Lanterns Episode 4 Ending Twist Explained: Who Is The Manhunter?

"Lanterns" is DC's take on "True Detective"-style crime drama, and thus far the big mystery has been the identity of the supposed villain: the Manhunter. Now, however, Episode 4 has finally revealed that Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan) is the Manhunter in question, which upends the narrative we've been told thus far and throws into question who the real bad guys are here.

At the beginning of the show, the main villains of "Lanterns" were said to be the Manhunters, a race of advanced synthetic beings created by the Guardians of the Universe prior to the creation of the Lantern Corps. In the comics, these cosmic police eventually became too focused on punishing those they deemed immoral and eventually rebelled against the Guardians, only for most of the Manhunters to be destroyed. "Lanterns" seems to be following similar lore.

In the show, after the destruction of the Manhunters, a lone survivor was captured by a Lantern known as Abin Sur. But the Manhunter escaped while being transported across the cosmos, causing Abin Sur to crash on Earth and his prisoner to hide in Rushville, Nebraska. Since Episode 2 of the HBO series, we've known that, in the 2016 timeline, Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart are hunting that very Manhunter. The trouble is, these advanced beings can mimic the look of other species, and this particular Manhunter is masquerading as a human. Now, it seems we've finally discovered which human that is. But Zoe has thus far seemed anything but evil, which has us thinking that Paul Ben-Victor's Antaan and his alien crew are the real antagonists of "Lanterns."

"Lanterns" began by clarifying the DC Universe Timeline while also establishing several big mysteries — the most shocking of which concerns Hal Jordan's death at the end of "Lanterns" Episode 1. Now, however, the show has answered one of its biggest mysteries by revealing the identity of the Manhunter.

"Lanterns" Episode 4 sees John Stewart and Hal Jordan break into Will Macon's (Garret Dillahunt) compound in search of the Manhunter, only to be caught and ultimately bailed out by Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald). Soon after, Zoe Macon visits John at his motel and urges him to leave town. While there, she reveals that she doesn't owe Will Macon anything and that he, in fact, owes her. "He was dying when I met him and I saved his life," she says, seemingly referring to Will previously having cancer before the mysterious "benefactor," aka the Manhunter, saved him. Though Zoe was supposedly Will's nurse, the fact that she says she "saved his life" is our first major clue that Zoe is, in fact, the Manhunter.

When she leaves the motel, her car is blown up by some sort of laser from a satellite. Once Hal retrieves the satellite from orbit, he and John track down the head of the company who made it: Hector Hammond, or rather Hector Gutierrez. The duo believe Hector to be the real Manhunter, due to the fact there's no record of him prior to 1986 — the year Abin Sur and his Manhunter prisoner crashed on Earth. But when they arrive at his office, Hal immediately suspects something is up, and pressures Hector into admitting that he is, in fact, a human who was contacted by Will Macon to act as a decoy.

On their return from Hector Gutierrez's office, Hal Jordan reveals that he's onto John Stewart. The fact his protégé didn't get upset by Zoe Macon's car exploding made Hal suspicious. After John became incensed when his family was threatened by Hector, Hal knew for sure. John wasn't upset about Zoe because he knew Zoe survived. "I don't know how she managed to get out of that car alive unless she's a Manhunter," Hal says, confirming that Zoe is the one they've been looking for the entire time.

Knowing this, we can assume Zoe's supposed death was yet another decoy. If John, Hal, and Antaan thought Zoe was dead, they wouldn't suspect her of being the Manhunter. Hector was supposed to take the rap, but that plan has now been scuppered. What's more, John is close enough to Zoe that he hasn't turned her in to Antaan and his band of aggrieved aliens, despite being almost certain she was the Manhunter. That means he likely suspects Antaan of being more villainous than he makes out. Meanwhile, Episode 4 ends with Hal crashing the rental car with John still in it, presumably so he can hunt down Zoe unimpeded. This is, after all, the being apparently responsible for the death of Abin Sur, the Lantern who gave Hal his Power Ring.

Are we about to see John and Hal go head to head over Zoe? Or will it be John and Hal vs. Antaan and his cronies? For now, we'll have to see how it all plays out, but at this rate we might need a second season of "Lanterns" to explain all the details.