LANTERNS Episode 5 Unleashes the Manhunter as Poorna Jagannathan Explains Zoe’s Deadly Game

Lanternsjust ripped the mask off one of its biggest mysteries, and Zoe Macon turned out to be far more dangerous than anyone in Rushville realized.

Episode 5 picks up after the reveal that Zoe, played by Poorna Jagannathan, is actually the Manhunter who has been hiding at the center of the season’s mystery. The funny part is that Jagannathan was apparently one of the last people to know.

She didn’t learn Zoe’s true identity until she received the Episode 4 script. While talking to Variety, she said with a laugh: “Everyone saw it coming except me!”

That lack of knowledge may have worked in her favor. Had she known what Zoe really was during her audition, Jagannathan thinks her performance might have gone in a very different direction.

“Obviously, I’m grateful that they didn’t tell me initially, because in my audition I know I would have acted like a robot.”

Episode 5 reveals exactly how Zoe built her strange hold over Rushville. Years earlier, Sheriff Kerry, played by Kelly Macdonald, was running from gangsters looking to collect money owed by her father. They find her at the local diner, where Zoe happens to be sitting alone.

Zoe suddenly snaps one gangster’s neck and orders the other to return to his boss with the story that Kerry is dead. She then offers Kerry something she desperately needs: a safe life in Rushville. Of course, it comes with a price. Kerry will eventually have to protect Zoe.

Jagannathan says: “[Co-creator] Chris [Mundy] and Geeta Patel, the director of that episode, wanted a sense that that scene is emblematic of the contract Zoe has made with every single person in the town. Her survival depends on you agreeing to your survival. It’s a Faustian play she makes.”

That arrangement explains why Rushville is ready to go to war when Antaan, played by Paul Ben-Victor, comes hunting for Zoe. The townspeople arm themselves because their lives and Zoe’s survival have become tied together.

Meanwhile, Hal, played by Kyle Chandler, has left John, played by Aaron Pierre, trapped inside their wrecked vehicle following the crash from Episode 4. Hal wants Antaan and Will Macon’s militia to tear each other apart while he finds Zoe and hands her over to the Guardians.

Zoe gets to John first. She finds him just as the vehicle catches fire, but she doesn’t rescue him. She watches and waits for the explosion. John survives, horribly burned and barely clinging to life, and is eventually brought to the hospital.

There, John reveals that he knows the Guardians created the Manhunters. Zoe sees an opportunity and offers him one of her familiar deals. She’ll heal him with alien technology if he allows Hal to die and tells the Guardians there’s nothing to worry about.

“She waits for John to burn, and he is hanging by a thread to life,” Jagannathan says. “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 doesn’t think Zoe actually intended to let John die. A Green Lantern owing her his life would be the ultimate piece of protection, or as the actress describes it, Zoe’s “her crown jewel.”

“She quickly assessed who is her biggest threat,” she says. “She quickly assessed who could be her strongest protector, and it wasn’t Hal — it was John. She sees something in John where she knows that he is going to be the better Green Lantern.”

While all of this is happening, Antaan and his crew arrive in Rushville. Hal meets them at the diner and claims Will Macon, played by Garret Dillahunt, is the Manhunter. Antaan doesn’t completely buy the story, but he and his heavily armed team head for Will’s ranch anyway.

John eventually accepts Zoe’s offer. As she prepares to heal him, he asks why an alien machine would choose to present itself as a South Asian woman. Zoe explains that appearing as an outsider gives her a “higher vantage point” for infiltrating society.

That part of Zoe immediately connected with Jagannathan. “My outsiderness over the years has definitely become my strength. It’s the thing that I bring to the party. So when I read that monologue, I was like, ‘OK, that’s my in.'”

“You just don’t get asked a lot of questions if you are presented as outsider,” she continues. “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 John is healed, he pieces together another major part of Zoe’s history. She killed Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who eventually passed his ring to Hal. Abin Sur was prepared to leave Zoe on Earth, but she couldn’t take the chance that he might someday reveal her location to the Guardians.

Jagannathan sees the characters in Lanterns as operating across plenty of moral gray areas, but she also views Zoe as a “victim of her programming” as a Manhunter. Zoe’s choices may be vicious, but survival is hardwired into how she operates.

Things get even uglier at Will’s ranch. Will waits for Antaan while calling Zoe to thank her for giving him more time to live. Following Zoe’s instructions, he pretends to be the Manhunter in an attempt to protect her identity.

Antaan isn’t satisfied with simply killing him. He cuts out Will’s heart and confirms that he was human. Zoe then turns Rushville itself into bait.

She fires space-based weapons at the town, forcing Hal to burn through the power in his Green Lantern ring. Hal manages to locate Zoe, but she gets away, leaving him with little choice but to return to the motel and recharge.

John is waiting for him. The tension between the two finally explodes into a vicious fight. John beats Hal and nearly takes the ring, only for one of Zoe’s satellite weapons to obliterate half the motel. Hal uses the small amount of power remaining in his ring to protect both of them.

John escapes the wreckage, while Zoe arrives with a gun to kill Hal herself. Hal laughs because he understands something Zoe doesn’t: if John truly wanted him dead, he could have finished the job.

John is nearby with a sniper rifle aimed directly at Zoe. She turns toward him with an unexpectedly soft expression before he pulls the trigger.

“John is the only person she has ever encountered that she didn’t predict,” Jagannathan says. “Everyone else has always fallen into line. I think the last look is kind of game-recognized-game.

“It was a complete appreciation for someone whose sense of morality outdid anything and everything, and ultimately that’s the only thing that could have killed her. Someone who broke the contract, and no one ever has.”

It’s a fitting end for Zoe. Her entire existence in Rushville was built around figuring out what people needed, waiting until they were vulnerable and offering them survival at a cost. John was the person she couldn’t reduce to that equation.

The episode closes with John returning to the ruined motel and taking Hal’s Green Lantern ring and lantern. He walks through what remains of Rushville before reaching the local bar, where Lianna, played by Laura Linney, is waiting.

John finally has the ring he’s wanted, but instead of embracing what it represents, he walks away from Lianna and leaves it behind.