Lanterns Finale Solves The Mystery Of Hal's Death And Reveals Another [Spoiler] — Read Recap, And Grade The Episode!

Your enjoyment of/satisfaction with the Season 1 finale of "Lanterns" may come down to your understanding and/or fear of Manhunters.

From the beginning of HBO's Green Lantern story, we've been told that Manhunters are a rogue race of ruthless beings, created by the Guardians, whose programming always will lead them to destroy anyone in their path. We saw the concept play out with Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan). Though the character had real ties to the community of Rushville, she was fine with seeing the place destroyed after Hal and John realized she was a Manhunter in disguise.

"She's programmed a certain way," Jagannathan told me at the time. And, as the series made clear, that programming was stronger than Zoe's love for her family or her connection to the town. Manhunters are going to do what Manhunters are going to do, we were told, and even they are powerless to stop themselves from causing death and destruction on a massive scale.

Cool. Disturbing, but cool... until we get to Sunday's Season 1 finale, and all of that reasoning is tossed aside when another Manhunter is discovered after years of hiding in plain sight. We'll get into detail about all of this in a moment, but John Stewart really lets it ride on the whole "nurture can overcome nature" debate, eh?

(And yes, I realize that puts me and Sinestro on the same side of an ethical quandary. I don't like it much, either.)

The season-ending hour also finally reveals who killed Hal Jordan, as well as the very sad circumstances surrounding his death.

In a moment, I'm going to want to hear what you thought of the episode and the season overall. But first, let's review the highlights of Episode 8.

The hour opens in 2016, as the siege of Rushville is ending. Off of John's direction, Kerry finds a bloody Hal lying in the wreckage at the motel. They have a pained conversation about how many people are dead and how the Guardians likely will charge Hal with reckless endangerment and put him away. "Kind of a nice, clean solution to their problem of me," he wheezes. Kerry agrees with him that what happened is pretty much his fault, so he can't figure out why she looks so upset. "I can still feel bad about being right," she says.

Ten years later, she's waiting for him with Schlitz and flowers when he's released from prison. He's happily surprised to see her. Their romantic relationship begins soon after, but it's highly unpopular with the town. One night, when they're having dinner in a restaurant, all of the patrons stare at them with angry glares. Hal begs the sheriff not to do anything — "Listen, I know it took you years to earn these people's respect. I don't want you to lose it because of me" — but she has had enough.

Kerry stands to address the room. She acknowledges Hal's unpopularity, but she points out that he is still a hero pretty much anywhere other than Rushville, and he could've had a far less fraught life elsewhere but chose to come back to the place he'd hurt. "Every day he goes out and tries to fix something he broke," she points out, adding: "I lost as much as any of you 10 years ago, and I forgive him." Hal might not deserve grace, she continues, "but he deserves peace. We all do. Any anyone who wants to threaten that peace should know: He's with me." Then she sits down and continues eating her garlic bread like a boss.

Not long after, we see Kerry reluctantly leaving Hal's bed; he wants her to stay, but she doesn't want Noah waking up in an empty house. Her son knows about them, we learn, but still. But she does invite him to Noah's football game (Kyle Chandler's cautiously hopeful line reading when Hal asks "You mean together?" = perfection), and he's into it. "I would like that very, very, very much," he says, kissing her.

Unfortunately, Kerry's speech isn't as well received as she might've hoped: When Hal is home alone one night, someone sets the place on fire. He grabs Earl and tries to get out but falls through the flaming staircase and is knocked unconscious in the process. When he wakes up, confused, he's on the floor of the slaughterhouse and has a circular scar on his inner bicep.

"It's better if you keep still. Your skin's new," Noah tells him, indicating that he's been through the same process John experienced after the car fire. "I wish there was a way to save you without letting you know what I am. You can't tell my mom I healed you. She doesn't realize I know." Yep: As Sinestro confirms to John when the action flashes-forward to 2026, Noah is a Manhunter.

There's a lot of exposition coming up about stuff that happened both on- and off-screen, so I'll try to simplify. Noah broke Sinestro out of Spazkaban, a) because Sinestro is the only being ever to kill a Guardian, and b) because he wanted Hal's mentor to forge him a lantern so he could exact revenge. Sinestro complied. "If harnessed correctly, fear can be the most powerful force in the universe," Sinestro says during John and the Halogram's visit, pointing out that the unsanctioned lantern is infused with the fear that's omnipresent on the planet it was made on.

Oh, and about that: The portal was Zoe's — so she could visit what she'd done to Aantan's people/planet — and Noah used it to pop in every once in a while. Hal followed him and stepped in to talk to Sinestro, telling the villain that he wanted to hide the portal away forever. Sinestro's vote? Kill the teen asap.

Anyway, John is about to revive his near-depleted ring with the only lantern available when the Halogram suddenly reappears to stop him, because they're not sure what that off-brand charger will do. Also: There's a good chance that the Halogram will completely disappear when the ring repowers.

