After a mostly entertaining season stuffed with twists, turns, mysteries, and misdirections, Lanterns Season 1 ended without that much of a bang which, naturally, divided the internet between those who were satisfied and everyone else who couldn’t believe it wrapped up like… that.
In what will be remembered as the most divisive superhero show finale (since the last superhero show finale), we see John Stewart officially enter his Green Lantern era with dead Hal’s ring and a lantern forged with fear by Sinestro who ends up being anything but a major threat.
Now, whether the fear-forged lantern is a scheme set up by Sinestro remains to be seen but it’s clear that John is ready for primetime after little-boying the current Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, and reciting his own oath.
It takes the sheerest of audacities to tell Earth’s Green Lantern (whose protected the planet for the past decade alongside Superman and the Justice Gang) that he’s taking over Earth as an independent contractor with an unsanctioned ring. Whew!
And thennnn… on top of that, you create a new oath and welcome a war with an army of Lanterns who Guy warns will be sent by the guardians to put him down.
“John is not 100% a Green Lantern anymore,” said Lanterns co-showrunner Tom King during the finale press conference, per THR.
“He has a Lantern that has a bit of yellow in it. He has a bit of fear in it. It’s an unsanctioned Lantern. So he’s not saying the same oath as every other Green Lantern because he’s not like every other Green Lantern. This is an utterly unique creation that has not been given to him, that he is not chosen for, but that he chose for himself. He gets his own unique oath which seems to line up very much with the lore and where we’re going from here.”
Elsewhere in the episode, we learn that Noah (Kerry’s son) is a (potentially genocidal) manhunter who broke Sinestro out of intergalactic prison and forced him to forge a lantern for him to charge a ring and get revenge against the guardians.
In one of the episode’s buzziest moments, we also learn that Kerry lost control and killed Hal in a fit of rage after Hal revealed to her that he knows what Noah is and that they have to leave town for everyone’s safety.
“The ending of the pilot is that Hal Jordan is dead, and in the very early days, we knew that we didn’t want it to be a fake-out,” said Lanterns co-creator Damon Lindelof. “In order for all of the emotional progression to feel real and earned and lived, we were sticking to that, and there wasn’t going to be a rug-pull.”
With so many moving parts, Lanterns had a lil too much dip on its chip for an 8-episode season with a side-eye-worthy subplot of John Stewart being blackmailed by a white teenage girl for $300,000 in “reparations” that we see him pay. WHAT?
Ultimately, your enjoyment of the hit series hinged upon the management of expectations with many viewers expecting a drastically different ending based on countless fan theories (including John finally donning the suit) that didn’t happen at all during the finale.
What are your thoughts on John Stewart entering his Green Lantern era? Tell us down below and peep the social media hysteria over the Lanterns Season 1 finale on the flip.
