‘Lanterns’ Episode 5: All Hell Breaks Loose In Rushville

This week’s Lanterns was all gas, no brakes. We see Hal in full superhero mode as John is faced with the cost of getting everything you’ve wanted.

Sep 14, 2026 - 18:05

‘Lanterns’ Episode 5: All Hell Breaks Loose In Rushville

A desolate urban scene with a damaged car and scattered debris on the ground, with a person standing amidst the destruction. — Source: HBO Max / Screenshot

Our time in 2016 Rushville comes to a close this week in an episode packed with reveals and some of the biggest action in the series so far.

In proper Lanterns fashion, the episode starts with a flashback to Rushville in 2007. We see a young Kerry as her car breaks down outside of Rushville. She manages to push her car to a diner and is immediately accosted by two mobsters who were sent to kill her. Her father was apparently a snitch who was killed by the mobsters, and unfortunately that makes Kerry a snitch by association.

It’s at this point Zoe makes a hell of an entrance by snapping the neck of one of the goons and pinning the other down. Zoe interrogates the man and learns that he was supposed to bring back Kerry’s pinkie as proof he killed her.

Kerry cuts off her pinkie and gives it to the guy. Zoe saves Kerry’s life, but makes a deal: Zoe is expected to protect her, and then offers to grow her a new pinkie.

So Kerry is in on it!

We then return to the 2016 timeline, where John is pinned into the car that Hal jumped out of at the end of episode four. Hal refuses to let John out, explaining that he’s more or less following Sinestro’s plan. He’s taking John off the board, pitting Antaan against Macon, so he can grab Zoe, deliver her to the Guardian, and hold on to his ring.

Zoe arrives at the scene of the car crash, and she allows John to nearly burn to death before taking him to a hospital. She’s using his burns to manipulate him into working for her. Zoe explains that her plan is to use her satellites to attack Rushville and force Hal to deplete his ring so she can kill him easily. Once Hal is dead, John can take the ring, and everyone wins.

John reveals on the hospital table that he still has respect for Hal and doesn’t trust the Guardians because of the way they’re handling his succession. John takes Zoe’s deal, and she uses a machine to heal his body of the burns. While Zoe gets the machine ready, we learn she is the one who killed Abin Sur in this world, which I think is pretty neat!

As John is getting his body back, Hal gets to the cafe and sees a shootout has gone down, with bodies, blood, and bullet casings all over the place. Hal meets Antaan and strikes a deal, convincing him that William Macon is the manhunter.

Antaan wants to know how John was compromised by the manhunter, as they usually use sex as their primary weapon. This leads to a funny beat with Hal thinking on his feet and barely convincing Antaan of his cosmic bisexuality.

After Antaan leaves, we get some of the biggest action we’ve seen in the show so far. Zoe’s satellite attack begins, with the lasers causing massive destruction across Main Street. We see Hal in full Green Lantern mode, using the ring to protect citizens from the satellites. At the same time, we get a massive action sequence on Macon’s compound with car chases, suicide bombers, and no shortage of gunfire.

Antaan eventually makes his way into Macon’s home, and we see that Zoe has trained him to be her decoy. The two have a conversation in Antaan’s native alien language, and Macon does his best to convince Antaan he’s the manhunter. Antaan quickly realizes Macon is a decoy, as a manhunter would never welcome death. Antaan throws a knife into Macon’s chest and then pulls out his heart, confirming he’s not the manhunter.

From here, we see John clearly isn’t on Zoe’s team, as he takes out the guard at his bed and escapes the hospital. This leads to another funny beat where he breaks into the police station, sets up a sniper, and stays on the phone with his parents, breaking down everything that’s happened so far.

Hal finds Zoe, but she blows up the nearby water tower, which is actually filled with the black, anti-lantern cloud weapon from earlier in the season. This leads to an awesome first-person sequence where Hal is beating down all of Zoe’s guards while using night-vision glasses.

Antaan tries to suicide bomb Zoe, but Hal uses the ring to stop him at the last second. Hal steals a helicopter and makes it back to the motel room to recharge his ring. This plan is immediately derailed after John decks him across the face. This fight scene is one of the episode’s more cathartic moments, as all the tension between Hal and John this season comes to a head.

Despite John choking him out, Hal still manages to make a barrier around them as one of Zoe’s satellite weapons takes out the motel. Hal is pinned under some rubble as a result, and John takes off as Zoe arrives to finish him off.

Hal tells Zoe that if John wanted Hal dead, he would’ve done it himself. Zoe realizes John used Hal as bait right as John snipes her clean in the head. John cuts out her heart, and then takes the ring and lantern from Hal.

John is walking through the devastation of Rushville as he goes to meet Lianna, and he sees the cost of getting everything he ever wanted. When John sees Lianna, he tells her that he’s waited his whole life for this moment. He finally has everything he’s ever wanted, and it’s left him empty.

He explains that the ring made Hal betray himself and everything he believed in just to hold on to it. He’s seen the cost of making the job your entire identity and decides it’s not worth it, leaving ring with Lianna as he takes off.

I thought this was an incredible beat, as we see John finally become his own man. He’s not living up to his parents’ wishes or what the Guardians want from him. This is why he’s going to be a fantastic Green Lantern once he finally gets his ring.

So John’s training arc ends with no one holding the ring and John seemingly abandoning his destiny to become the Green Lantern. If this is the definitive end of Kyle Chandler’s run as Hal Jordan, I gotta give that man his flowers.

I cannot stress how much I’ve loved the Green Lantern comic books since I was a teenager. I’ve always wanted to see Hal Jordan done justice after the awful 2011 movie, and Chandler really knocked it out of the park with Lanterns. In only five episodes, Chandler has become the definitive Hal Jordan, and I hope DC Studios has more plans for him in the future.

The teaser for next week’s episode reveals that we’re hitting the present day, with John investigating the death of Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner (played by Nathan Fillion in last year’s Superman) finally making his arrival. I’m incredibly curious to see if we learn how Guy got his ring and what happened to Hal after Rushville.