Spoilers for Lanterns Episode 5 below.
Lanterns Episode 5, “Lights Out,” hit HBO and HBO Max on September 13, and it’s the action episode fans have been asking for since the premiere.
Rushville gets leveled. Zoe is the Manhunter, and she dies. William Macon dies. Antaan dies.
Hal Jordan and John Stewart beat each other bloody in a motel room, John pulls the ring off Hal’s finger, and then he walks away from it.
The 2016 story is done with three episodes left.
The reaction is the biggest of the season, and it’s split.
By Monday morning the r/television discussion thread on Reddit sat at 435 points, 86% upvoted, with 756 comments. On X, the same episode is “absolute cinema” to one crowd and the “worst episode so far” to the other.
Critics landed all over the map too: IndieWire gave the episode an A, Den of Geek gave it 2.5 stars out of 5, and Collider scored it a 7 out of 10.
Geeta Vasant Patel directed the episode from a script by Justin Britt-Gibson.
‘I Had To Double Check This Wasn’t A Season Finale’
The most common reaction on both platforms is the same one: it felt like a finale.
“I had to double check this wasn’t a season finale because it had all the makings of one,” wrote Reddit user MrPMS. 188 upvotes.
“This felt like a finale and we still have three episodes left!” wrote NoNefariousness2144. “John rejecting the Ring certainly explains why Guy is the main Green Lantern during Superman.”
“Absolutely love that there are still 3 episodes left,” replied ObviousAnswerGuy.
“That was the best episode of TV I’ve seen in ages,” wrote The_Spaghetti_yeti. “Who gave them the right to cook this hard? What a banger episode,” wrote deathly_illest.
On X, @Sanad_5501 posted: “Just amazed at how good #Lanterns ep.5 was. Felt like a finale, so much action, so much progression.”
@Mr_NiceWatch kept it to six words: “Episode 5 of Lanterns is cinema.”
One widely shared post from @Mykethogan ran down the shifts: Kerry knew Zoe was the Manhunter the whole time, Hal nearly killed John, John showed mercy anyway, and John is the one who killed the Manhunter. “This episode changed everything.”
The moments fans singled out: Hal flying the helicopter, which Ntkoessel called “a nice way to remind us that he is an ex-airforce pilot” (144 upvotes). Macon’s “thank you for the extra time” goodbye (MattSR30, 295 upvotes).
The Hal-John fistfight with no music under it. Hal’s “we were very… coitus” line.
And John’s barefoot walk through the wreckage.
“Watching him kill Zoe, look at what chasing that ring turned Hal into, then walk away from it completely hollow hit way harder than I expected,” posted @Slothful_Sin.
Reddit user AhhBisto (211 upvotes) said John giving up the ring makes sense because he took it “in arguably a dishonourable way.”
“When he does get the ring it’ll be because he’s chosen and it’s going to be much sweeter,” AhhBisto continued.
‘That Ring Holds A Charge Worse Than My Phone’
The single most upvoted comment in the entire Reddit thread is not praise.
“That ring holds a charge worse than my phone,” wrote MattyNiceGuy. 367 upvotes.
“No wonder John didn’t want it,” replied Toprelemons. Another 119.
Hal’s ring runs dry again in this episode. Zoe’s plan, which she lays out to John on screen, is to keep hitting the town until Hal burns through his charge protecting it, then kill him when he goes to recharge.
Fans understood the plan. They still hated the battery.
“The whole ring on low charge plot got stale pretty quick,” wrote gamebond89.
“Hal must’ve used the ring a total of 6 times the whole episode an it got down to 5%, he couldn’t even fly to the motel!” wrote AceJames664.
M3rc_Nate, who called himself a big GL fan: “A few bubbles to protect against gun shots, a dome or three and it’s out? That’s insane given what is required of GL’s off in space and in huge battles.”
The pushback got upvotes too. “The charge level is determined by the writer lmao. There is no ‘comic accurate’ level of charge,” wrote VGstuffed (117 upvotes). Others pointed to the 1960s Hal Jordan comics, where the ring ran out of power constantly.
Underneath the ring complaints is the budget complaint, and it showed up in nearly every critical comment: aliens who stay in human form, guns instead of constructs, Manhunters never seen as anything but people.
“Guy did more creative stuff in his handful of scenes in a Superman movie than Hal has managed here so far,” wrote Relevant_Session5987, who added they love the show and want Kyle Chandler back for more.
