Is the Manhunter actually a villain? Lanterns star breaks down shocking episode 4 twist

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for Lanterns episode four*

Well, our theories were correct: Zoe Macon is the Manhunter after all. The question now is whether she’s the villain of Lanterns, something Zoe star Poorna Jagannathan has elaborated on. 

Yes, episode four of the DCU series finally gives Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) some answers about the Manhunter hiding in Rushville, although it takes a couple of red herrings to get there.

They initially suspect Zoe’s husband William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), only to discover the advanced alien technology on his compound actually came from a mysterious “benefactor” who also cured him of cancer.

Things take an even stranger turn when Zoe visits John to hook up at his motel, where she tells him she was the one who saved William’s life and that he should leave Rushville (not that John agrees to). 

As she leaves, Zoe is seemingly killed when her truck is destroyed by an orbital weapon. Hal and John trace the attack to a man calling himself Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazábal), a name DC Comics fans will no doubt recognise. 

In the Green Lantern comics, Hector Hammond is a super-intelligent villain and one of Hal’s oldest enemies. Except Lanterns is having a bit of fun with the character, as he eventually admits he’s a human named Hector Gutierrez, who has been working with the Manhunter and using its tech.

Gutierrez points the finger back at William, but they’re not buying it. And Hal spots another clue: John barely reacted to Zoe’s apparent death because he never believed she was actually dead. 

John admits he’d already suspected something was different about her, leading them to the real answer that Zoe is the Manhunter.

If you remember, in Lanterns episode two, Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) established the Manhunters as pure evil. He told John that one of them secretly lived among his people before turning on them and almost wiping out their entire civilisation. 

And Antaan believes it survived and is now hiding in Rushville in human form, which we now know to be Zoe. But we’re yet to find out the full story, and Poorna Jagannathan has suggested there’s a lot more to what happened than meets the eye. 

Is the Manhunter actually evil in Lanterns?

Kind of, but she’s also a product of her environment. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Jagannathan explained that her character is essentially a “victim of what the Guardians have created” and “a victim of her programming”. 

This actually makes sense when compared to the comics. The Manhunters were originally created by the Guardians of the Universe as an intergalactic police force, long before the Green Lantern Corps existed. But their programming became corrupted, leading them to massacre an entire sector of the universe.

After realising their creation had gone horribly wrong, the Guardians abandoned the Manhunters and eventually replaced them with the Green Lantern Corps.

Now, Lanterns is obviously only inspired by the source material, so the story may play out differently in the HBO show. But Jagannathan’s comments suggest that the idea of the Manhunters being shaped by the Guardians’ programming is relevant here. 

“It really blew me away that I’d be cast in something like this or they saw me as something like this,” she told the outlet.  

“The truth is they really tried to humanise this Manhunter, who is a victim of what the Guardians have created, a victim of her programming, a victim of perception. 

“So they really wanted this Manhunter to feel human emotions, and yet her programming will always get the better of her, even at times that she doesn’t want it. So I was struck by how much humanity they imbued in even the character that’s supposed to be the most evil.”

And Zoe’s relationship with John is perhaps the clearest example of that conflict between her programming and her humanity.

Jagannathan explained that when Zoe first encounters John, getting close to him is entirely strategic. “She basically identifies her biggest threat and will have sex with them. Do you know what I mean? That’s her MO,” she explained.

“She will initiate the most intimate relationship with a person who has anything to do with her extinction, and she will flip them. Everything in hindsight becomes so much more strategic. 

“And along the way, Aaron becomes more than just a strategic move on the chessboard. He becomes more to her, so much so that, I don’t know if you caught it, but in four, she actually tells John Stewart who she is.”

Jagannathan is talking about the moment Zoe tells John that she’s the one who saved William’s life. “That’s her way of showing John that it is me and there’s nothing to be afraid of and I’m not a threat, so just go home,” she added. “So, yeah, it reframed everything for me.”

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Featured image credit: HBO