Lanterns Finale Explained: Who Killed Hal Jordan, and Why John Stewart Says a New Oath

Major spoilers ahead for the Lanterns season 1 finale, “Dirt and Stars.”

Lanterns spent eight episodes asking who killed Hal Jordan. The finale answers it, and then does something stranger: it skips the big superhero fight and ends on two men saying goodbye.

Here is what happened in the Lanterns finale, “Dirt and Stars,” what the people who made it have said, and what is still unsettled.

Who killed Hal Jordan

Sheriff Kerry Kane did. Co-creator Damon Lindelof confirmed it to DC.com, saying showrunner Chris Mundy landed on Kerry very early in the process. The writers’ worry, Lindelof said, was whether she could love Hal and still kill him without coming off as two-faced. They decided she could.

Recaps from TVLine, The Ringer and Gizmodo agree on the why: Kerry’s son, Noah Macon, is revealed to be a Manhunter, and Hal had worked it out. The outlets describe the killing itself a little differently, so we will leave it at this: she did it to protect her son.

That makes it a good time to revisit the Hal and Kerry scene we singled out before the premiere. And if “Manhunter” still sounds like a different show, our explainer covers what they are and why the Guardians regret building them.

No fake-out

Hal Jordan stays dead. Lindelof told DC.com the writers never wanted the death to be a trick, because the season’s emotional payoff depended on it being real. There was one ring and two men, and only one of them was going to be wearing it at the end. By then, he said, the show had become “less of a whodunnit and more of a ‘why-done-it.’”

That is also why the finale is so quiet. Mundy told DC.com the story was always about Hal and John, so the ending had to land with the two of them and not with a set piece. Lindelof’s point was that a two-hour movie would have owed the audience a huge third-act battle and left a couple of minutes for the goodbye. Television let them spend the better part of three episodes on it.

The goodbye

The Halogram, the Hal construct John has been working alongside since Episode 6, gets the farewell the real Hal never did, and the two men tell each other they love each other, per TVLine and The Ringer. Kyle Chandler told DC.com that a John Wayne type in a film from the ’50s or ’60s would never have said it out loud, and that getting to play it was a joy. Aaron Pierre said the scene carried every month of filming that came before it.

John Stewart’s new oath

John ends the season as Earth’s Green Lantern, and DC.com describes the oath he creates in the final scene as one that embraces the fear the Green Lantern Corps has always denied.

Co-creator Tom King explained the logic to DC.com. John’s lantern is not a standard one. It has some yellow in it, which is to say some fear, and Guy Gardner calls it unsanctioned on screen. A Lantern who is not like the others, King said, should not be reciting the same words as the others.

King also pointed to precedent in the comics. DC.com identifies the first story he mentions as “In Blackest Night,” by Alan Moore and Bill Willingham, from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3, in which a Lantern has to make an oath of its own. The second is Geoff Johns’ run, which gave every color of the emotional spectrum its own corps and its own oath.

Mundy tied it back to a line Sinestro delivers in the finale, about fear being a form of emotional intelligence. The writers, he said, wanted to take seriously what it would mean for flawed people to do heroic things.

Guy Gardner’s brief appearance is a reminder that he is the Lantern the wider DCU already knows. We looked at how he and John fit together in our Guy Gardner vs. John Stewart piece.

What comes next after the Lanterns finale

HBO has not announced a second season. King told DC.com that John’s oath lines up with the lore and with where the story goes from here, which is as close to a tease as anyone has offered.

The audience was there. TheWrap reports, citing Nielsen and Warner Bros. Discovery’s internal numbers, that the finale drew 10.5 million viewers worldwide and 7.2 million in the U.S. across its first three days, the best figures of the season.

John Stewart’s next stop is already on the calendar. Pierre is set to play him again in Man of Tomorrow, due July 9, 2027, and we have covered how the series connects to that film.

The finale builds on the family history the show revealed a week earlier. Our Episode 7 breakdown covers how Lanterns changed Hal Jordan’s origin and what the comics say.

All eight episodes of Lanterns are streaming on HBO Max. Catch up on all of our coverage at The Nerd Wire’s Lanterns hub.

Top image: Photograph by John Johnson/HBO Max