Lanterns Finale Explained: Why Did Sheriff Kerry Kane Kill Hal Jordan?

The Lanterns finale, “Dirt and Stars,” finally answers the question the premiere left hanging. Sheriff Kerry Kane killed Hal Jordan, and the reason runs through her son, Noah.

How Hal Jordan Ended Up on That Football Field

The episode opens in 2016 as Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) finds a bloodied Hal (Kyle Chandler) lying in the wreckage of the motel. Hal takes the blame for the deadly attack and serves a 10-year sentence.

The story then jumps ahead to 2026. Kerry is waiting when Hal is released, and the two start a relationship, first in secret and then openly. However, Rushville hasn’t moved on. Hal was indirectly responsible for the death of the Manhunter who kept the town healthy, and people still stare at him.

At a tense dinner, Kerry stands up and speaks to the other diners. She reminds them that Hal has done his time and that he’s trying to make amends every day by helping the community however he can.

However, it doesn’t land. Soon after, arsonists set fire to Hal’s rental home, a different house from the one John Stewart later stays in.

Hal grabs Earl, his alien flower pet, and heads for an upstairs exit. The staircase collapses, and he passes out in the flames. That night he was supposed to go with Kerry to Noah’s football game.

How Kerry Killed Hal in Lanterns

Hal wakes up on the floor of the Macon slaughterhouse, which now holds the Manhunter technology Zoe left behind. The tech heals and regenerates damage to living tissue. Noah (Shea Pritchard) steps forward and reveals he’s a Manhunter, like his grandmother.

Noah rebuilt Hal’s burned body the same way Zoe rebuilt John’s after the car fire that Hal engineered. He asks Hal to keep it secret, because Kerry believes Noah doesn’t know what he is. He then lets Hal go and tells him to drop it.

Hal can’t. He goes to Kerry and confronts her about her son. But Kerry already knows.

Hal finds her at the Rushville football field, in the same bleachers the premiere showed. He’s learned something dangerous, and he starts laying out rules and plans for the two of them to run away. Kerry hears it as a threat to Noah, and she shoots Hal between the eyes just as he says, “Goddmanit, I love you.” She regrets it the moment it’s done.

It wasn’t a calculated murder. It was the reaction of a mother who was terrified of losing her son. Co-creator Chris Mundy has said Kerry was always the answer, which means the writers built the whole season toward that moment.

It also explains Noah’s behavior. When John (Aaron Pierre) comes to believe Noah killed Hal, Noah doesn’t deny it. He even asks John to kill him, because he fears he can’t escape his Manhunter programming. It’s a lie. Noah is willing to die to protect his mother.

Read More: Poorna Jagannathan Explains the Dark Deal Protecting HBO’s Last Manhunter

Sinestro’s Plan and John’s New Oath

Noah had secretly commissioned Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) to forge him a lantern for a ring. Sinestro hoped Hal would use Noah’s power to kill Noah. When the Halogram arrived with John on the dead planet, Sinestro switched his plan to him.

Kerry gets a quiet goodbye. She asks to watch the end of the game before she turns herself in.

The real ending belongs to John. Ten years earlier, he pried the ring from Hal’s fingers and left it with the Guardians out of guilt. This time he digs up Hal’s body to reclaim the ring, and he doesn’t have to compromise his morals to keep it.

He improvises a new oath that works fear into the Green Lantern creed (“In brightest day, in darkest night, I embrace my fear, I’ll do what’s right. I choose this ring, I choose this fight, in service to this lantern’s light.”). That fits a season built around the question “Are you afraid?” and it leaves an opening for the Yellow Lanterns.

John then uses the Green Lantern signal to call Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) to Rushville. He shows Guy the unsanctioned ring and lantern, and he claims Earth as his own. “You take the stars. I’ll take the dirt,” he tells him.

Mundy has confirmed that a second season of Lanterns is in early development. However, HBO hasn’t announced a release window yet and Mundy built season 1 to tell a complete story, so the ending works as a stopping point, but the Yellow Lantern tease and John’s new oath leave room for more.

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