Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, and the ‘Lanterns’ Creators on a ‘Quieter’ Finale, Ending with Love, and the New Oath

The stars and creators behind HBO's "grounded" superhero series break down an ending that focuses on character over spectacle — and introduces a new oath for our new Green Lantern.

[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Episode 8, the finale, including the ending.]

The first season of “Lanterns” didn’t end like a lot of superhero series. There’s no skybound, CGI-heavy light-show between men in tights. The finale doesn’t even make much use of the magic ring. Instead, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) solves the murder of his mentor, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), shares an earnest goodbye with his Hal-o-gram, and claims the role he was born (or bred) to inherit: Earth’s new Green Lantern.

In a panel discussion with Chandler, Pierre, and co-creators Damon Lindelof and Tom King, fellow co-creator and showrunner Chris Mundy explained the series’ alternate approach to the Green Lantern heroes.

“This story was about these two guys. We knew that if we landed it emotionally with them, we would have done our job,” Mundy said. “We barely even talked about it because we all just knew this is what we were going for — that [a more action-oriented ending] would have been distracting, that that would have been just incident instead of emotion.”

Mundy pointed out action scenes in previous episodes provided plenty of pyrotechnics, including a climactic brawl between Hal and John in Episode 5.

“What I love about the huge fistfight that those guys have is that’s a huge fistfight, but it’s like literally [just] these two guys and it’s an emotional scene even though they’re beating the hell out of each other. The ending had to be an even quieter connection of these two people.”

“Lanterns” faced some backlash from comic book fans and critics for its limited use of the ring, which can manifest anything the wearer imagines. (Green Lantern’s previous onscreen iteration, the 2011 film starring Ryan Reynolds, suffered far worse reactions despite near-constant use of the ring to create everything from swords and spaceships to Hal’s CGI mask.)

“One of the reasons I love long-form storytelling and television versus a movie is because I feel like if we had to make a two-hour ‘Lanterns’ movie about this kind of meeting [between] John and Hal, you would have to have the third act [be a] bombastic, amazing, action set-piece, and then you get like two or three minutes of coda after that to [deliver an emotional payoff,]” Lindelof said. “We got to [do] that almost over the course of three episodes […] You can only do that in TV. So if you don’t have to do the big bombastic action set-piece, you have to ask yourself, ‘What is it in service of for a show that was always about these two guys?’ It was just very liberating to know that we could do something like this instead.”

Perhaps the most moving moment of the finale is the last between John and Hal (or, more accurately, the Hal-o-gram). In what starts as a prank by Hal, the two men tell each other, “I love you,” capping off a relationship that began with a lot of distrust and animosity before developing into a meaningful, powerful bond.

“The characters, they fell in love through this action and this friendship,” Chandler said. “Although it was pretty rocky, I got to say. But for that moment to occur at the end, it was just such a human factor. Maybe in a film from the ’50s or the ’60s, you’ve got The Duke standing there, and he’s just not going to say, ‘Well, I love you, kid’ — it just didn’t happen that way back then. But these were words that were actually expressed, and it was really nice to be able to do that. It was painfully exposed.”

“It was a joyous thing to be able to do on screen,” Chandler added, joking, “And it was easy to do with Aaron because, although I really don’t like him very much, I knew I was getting paid. So, you know, the checks passed.”

“They actually paid me what I got for the whole season just to be here with you, Kyle,” Pierre quipped in response. “It’s funny because Kyle and I, so much of our dynamic in the series is tumultuous and it’s volatile. […] But when there were moments in the script that made us stop that and really lock into the emotional beat, that was really quite moving for us, I think, as the characters but also as the individuals playing the characters.”

“Kyle believes he made me cry on that day,” Pierre said. “I think I made him cry, but we’ll have to let the episode bear and see what the verdict is, you know?”

Another bold choice emerges when John creates his own oath. Typically, Green Lanterns all swear the same oath — a beloved staple of the comics — but John is forging his own path, and the creators decided he should use his own words to get there.

“Of course, we were crazily nervous,” Mundy said about writing a new oath. “I know Justin [Britt-Gibson], one of the writers, was like, ‘Well, we’re not rewriting [the oath], we’re remixing it.'”

Mundy and Lindelof also explained why the old oath wouldn’t make sense for John, specifically.

“John’s path was not the normal path,” Munday said. “We wanted it to be true to the original and respectful of the original — and his version is rooted, obviously, in the O.G. version — but we also wanted to tweak it to talk about the [season’s] themes, and make it that he was choosing this thing and not, ‘Oh, I’m doing it because my parents want me to do it,'” Mundy said.

“When you watch the totality of John Stewart’s story, it’s really hard to get to the end of it and say that he is in alignment with the Green Lantern corps and Lianna [the Guardian played by Laura Linney], and everything that [they] stand for,” Lindelof said. “For a man who pledged his loyalty to the military, to his parents, that’s like this idea of saying ‘I’m kind of beyond doing that for other organizations, and in order for me to formulate an oath, it has to be on my own terms and in my own way.’

“Circling back to how the show deals with fear, we started to say, ‘If we’re not afraid of doing an idea, then we probably shouldn’t do it,'” Lindelof said. “We have the baton, we are wearing the ring for this period of time, we get to make a season of this show — who knows what happens next. You can’t take a risk for risk’s sake, it has to be earned, and the way that it’s earned is the character starts to tell you what they will do and won’t do. So, it just felt right, and we understood that it’s probably going to be the thing that divides the fandom. But, again, you have to honor the characters at the end of the day, and it felt like it was a good thing. Obviously, Aaron’s performance speaks for itself.”

“Lanterns” is available on HBO and HBO Max. The series has not been renewed for Season 2 as of publishing.