“It feels like it doesn’t even have the budget to dive into the green spectrum,” wrote lordatlas.
On X, @PKLENTERTAINME1 put it flat: “They just don’t have the budget to do this source material true justice.”
‘Are We Even Watching And Enjoying The Same Show?’
The harshest reviews came from people who liked the first four episodes.
“Feels like a finale to a season that actually had emotional arcs and a mystery that’s been developed in any way,” posted @BurnishedAbbey on X. “This show is also TERRIFIED to show off the Ring doing literally anything… Worst episode so far.”
“I liked the ending but it was very rushed and honestly kind of nonsensical to me,” posted @_potterjays_. “It’s nothing like the carefully constructed earlier episodes, the Manhunter stuff ended with a whimper.”
On Reddit, Metarean called it “the weakest so far for me, mostly due to the action feeling a bit rushed and contrived. Seems like they really had to chop things up to get everything to fit in 50 mins.”
Antoo1 said the episode “felt like the show was punching above its own weight” and called the ranch shootout “so short and uninteresting that it may as well have been cut.”
“A lot of the dialogue and exposition scenes are straight out bad,” wrote TheZizzleRizzle. The Green Lantern material and the two leads are “holding this thing together,” TheZizzleRizzle added.
Plenty of viewers listed Hal’s decisions as plot holes: not charging the ring before the fight, watching the water tower fall, not just grabbing Zoe and flying off. IaMlEgEnD427 listed five and still gave the episode a 7/10.
Hadesman1 wrote that the show “feels like it’s trying to be a prestige drama and feels ashamed to be comic booky which is crazy whiplash compared to the other DCU projects we’ve seen.”
The comment was downvoted below zero. “No idea why you are getting downvoted for this. Very good take,” replied PM_YOUR_CENSORD.
The other side pushed back hard. After running through the “why is Hal so weak” complaints, sexandliquor (55 upvotes) wrote: “lmao seriously are we even watching and enjoying the same show?”
“I don’t get people slamming this episode unless they fully don’t understand how narratives work,” wrote jotastrophe.
“Normal people who enjoy good television will like it; comic nerds will think it’s mediocre,” wrote Special_Anteater9310. “Good thing 70% of a show’s success are from the general audience.”
@TheNTDOfan on X called it “warfare across the DC nation.”
One comment ties back to a CBN story from earlier this month. Reddit user tankdoom wrote that the episode’s writer said on the official Lanterns podcast, “I had no relationship with Green Lantern prior to this show,” and called Episode 5 “maybe the only episode to not really understand the lore.”
Episode 3 writer Vanessa Baden Kelly did tell Collider some writers in the room knew nothing about Green Lantern going in.
Guy Gardner, Noah, And Whether Zoe Is Really Dead
With Hal and John both out, fans have already moved to the next question.
“This is probably how it ended up with Guy Gardner,” wrote trimonkeys (88 upvotes).
Baconmonk pushed back: Guy’s ring in Superman “is grey and wider,” so it’s likely not Hal’s. And if John knew Guy had Hal’s ring, Turbulent-Let-1180 noted, he wouldn’t have checked Hal’s hand for it in the 2026 opening.
The biggest theory thread is Noah. Fans pointed to Kerry calling her son a “miracle” Zoe gave her, Zoe coaching him on spycraft when she caught him snooping, and Zoe’s goodbye to him: “don’t forget everything I’ve told you.”
“Noah is definitely a manhunter,” wrote TheSlayerofSnails (198 upvotes). “He’s going to be the reason 2026 happens.”
Others aren’t sold on Zoe being gone at all. j-helo85 pointed out that Antaan tells Macon a Manhunter “would never welcome death,” then Zoe realizes she’s walked into a trap at the motel, stands there, smiles, and waits for John to shoot her.
On X, the theories run from consciousness transfer to hive-mind bodies.
And the Red Lantern crowd went quiet. “All those red lantern tin foil hat folks got real quiet after this ep huh,” wrote Nistleroy86.
Antaan wasn’t Atrocitus. TannerNewcomb’s defense: “They gave Antaan Atrocitus’ exact backstory. There was good reason to think that could be a possibility.”
On the numbers, the show is holding steady on FlixPatrol and Samba TV after Episode 4 matched the premiere’s peak. Nielsen’s first full week of Lanterns data lands later this week.
Season 2 is still not imminent.
Episode 6 streams Sunday, September 20 at 9 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max, and fans who caught the preview say it’s all 2026.