"If you don't want that boy to kill you, I suggest you charge that ring," Sinestro says. They talk about how Noah has a conscience, and how his human side is warring with his Manhunter programming, but Sinestro knows how it'll turn out: The Manhunter's inherent nature will win, because it always does. Then Sinestro immediately starts hollering when both John and the Halogram decide to leave him, stranded forever, on the planet. Once they're back in the boat, John isn't sure how to proceed, but the Halogram is: He thinks John should charge the ring, because its power is the only thing that might save him if Noah tries to kill him.

John says he's going to use Noah's football game that night as time to think things through. But when he steps through the portal and into the storage facility, the teen greets him by beating the heck outta him and taking the ring.

When Noah has ascertained that John is OK, he makes him drive them around town. They talk about how John killed Zoe because she was a Manhunter. "She knew she couldn't stop herself," John explains, "so she wanted me to stop her." When Noah asks why, John replies, "Because if she was gone, then nobody would come here to look for you."

They come to a LITERAL FORK IN THE ROAD (oy), and John wonders which way Noah wants to go. The kid chooses to direct them toward the high school and his football game. Before Noah gets out of the car, he says he didn't burn down Hal's house — he went in to help him — and he killed Hal because he couldn't risk that the Lantern would tell Kerry the truth about her son. John gently suggests that Noah already has worked opposite of what his programming told him, and that's a good sign. But then the kid talks about having intrusive thoughts about gaining a crazy amount of support and power and using it for world-ending activities. Then he takes off the ring and asks John for a favor: "I want you to kill me." After Noah gets out of the car, John calls for the Halogram to appear and help him, but to no avail.

John finds Kerry watching the game and, after she confronts him for going to the storage unit without her, he tells her about the crazy things Bernadette did to try and make him fearless. "I think you know exactly how my mother felt," he says. "You must've been so scared for Noah, every single day." She looks shocked, because he's figured out one of her secrets: She absolutely knew what Noah is. And as a flashback shows us, when Hal found her at the deserted football field to tell her that he knew, too, everything started to unravel.

First off, Kerry was under the impression that Noah didn't know about his real identity. Second, his existence was courtesy of Zoe's finger-replacement project, after which Kerry found herself pregnant despite not being with anyone for months. In the flashback, Hal tells her that Noah is planning something dangerous, so he wants to take them both to a safe house in Guadalajara, Mexico, until they can figure out a solution. Kerry is crying and panicked as she yells that Hal should never have come back. She pulls her gun and wheels on him, firing — just as he's telling her that he loves her.

In the present, she admits she called John because she wanted to know if Noah was, indeed, a monster. He cites the kid's actions (giving up the ring and lantern, confessing to Hal's murder to save her) as evidence that he's OK. "That is not programming. That is love. You raised him well," he tells her. Then he shares Noah's request that John end his life because "he's scared of what he might become."

John reassures her that he is not planning to kill the teen, but he's also not sure what to do. "With the right guidance, he could be the boy that you raised him to be," he reasons. But if not, "then the world's gonna need somebody who can stop him." Kerry plans to turn herself in to the sheriff's department after the game, but John stops her. "Somehow," he says sadly, "I don't think that's what Hal would've wanted."

So the game ends, Noah's team wins, and he decides to attend the University of Nebraska. He celebrates with Kerry and Billy — and the rest of the town — under the floodlights on the field.

Meanwhile, John fires up the Green Lantern beacon, summoning an irked Guy Gardner. John tells him Hal died a hero "and that's all you need to know," and tasks the Lantern with taking a message to the Guardians: John's going to be Earth's Green Lantern. "Think of me as an independent contractor," he says. "No Guardians, no corps. You take the stars. I'll take the dirt."

Guy sputters that that's not how the system works and that the Guardians will send an army to take him down. But John is resolute, and eventually Guy flies off in a snit (but will 100 percent do exactly as John ordered). The Halogram appears soon after; he heard everything, and he agrees that John is taking a big risk by letting Noah be. So John asks what Hal would do. "My gut tells me that you're going to be better at this job than I ever was, and you're ready," the hologram tells him kindly. Then he instructs him to charge the ring: "Don't be afraid to be afraid."

Before he's gone for good, the Halogram asks for some clarity, because he didn't quite hear everything when Kerry and John were talking. He wonders what his last words were. "I love you," John reports. "And I love you, too, Junior," the Halogram says before blinking out of existence for goot.

John charges the lantern. He drops Maggie's money at the cafe with a note reading "I'm still sorry." He puts the backpack back in the storage locker. He visits his family, who are happy to see him — particularly his mother, who cries as she holds him close. Then he rewrites the Green Lantern oath to include a line about embracing fear, rather than rejecting it.

And then John, who never was able to fly, takes off into the sky.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the finale? Grade it, and the season as a whole, via the polls below. Then hit the comments with all of your thoughts!