Though there are still three episodes to go, Sunday's fifth instalment of Lanterns played out more like a season finale, with several big reveals and a few significant character deaths.
When the (black) smoke had cleared, Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) and his alien soldiers, William Macon (Garet Dillahunt), and his wife Zoe, aka the Manhunter (Poorna Jagannathan), were dead, along with a lot of other people in Rushville.
Jagannathan has now taken to Instagram to share some fun, gnarly behind-the-scenes photos from "Lights Out."
"What an exquisite ride this show has been! Thank you to everyone who tuned in and a special shout out if you’ve contributed to a wild theory. I see you... It’s lights out for Zoe but tune in next Sunday - the last few episodes are my favorite," she captioned her post.
After first allowing him to burn in an exploding car, Zoe heals John Stewart on the condition that he won't stop her from killing Hal Jordan, claims the ring, and leaves Rushville. Unfortunately for the Manhunter, she doesn't count on John's drive to complete his mission and eliminate a potential threat to humanity overriding his feelings for her.
"Her fatal flaw is assuming that human beings operate like she does," Jagannathan said in a recent interview. "She is programmed in a very certain way and assumes human beings also have that very particular programming. She glitches [human] programming by saving someone when they need it. She glitches their programming by making them indebted. It’s worked throughout her life on Earth, and it’s worked throughout her life on other planets. But John outmaneuvers that. He goes against the contract, and no one has ever, ever gone against that contract. She’s not doing anyone a favor. She’s literally bringing someone back to life from the brink of death. And you can see in that [burning car] scene with John, she waits. She doesn’t pull him out of the car right away. She waits and waits and waits till he gets to the brink of death [for optimal leverage]. That’s who she is. That’s the space that she plays in, and that’s the power she has. But she just got completely outmaneuvered, and that smile at the end is her recognizing the fact that she finally got outmaneuvered. It’s a game-recognizes-game situation."
We don't anticipate Zoe coming back (her crystallized heart is now in Lianna's possession), but there were some pretty big hints that her grandson, Sheriff Kane's son Noah, may have been conceived with Manhunter DNA. There's speculation that Noah will be revealed as Jordan's murderer in the 2026 timeline.
What did you make of "Lights Out"? Drop us a comment down below.
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.