Lanterns Season 1 Review: John Stewart confronts fear in a powerful finish

Lanterns has spent its first season asking what makes someone worthy of becoming a Green Lantern. Its final four episodes answer that question while bringing Hal Jordan and John Stewart’s complicated partnership to an unexpectedly satisfying conclusion.

The road there isn’t perfect, but Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre keep elevating a series that understands its characters matter more than its mysteries. By the finale, John’s relationship with Hal has become the foundation he needs to become a hero on his own terms.

Lanterns Season 1 Overview

The final stretch of Lanterns takes some big swings, beginning with the destruction of Rushville and eventually sending John Stewart off-world for the first time. Through it all, Pierre and Chandler keep the series grounded, and their performances continue to make John and Hal’s relationship the show’s most compelling part.

Killing Hal in the first episode was a risky decision. Bringing Chandler back as a hologram in the season’s final stretch could easily have felt like a way to avoid the consequences of Hal’s death. Instead, the change gives Chandler and Pierre a different dynamic to explore and ultimately strengthens John’s development.

The mystery surrounding Hal’s death is less successful. The killer’s identity is relatively easy to predict, but Kerry being responsible works because her motivation gives the reveal more emotional weight. Noah’s role is shakier. The reveal that he’s a Manhunter fits with the season’s larger ideas about identity and choice, but the character never becomes compelling enough to carry the finale’s heavier material. The performance also falls short during some of Noah’s most important scenes.

Those problems are outweighed by an excellent conclusion, particularly Episode 7, The Jordan Boys’ Legacy. John’s first journey beyond Earth expands the world of Lanterns while forcing him to confront his understanding of fear, courage and Hal himself. It’s arguably the strongest episode of the season and provides the breakthrough John needs before finally accepting the responsibility represented by the ring.

John Stewart learns what courage really means

Throughout Lanterns, John has possessed many of the qualities associated with a Green Lantern. He’s determined, confident and willing to run toward danger when others wouldn’t. However, his understanding of courage is challenged when The Jordan Boys’ Legacy takes him through a wormhole to Antaan’s devastated homeworld.

Sending John off-world is an exciting expansion for a series that has deliberately kept most of its cosmic mythology in the background. More importantly, the setting lets the show test John in a way the Rushville investigation couldn’t. He discovers the Manhunters used a fear-inducing gas that made Antaan’s people turn on one another, then experiences its effects himself. John hallucinates his father and younger self and eventually points his gun at himself without realizing what he’s doing.

For a character who has spent much of the season trying to maintain control, losing it is terrifying. Pierre is good in these moments. His performance throughout Lanterns has allowed John’s confidence to coexist with anger, uncertainty and vulnerability without making any of those qualities feel contradictory.

The experience also changes John’s understanding of what the ring demands from him. Courage doesn’t require him to stop being afraid. He needs to recognize that fear and keep moving forward despite it.

That distinction makes his eventual decision to become Earth’s protector feel earned. John has spent much of the season resisting the ring and the expectations attached to it, particularly when those expectations come from Hal or the Green Lantern Corps. By the finale, accepting the ring is finally his decision. He isn’t surrendering to a destiny someone else chose for him. He decides what that responsibility means for him.

Hal finally becomes the mentor John needs

Killing Hal Jordan creates another problem for Lanterns. Chandler and Pierre’s chemistry has driven the series from the premiere, so removing half of that partnership before John completes his transformation could have weakened the final episodes.

The hologram provides a clever solution, but its effectiveness goes beyond keeping Chandler around.

The living Hal is a difficult mentor. He’s secretive and stubborn, with decades of baggage that keep him from fully opening up to John. Chandler has been excellent at showing the pain underneath Hal’s rough exterior, but that pain repeatedly gets in the way of the relationship he’s trying to build.

Years after Rushville, neither man has figured out how to bridge that divide. Their attempt at reconciliation ends with John breaking Hal’s nose, and John only begins digging into his former partner’s life again after learning Hal has died.

Summoning Hal’s hologram initially seems like it might undercut the finality of his death. The show avoids that problem by changing the relationship instead of trying to recreate it. John no longer competes with Hal or rebels against his authority, and the hologram doesn’t carry the defensiveness that repeatedly pushed the real Hal away.

For the first time, Hal becomes the mentor John wants and needs.

Episode 7 takes that idea furthest. Hal’s hologram saves John when the fear gas overwhelms him, then reveals the painful truth behind the Jordan family legacy. John learns Hal’s father and grandfather died by suicide, giving him a better understanding of the burden Hal carried and the behavior that frequently frustrated him.

It’s a smart evolution of a relationship that could have stopped developing the moment Hal died. John can’t reconcile with his former partner in the traditional sense, but he can finally understand him. At the same time, Hal can provide guidance without trying to turn John into another version of himself.

That distinction is important to where Lanterns leaves John. Hal’s greatest success as a mentor isn’t creating someone who follows his path. It’s giving John enough guidance to choose his own.

Lanterns Season 1 Final Thoughts

The final four episodes confirm what has been apparent since the premiere: Lanterns soars because of Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre.

The mysteries are compelling without being groundbreaking. Hal’s killer isn’t particularly hard to predict, and the Noah storyline never reaches the emotional heights the finale wants. Neither problem diminishes what the series accomplishes with its two central characters.

Chandler gives Hal tremendous humanity, especially as the series gradually strips away the legend surrounding him. Pierre is every bit his equal, taking John from a reluctant recruit who wants nothing to do with the Green Lantern Corps to someone who understands the responsibility that comes with wearing the ring.

Episode 7 culminates that development. John goes off-world, confronts his fear and finally understands Hal in a way he never could while his mentor was alive. That makes the finale less about John replacing Hal and more about him deciding what lessons are worth carrying forward.

When John tells Guy Gardner he’s taking over as Earth’s protector and charges the ring with his own oath, the season completes the transformation it’s been building toward.

Lanterns doesn’t end with John Stewart becoming another Green Lantern. It ends with him becoming his own.