LANTERNS Creators Explain the Finale’s Theme of Fear and Why They “Remixed” the Green Lantern Oath

The first season of Lanterns has come to an end, and John Stewart finally got the moment Green Lantern fans had been waiting for.

After spending the season wrestling with the responsibility being put in front of him, John chose his own path, accepted his place as Earth’s protector, and delivered a new version of the Green Lantern oath before taking flight.

The finale also answered one of the season’s biggest questions by revealing what really happened to Hal Jordan, while bringing the show’s exploration of fear full circle.

The creators and cast recently discussed those choices, including why the oath was changed, what Hal’s hologram represented, and, most importantly, whether Earl the plant has a future.

The episode opens by going back to Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) picking up Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) after he serves a 10-year prison sentence for taking responsibility for the deadly attack on Rushfield. It marks the beginning of their relationship, but Hal knows returning home isn’t going to be easy.

His house is firebombed, leaving him horribly burned. Kerry’s son Noah (Shea Pritchard) saves him by regenerating his damaged skin and reveals that he, like his grandmother, is a Manhunter.

In the present, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Hal’s hologram capture Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) on a desolate planet. They discover that Sinestro created an incredibly powerful lantern for Noah, one capable of becoming a serious threat in the wrong hands.

Once John returns to Earth with the lantern, Noah captures him but eventually lets him go before his football game. Noah also reveals that he killed the real Hal after discovering Hal’s plans involving the new lantern.

There’s another piece to Hal’s death, though. While watching Noah’s game, John confronts Kerry, who admits that she killed Hal after panicking when he asked her to leave with Noah so they could protect the boy from the Guardians. Kerry wants to finish watching her son’s game before turning herself in, but John tells her that isn’t what Hal would have wanted.

Hal’s hologram also gave Chandler the unusual opportunity to approach two versions of the same character. He viewed their relationship almost as a parent watching a younger version of himself make decisions.

“I looked at the Hologram as more of a younger Hal watching himself or the version of himself and the subconscious of how at the time he was put in that world,” Chandler said.

“It’s almost like a father watching a son grow up in a way. He’s viewing himself, making these decisions, and yet he gets to also converse with himself at the same time.

“So it is kind of rather complicated and I took the dialogue and did what I could with it to make it more complicated. So no one understood what I was doing and I thought maybe that might work out.”

Fear has been sitting at the heart of Lanterns from the beginning, affecting Hal, John, Kerry, Noah, Sinestro, and the choices each of them makes. Writer and co-creator Chris Mundy explained that the writers wanted to seriously explore the value of fear rather than simply treating it as something a hero has to conquer.

“If you’re gonna do this story, you’re gonna talk about fear and is it a good thing? Like Sinestro says it in the finale, fear is just emotional intelligence. Show me a species without fear, and I’ll show you something on the extinction list.

“We wanted this to be a really human story, we wanted to talk about these people, that are very real, flawed or complicated, who get to do these heroic things, and what would it actually mean? And so it was really important to us to embrace that and treat that question really super seriously.”

That idea pays off with John because his transformation into Green Lantern isn’t about becoming fearless. He understands his fear and still makes the decision to move forward. More importantly, becoming Earth’s protector is finally his decision.

John’s final interaction with Hal carries some extra weight because it feels like a goodbye between the two characters. Pierre said the months he and Chandler spent filming together naturally fed into the scene.

“We had filmed a lot by that point. Kyle and I on the day we’re thinking of all the months that we filmed prior to that — It’s all going into the moment. It’s all very loaded and it feels earned and it feels deserved. And hopefully the audience is open and receptive to that and allows it to resonate with different.”

John then tells Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) that he’s taking responsibility for protecting Earth. That decision leads to his Green Lantern oath, although comic fans will immediately recognize that this isn’t the traditional version.

According to Mundy, the writers didn’t look at what they were doing as replacing the famous oath. They were adapting it specifically around John’s story and everything he had experienced during the season.

“I know Justin, one of the writers, was like, well, we’re not rewriting it, We’re remixing it,” said Mundy. “I think the idea was, we sort of were taking a look back at what we’d done with the season and so John’s path was not the normal path.

“The ring didn’t choose him. He was interviewed. He was kind of raised for it. He was having to choose this thing. Then he decided not to do it, and then decided he needed to do it on his own terms. And so, it felt, we wanted to be true to the original, and respectful of the original, like his version is rooted in the OG version of it.

“We also wanted to tweak it to talk about the themes that we talked about, and fear, and make it be a choice that he was choosing this thing, and not something he was like, ‘Oh, I’m doing it because my parents wanted me to do it,’ or I’m doing it because of these things.”

I liked that choice. John’s entire journey has been about deciding what kind of person and protector he wants to be instead of simply becoming what other people expect of him. Giving him an oath that reflects that journey makes his final transformation feel personal rather than obligatory.

There is, of course, one other big question coming out of the finale: What about Earl?! Fans of everyone’s favorite pet plant apparently shouldn’t count him out just yet.

Co-creator and writer Damon Lindelof offered some reassurance about Earl’s durability and possible future: “I think Earl is pretty resilient. The botanical creatures of the galaxy can grow their own skin, I would imagine.”

Overall, I really enjoyed Lanterns, and I was happy with where the first season landed. The mystery surrounding Hal gave the story its engine, but John Stewart’s evolution was ultimately the part that mattered. The finale closes Hal’s story while opening the door for John to become the Green Lantern he chooses to be.

Now that John has accepted the responsibility of protecting Earth, I’m excited to see where the DCU takes him next. There are plenty of directions his story could go from here, especially as the larger cosmic side of the DC Universe continues to take shape.

Whatever comes next, Lanterns has put John in a great position to become a major player in the DCU.