Spoiler alert: This story discusses major plot points from “Lanterns” Episode 5, “Lights Out,” now streaming on HBO Max.
“Lanterns” has finally put a face to the Manhunter mystery — and Episode 5 makes clear that Zoe Macon’s power in Rushville was never just about force.
After Episode 4 revealed that Zoe, played by Poorna Jagannathan, was the Manhunter, “Lights Out” turns the revelation into a town-wide reckoning. In an interview with Variety, Jagannathan said she did not know her character’s true identity until she received the script for the fourth episode.
“Everyone saw it coming except me!” she said with a laugh, adding, “Obviously, I’m grateful that they didn’t tell me initially, because in my audition I know I would have acted like a robot.”
The new episode expands the show’s central Rushville mystery by revealing the kind of bargains Zoe has been making for years. A flashback shows Sheriff Kerry, played by Kelly Macdonald, being pursued by gangsters because of money her father owed. They find her at the Rushville diner, where Zoe is seated alone. Zoe suddenly snaps one gangster’s neck and sends the other back with instructions to say Kerry is dead.
Kerry’s life is spared, but Zoe makes the terms clear: Kerry can have safety and peace in Rushville as long as she protects Zoe when the moment arrives.
Jagannathan said co-creator Chris Mundy and Episode 5 director Geeta Patel wanted that scene to represent the kind of arrangement Zoe has made across the town. “Her survival depends on you agreeing to your survival,” Jagannathan said. “It’s a Faustian play she makes.”
Zoe’s control reaches across Rushville
With Antaan, played by Paul Ben-Victor, and his team coming to kill her, Zoe pushes Rushville into high alert. The town’s residents arm themselves and prepare for battle, showing how deeply her network of protection has taken root.
At the same time, Hal, played by Kyle Chandler, has left John, played by Aaron Pierre, trapped in their car after forcing him into a crash at the end of the previous episode. Hal’s plan is to let Antaan and Will Macon’s militia fight while he pursues Zoe and tries to turn her over to the Guardians.
Zoe finds John as the car begins to burn, but she does not immediately save him. Instead, she waits until the car explodes. John survives, badly burned and barely alive, and is taken to the local hospital. There, he tells Zoe he knows the Guardians created the Manhunters.
Zoe then offers him a deal: she will heal him if he allows Hal to die and tells the Guardians that everything is fine. Jagannathan described Zoe’s method as waiting until people are at their weakest. “She waits for John to burn, and he is hanging by a thread to life,” she said. “What you understand is she waits for people to be at their most vulnerable point, near death — and she comes in to save them.”
Jagannathan said she believes Zoe would not have let John die because winning the gratitude and protection of a Green Lantern would be, for Zoe, “her crown jewel.” According to the actor, Zoe quickly evaluates both threat and opportunity. “She quickly assessed who could be her strongest protector, and it wasn’t Hal — it was John,” Jagannathan said. “She sees something in John where she knows that he is going to be the better Green Lantern.”
John becomes the variable Zoe cannot control
Episode 5 also reveals more about Zoe’s understanding of identity and infiltration. At the hospital, after John agrees to her terms, Zoe prepares to heal him using alien technology. When he asks why she chose the form of a South Asian woman, Zoe says being an outsider gives her a “higher vantage point” from which she can enter a society.
Jagannathan said that monologue gave her a way into the character. “My outsiderness over the years has definitely become my strength,” she said. “It’s the thing that I bring to the party. So when I read that monologue, I was like, ‘OK, that’s my in.’”
She continued, “You just don’t get asked a lot of questions if you are presented as outsider. No one really knows what questions to ask you. You can hide in plain sight, and that’s the tactic she chose in order to come and live on this planet.”
Once healed, John deduces that Zoe killed Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who passed his ring to Hal, because Abin Sur was going to let her remain on Earth — but Zoe feared he might one day reveal her location to the Guardians. Jagannathan said she sees the characters in “Lanterns” as existing in shades of gray, while Zoe is ultimately a “victim of her programming” as a Manhunter.
Elsewhere, Antaan and his team attack Will’s ranch. Will, played by Garret Dillahunt, waits for Antaan and calls Zoe to thank her for giving him more time to live. Zoe has coached him to pose as the Manhunter, but Antaan kills him and cuts out his heart, proving Will is human.
Zoe then escalates her attack on Rushville, using space-based weapons to force Hal to drain his ring. Hal finds her, but she escapes, and with his ring nearly depleted, he returns to the motel to recharge.
John is waiting. The confrontation between John and Hal turns into a brutal fight that has been building through the season. John gains the advantage and nearly takes the ring before one of Zoe’s satellite weapons destroys part of the motel, forcing Hal to use the ring’s remaining charge to protect them both.
In the aftermath, Zoe arrives with a gun to finish Hal in the rubble. Hal laughs, realizing that if John truly wanted him dead, he would have done it himself. John is then seen aiming a sniper rifle at Zoe. Before he fires, she turns and looks at him.
Jagannathan said that final exchange shows Zoe encountering the one person she failed to anticipate. “John is the only person she has ever encountered that she didn’t predict,” she said. “Everyone else has always fallen into line. I think the last look is kind of game-recognized-game.”
She added that Zoe’s look carried “a complete appreciation for someone whose sense of morality outdid anything and everything,” calling John “someone who broke the contract, and no one ever has.”
The episode closes with John returning to the motel, taking Hal’s ring and lantern, and walking through the wreckage of Rushville. He goes to the local bar, where Lianna, played by Laura Linney, is waiting. But after finally getting what he wanted, John walks away from Lianna and leaves the ring behind.