This week’s episode of HBO‘s Lanterns seemingly wraps up one of the show’s primary storylines in spectacularly dramatic style. Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) have been digging into the mysteries of Rushville since the HBO show’s debut. Now, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt) and his crew not only snap into action to protect their own, but it seems that one of our heroes actually manages the impossible.
**Spoilers for Lanterns Episode 5, now streaming on HBO Max**
Lanterns Episode 5 ends with John Stewart using Hal Jordan as bait to get the drop on Manhunter Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan). Sure, John hooked up with Zoe (twice) and made a deal to join her “side” in exchange for live-saving technology, but that doesn’t mean he won’t commit to the mission at hand. That mission? To destroy the Manhunter. John used his sharpshooter skills to take Zoe out and then confirmed the kill by cutting her heart out of her body to present to the Guardians.
When DECIDER caught up with the stars of Lanterns last month, Poorna Jagannathan explained why she’s glad that audiences might feel the slightest bit torn about her character’s death.
“I think it humanizes Manhunters,” Jagannathan said. “She is technically ‘the villain’, but then you get a glimpse of who she is and why she is who she is: a victim of the Guardians, and a victim of the programming that she comes from.”
“I thought that the role was written with a lot of compassion and it wasn’t a black and white [story],” she continued. “I do think at the end, her survival is tantamount to — she puts that above everything else — hence destruction ensues wherever she goes. Because she’s always under threat and she will always survive and has always survived until now.”
But is Zoe really dead? Has the Manhunter been neutralized? And what did Poorna Jagannathan make out of that sly almost smile that Zoe flashes John through his sniper scope? Here’s everything you need to know about the end of Lanterns Episode 5…
Lanterns Episode 5 Ending Explained: Does Zoe Die?
So, yes, Zoe dies! She is shot and killed by John, the same guy she slept with (even though she’s married to William Macon).
“Shouldn’t have cheated on your husband,” Garret Dillahunt quipped when DECIDER brought Zoe’s death up. (William Macon also dies in the episode, but after nobly attempting to act as a decoy for his beloved wife.)
DECIDER asked Jagannathan what’s going through Zoe’s mind the moment she realizes that John is about to kill her and she explained that the Manhunter had “never been outmaneuvered” until that very moment.
“She’s always been the smartest person in any situation,” Jagannathan said. “I don’t know if you picked up, but in the beginning of [Episode] 5, she makes a contract with [Kelly Macdonald’s character] Kerry. ‘If I do this for you, you’ll do this for me,’ and so she made that same contract with John. You know, ‘I can help you. I can heal you. I can save you. Do you want to heal?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’”
“So she’s made that contract and no one has ever broken that contract because life is so precious to everyone, right? When you give someone back their life, you’re so indebted. So to meet someone who has outmaneuvered her, it’s quite a moment.”
Does John Stewart Become the Green Lantern in Lanterns Episode 5?
Sort of? Like he gets the ring, but he takes it off before reciting the oath, thereby rejecting the Guardians’ offer.
After killing the Manhunter, John not only takes her heart, but he also yoinks Hal Jordan’s lantern ring. He then puts the ring on and Zoe’s crystalized heart into a bag and meets up with Laura Linney’s Guardian in town. She seems to think everything’s worked out, but John reveals that when he put on the ring, he didn’t feel pride or power; he felt empty.
“Hal betrayed everything to keep this ring. His code, the oath, even himself, and it broke him,” John says. “Probably doesn’t even remember why he wanted the damn thing.”
John then takes the ring off, saying, “And neither do I.”
That’s how Lanterns Episode 5 ends… and it potentially explains why John Stewart isn’t the Green Lantern assigned to protect Earth in the 2020s-set Peacemaker and Superman. That Green Lantern would be Guy Gardiner (Nathan Fillion).