subsequent return in 2004’s Green Lantern: Rebirth. At the same time, this combination of Hal, Sinestro, and Parallax wasn’t exactly a box-office hit in 2011, and a yellow space parasite doesn’t align with the show’s existing sensibilities. More likely than a true resurrection for Chandler’s Hal may be either the return of the Halogram (potentially justified by John’s unprecedented gifts as a unique Green Lantern) or the simplest solution of all: flashbacks.
It could be a long time until Lanterns returns for a second season, if it returns at all. But John will be back for next year’s Man of Tomorrow, and—for better or for worse—that appearance may provide some clarity about the future of his HBO series as we await its renewal.
