Rating: 9/10
Spoiler Warning: Full spoilers for Lanterns Season 1, Episode 5, “Lights Out,” follow.
Rushville finally explodes
After four episodes of slowly building its murder mystery, Lanterns finally pulls the pin.
“Lights Out” turns the Rushville investigation into an all-out confrontation involving John Stewart, Hal Jordan, Zoe Macon, Antaan and the forces surrounding the mysterious Manhunter.
And remarkably, the episode doesn’t lose sight of its characters amid all the chaos.
The Manhunter mystery is finally resolved, but the real story is what that revelation does to John.
Zoe isn’t simply revealed as the villain. The episode spends considerable time exploring her history, her connection to Rushville and the complicated relationship she developed with John.
Zoe Macon’s secret finally comes out
The revelation that Zoe is the Manhunter is easily one of the season’s biggest twists.
What makes it work is that the show doesn’t suddenly transform her into a completely different character.
Zoe’s actions are horrific, but her motivations are rooted in survival. She has spent years protecting Rushville while concealing what she really is, and her connection with the town is far more complicated than John initially understands.
Poorna Jagannathan gives the character an unexpectedly vulnerable quality, particularly as Zoe realizes that her relationship with John may have been the one thing that made her feel genuinely human.
That makes their eventual confrontation considerably more painful.
Kerry Kane gets her own origin story
One of the episode’s smartest additions is a flashback involving Sheriff Kerry Kane.
The sequence reveals more about Kerry’s past in Gotham and explains her longstanding connection to Zoe. Zoe once saved Kerry’s life and even regenerated a severed finger, establishing why Kerry has such complicated feelings about the mysterious alien.
It’s a small piece of mythology, but it gives Kerry considerably more dimension.
It also quietly expands the DC Universe.
Rather than treating Gotham as a distant comic-book location, Lanterns uses Kerry’s history to suggest that this world has a long and complicated history with crime, aliens and extraordinary people.
Hal Jordan crosses the line
Then comes the episode’s most troubling development.
Hal Jordan’s relationship with John finally fractures.
Hal is willing to make an extraordinarily ruthless decision in order to accomplish the Lantern mission, leaving John in an extremely dangerous situation.
It’s the moment where the show’s central mentor-student relationship fundamentally changes.
Kyle Chandler has played Hal as weary and cynical all season, but “Lights Out” reveals just how far that cynicism can go.
Hal isn’t necessarily operating from pure malice.
That’s what makes it worse.
He genuinely believes the mission comes first.
John Stewart’s breaking point
Aaron Pierre owns the back half of the episode.
John survives the crash and eventually confronts Zoe, leading to the moment the season has been building toward.
He kills her.
John then removes the crystallized heart from her body as proof that Zoe really was the Manhunter.
It’s an ugly victory.
John has accomplished the mission.
But he has also killed someone he loved.
And suddenly the idea of becoming a Green Lantern doesn’t look quite so appealing.
The ring becomes the real question
The most interesting decision comes after the fighting stops.
John has the opportunity to take the Green Lantern ring.
He does.
For a moment, it appears as though the conventional superhero origin story is finally happening.
Then John rejects it.
That decision completely changes the trajectory of the series.
John has witnessed manipulation from the Guardians, betrayal from Hal and the catastrophic consequences of the Lantern mission.
Why would he willingly sign up for that?
The answer, at least for now, is that he won’t.
And that’s a fantastic place to leave the character.
Rushville pays the price
The episode’s biggest weakness is also one of its strengths.
“Lights Out” gets big.
Rushville becomes a battlefield, people die, buildings are destroyed and the relatively intimate detective story suddenly becomes a science-fiction war.
The destruction is effective because the episode treats the consequences seriously.
This isn’t simply another superhero fight that leaves the town looking exactly the same in the next episode.
Rushville has been fundamentally changed.
And so have the characters.
Why “Lights Out” works
The best thing about Lanterns is that its action actually changes the story.
Zoe is dead.
John’s trust in Hal is shattered.
Hal’s morality is increasingly questionable.
Kerry’s history has been expanded.
And John Stewart has rejected the very institution he was supposed to join.
That’s a lot of movement for one episode.
If anything, “Lights Out” occasionally feels like too much episode packed into one hour. Some of its revelations and emotional beats could have benefited from more breathing room.
But the ambition is impressive.
The episode moves from quiet character drama into full-scale science-fiction chaos without completely abandoning the grounded tone that has defined the series.
That is difficult to pull off.
Final Verdict
“Lights Out” is the episode where Lanterns stops being primarily a murder mystery and becomes something much more interesting.
It’s a story about what happens when the institution you’re supposed to trust turns out to be morally compromised.
John Stewart is now standing at a crossroads.
He has demonstrated that he possesses the courage and ability to become a Green Lantern.
But he has also decided that he doesn’t want the job.
That contradiction is exactly what makes the character compelling.
Aaron Pierre gives the episode its emotional core, while Kyle Chandler and Poorna Jagannathan bring genuine complexity to two characters who could easily have been reduced to hero and villain.
Instead, everybody is compromised.
And that’s what makes “Lights Out” so good.
⭐ Final Rating: 9/10
Bottom line: Lanterns delivers its most consequential episode yet. “Lights Out” brings the Rushville mystery to a violent conclusion while completely reshaping John Stewart’s relationship with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. The biggest question heading into Episode 6 isn’t who the Manhunter was.
It’s whether John Stewart still wants to become a hero at all.
