"In Brightest Day…In Darkest Night, I’ll embrace my fear…I’ll do what’s right. I choose this ring…I choose this fight, in service to this lantern's light."
Lanterns came to an end tonight with a season finale that's certain to split opinions. "Dirt and Stars" eschewed the spectacle usually associated with a conclusion to a superhero show for a more character-focused, introspective hour.
“There was never a version of the finale that was more action-oriented,” showrunner Chris Mundy tells THR. “If we landed it emotionally with [Hal and John], we would’ve done our job. [Action for action’s sake] would’ve been distraction and incident instead of emotion.”
There may not have been much action, but we did get some answers, and the stage is set for John Stewart to take flight as Earth's "unsanctioned" Green(?) Lantern in Man of Tomorrow.
We also found out who murdered Hal Jordan, who is most definitely dead dead. To borrow a quote from another cinematic universe's big bad, "No resurrections this time."
After appearing to confirm that Noah Macon - who was revealed to be a Manhunter created using DNA from Kerry's severed finger and the one who freed Sinestro - killed Jordan, we later learn that Rushville's sheriff actually pulled the trigger when Hal told her that he knew what her son really was.
Though Sinestro tells Halogram that there is a way to resurrect him, it didn't happen in the finale as many fans assumed/hoped it would.
“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,” Damon Lindelof explains. “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.”
“We wrestled early with the idea of not wanting [Kerry] to feel duplicitous. Was there a way for her to love Hal and also kill him?” he adds. “And as three married men [co-writing this show], we were like, ‘Absolutely! 1,000 percent.’ The show started to become less of a whodunit and more of a why-done-it.”
The episode ends with John Stewart charging the decommissioned ring with the lantern Sinestro created for Noah... using his own oath. Is he now a Yellow Lantern? Not exactly.
“What we see at the end is that John is not 100% a Green Lantern anymore. He has a Lantern that has a bit of yellow in it, has a bit of fear in it,” said series co-creator Tom King. “It’s an unsanctioned Lantern, as Guy says. He’s not saying the same oath as every other Green Lantern because he’s not like every other Green Lantern.”
“John’s path was not the normal path,” adds Mundy. “The ring didn’t choose him, He was interviewed. He was raised for it. He was having to choose this thing, then he decided not to do it, and then decided that he needed to do it on his own terms … We wanted (the oath) to be true to the original and respectful of the original … but we also wanted to tweak it to talk about the themes that we talked about, and fear.”
After telling Guy Gardner to take a message to the Guardians, John shares an emotional farewell with Halogram, before charging the ring and taking his first flight.
What did you make of the finale? Let us know in the comments.
HBO in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. The pilot episode is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, who are co-creators for the series. Mundy serves as showrunner. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, James Gunn, Peter Safran, King, Ron Schmidt, and Hawes. Based on the DC comic characters from Green Lantern.
The series stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones.
The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.