When it comes to whodunits, it’s hard to play along when you don’t know the rules. Take the resolution of HBO’s Lanterns, which concludes its first season by revealing who killed Hal Jordan and why. It was Sheriff Kerry, pulling the trigger on impulse after Hal discovered that her son Noah is secretly a Manhunter. Somehow, a Manhunter zygote or whatever was implanted or conceived in Kerry by Noah’s “grandmother” Zoe using her Manhunter technology. Kerry gave birth to this Manbaby and raised him to adolescence.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t know Manhunter reproduction was on the table!

Seriously. Were we supposed to know that eons-old shapehsifting robots could do the virgin-birth thing and make new shapeshifting robots who look, act, and age like humans? Because that feels like new news to me. Seems important! Maybe the Guardians should have mentioned it!

And yet you’re not going to see me complain about the twist any further, because the payoff is one terrific performance after another. Aaron Pierre is so rock solid as sleuthing, morally conflicted John Stewart that it’s as if he carries the weight of the whole show on his shoulders. 

He’s complemented by Kerry Macdonald, rarely more beautiful than when she greets Hal upon his release from jail in a flashback, or more empathetic than when she explains to John that she killed him without thinking to protect her child’s normal life rather than live amongst the stars as fugitives.

Playing two alternate versions of the same character, the wizened and repentant Hal of 2026 and the affable digital backup Hal of 20-odd years earlier, Kyle Chandler perfects the character’s unique chip-on-his-shoulder charm. The real Hal dies trying to save Noah and Kerry, but also not listening to what Kerry is saying — classic Hal. His backup dies telling John Stewart “Love you too, Junior” after tricking him into saying those three little words — a very different Hal altogether.

As Noah, Shea Pritchard is forced to hold down half the screen against Pierre, a tall order for any actor. He succeeds, portraying his struggle against his fascistic programming as the sort of choice that faces many young white men in this country: Be normal and have a normal life, or get into the “hurting people I consider less than me” business. The difference is that if a Manhunter like Noah chooses the latter course, he could get into politics, take over the country, and become, well, the Trump Administration. (Seriously, there’s very little he could do as an evil overlord that isn’t being done already, but like most shows Lanterns hasn’t quite caught up with reality.)

So Noah begs John to kill him after his championship football game is over. Instead, John tells Kerry he knows what Noah is, extracts her confession about Hal…then leaves her and her son to live their lives, trusting in the better angels of their nurture to defeat Noah’s programming. Extrapolating from his own relentlessly conditioned life, John believes that if you’re capable of questioning your programming, you’re capable of changing it too.

With things wrapped up in Rushville, he returns home for a reunion with his brothers, and with his horrifically abusive mother for some reason. (I guess like a lot of adults, he’s tried to forgive and move on, but it would be nice for the show to recognized it portrayed abuse at all.)

But before he heads home, there’s one more thing he has to do. He summons the bullheaded, mildly racist Guy Gardner to let him know there’s a new Lantern in town, an independent operator. Guy may guard Sector 2814, but Earth itself is now John’s. 

How does he get away with this? Earlier in the episode, he and Hal’s clone tortured (sigh) Sinestro by dunking him into the lake of fear on the planet Zoe devastated until he coughs up what Noah was doing with the portal. The young Manhunter broke Sinestro out of space prison and brought him here to forge a new Lantern, in hopes of getting a ring and completing the set. Sinestro was able to kill a Guardian with these weapons, so if push ever comes to shove, Noah wants one of his own. 

Leaving Sinestro to rot on his island, John returns to Earth with both Hal Jordan’s ring and Sinestro’s Lantern, which is shot through with yellow streaks caused by the fear-inducing properties of the planet where it was built. There’s no telling what John will unleash when he charges his ring with this thing, but he does it anyway. 

In a symbol of his newfound independence — from Hal, from Guy, from the Green Lantern Corps, from the Guardians, from his parents, from his own need to be fearless at all times — he makes up his own oath to recite when charging the ring.

In brightest day, in darkest night

I’ll embrace my fear, I’ll do what’s right

I choose this ring, I choose this fight

In service to this Lantern’s light

He changes “blackest night” to “darkest night” for reasons I feel are obvious. Embracing his fear rather than purging it at all costs, that’s new. So is choosing the ring rather than being chosen by the ring. So is serving this Lantern’s light specifically. What if it’s more yellow than green? What if it’s got the shadow of Sinestro inside? These are all interesting questions, provided you find the Green Lantern concept interesting in itself; I do, so I’ll admit it, they’ve got me on the hook.

But even if you’ve never before contemplated the existence of a Yellow Lantern or the Sinestro Corps or anything more expansive than an army of our guys in green, there are those performances to pull you through. Even if Pierre is the only core cast member to return next season, again, he has the gravitas necessary to make the whole show orbit around him. If you overlook its problems, there’s a lot to recommend about Lanterns. Next, I’d like a season where there aren’t any problems to overlook.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.