SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the penultimate episode of HBO‘s Lanterns.

HBO’s Lanterns gave audiences, and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), a much deeper understanding of Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) in the penultimate episode of the DC series on Sunday night.

The episode opens with a flashback to 1975, when Hal gets in trouble with his baseball coach for refusing to hand over the ball to his teammates. Sound familiar? Back in present day, John has managed to exhume Hal’s body and retrieve the decommissioned power ring, awakening the Halogram to get his help opening the lockbox in the storage unit. It works, and they soon discover that the lockbox contains a dark matter manhole to another planet.

For all the strife that Hal has caused John up to this point, even in his death the partners in intergalactic crime find their way back to one another again.

“We used to describe each other as these characters, like two dogs who lived in the same household, who, at home, they would maybe fight and tear each other apart, but when they were going for maybe a walk, and another dog entered the equation, bam, they were a unit, and there was nothing you could do to to to disrupt or destroy that unit,” Pierre said. “They become dangerous when they’re together. The dynamic is unbreakable, and as soon as they’re on their own, they’re tearing each other down and apart.”

On the other side of the dark matter manhole, the pair find themselves on a deserted planet which seems to have already been utterly destroyed. John soon deduces that this is Anton’s (Paul Ben-Victor) planet, the one that had been systematically that wiped out by the Manhunter.

The Halogram’s decade of missing memories and context create even more frustration for John, who’d gone back to Rushville in the first place because his mother had told him that Hal was ready to apologize for everything he’d done. He was dead by the time John arrived, and this version of him wouldn’t even know what to apologize for. Not to mention, they’ve got more pressing issues. When John becomes affected by the same gas that made Anton’s people kill themselves, the Halogram is the only thing that saves him.

“I think his understanding of who Hal is certainly evolves over the course of the series,” Pierre tells Deadline. “It’s almost like throughout these episodes, John is putting together a puzzle, but the puzzle is 1000 pieces, and sometimes elements of that puzzle form before others, and he thinks he has an understanding of exactly who Hal is, and then he formulates another part of the puzzle, and that conflicts with what he thought he understood, and it’s an ongoing thing.”

The piece of the puzzle that clicks into place this episode harkens back to Hal’s childhood. Not only does that 1975 flashback illustrate Hal’s complicated relationship with his father, it also reveals a history of mental health struggles when Hal reveals that his father killed himself. Since he was a test pilot, no one batted an eye. Among the things he left behind was a note that told Hal he’d be better off without him — and a lifetime of trauma for his son. It was a cycle that had repeated itself for generations in Hal’s family: The Jordan boys’ legacy.

“I’m not fearless because I’m brave. I’m fearless because I’m broken,” the Halogram tells John.

The “heartfelt moment” as Chandler calls it, reframes Hal almost entirely. It follows another moment earlier in the episode, when Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) tells John that Hal once described his trainee like someone’s favorite football team: Impossible to root against but exceedingly maddening to remain loyal to.

“That’s not information that someone just throws in there. That’s a detailed storyline that is also meant to manipulate an audience’s emotions and bring them that much closer into the whole story,” Chandler said. “That’s another great thing about this whole show is that there are those fence posts along the way, and they’re pretty detailed. You don’t miss them in scripts, and you can build around those things as an actor too.”

The end of the episode finds Hal and John facing yet another foe: Sinestro. Turns out, this planet is where he’s been hiding all along.

As for how John’s revelations about Hal might impact the finale, Pierre remains coy about exactly what’s in store, telling us: “I won’t reveal the end, but once we get very near to the end, at least, he has this immense respect and appreciation for Hal, and if if nothing else, I think even Hal knows that he could trust John with his life, and John knows that he could trust Hal with his.”

“You don’t always need to love each other for that to be a truth, and I think that’s something that this series explores. But interestingly enough, speaking on that love element, I think that there is a very there’s a very sincere respect and and a mutual brotherly love there between the two of them,” Pierre continued. “I think a truth that John understood at a certain point in the series [is that] he’s never gonna fully know Hal, but what he can do is understand who Hal is fundamentally at his core, at least. He may never understand all of the nuances of who this individual is, but he can discover who this man is at his core. And once that curiosity was satisfied, I think he was very at peace with everything that the two of them had been through — the highs, the lows, the inbetweens, the moments that felt like purgatory. I think he just he just finds peace with it, because he knows who this individual is at his core, no matter what decoration or nuances surround it.”

Lanterns ends next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

Bassam Tariq’s Mahershala Ali-starring TIFF favorite Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother had a strong limited opening as distributor Amazon MGM launched the awards contender into a platform release hewing to the path of American Fiction..

Also this weekend, A History of Concrete had a terrific expansion, as did If I Go Will They Miss Me. Late summer phenomenon Buddy is still scaring up box office.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother launched in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles to $199k ($33.1k per screen average). The awards contender by Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) is Certified Fresh at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes with strong exit polling that showed a 60% ‘excellent’ with an 89% in the top two boxes and an overall 80% ‘definite recommend.’ Ali stars as Latif, a devoutly religious hitman who struggles to balance work, faith and fatherhood. When his wife dies, he embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children.

A hefty 47% of the audience for the action drama was 25–34. Some 72% is non-white with at 41% African American, 18% Hispanic, and 19% Asian.

Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) “has a unique voice” with a young cinephile audience,” says Amazon MGM Studios head of domestic theatrical distribution Kevin Wilson. “And having [Ali] as an actor is making a lot of people pay attention.”

Comps aren’t obvious but he says the best one may be 2023 multi-Oscar-winner American Fiction by Cord Jefferson, starring Jeffrey Wright. The comedy-drama had a strong limited opening ($224k) followed by a slow rollout. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is eyeing 15 locations next week including Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Austin, playing in particular to non-white audiences who championed the movie’s debut. It will hit the top 10 to 12 markets, 30 to 40 screens, the following week, and move into moderate release Oct. 16 with 500 to 800 locations.

Platform rollouts are heavily reliant on word of mouth. “The best thing is other moviegoers telling their friends how good the film is,” Wilson says. Both Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and American Fiction are from Amazon MGM’s Orion Pictures banner, which has had a great run under President Alana Mayo with titles from Nickel Boys and Till to Bottoms and Women Talking.

New indie releases: Ha Chan,Shake Your Booty! from Sony Pictures Classics directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka opened to $236.6k on 540 screens.

The Stunt Driver from IFC Films, by Michael Dowse starring Jay Baruchel, debuted with $102k at 670 locations.

Deep In The Heart 2: A Texas Rivers Story, directed by Ben Masters and narrated by Ethan Hawke, grossed an estimated $60k from 80 theaters across the state, as per mtuckman Media. This is a follow-up to 2022 doc Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story, narrated by Matthew McConaughey, that grossed $480k.

Janus Films presented the 4K re-release of Douglas Keeve’s UNZIPPED exclusively at the Film Forum in NYC to $24k including sold out Q&As. The doc chronicles the launch of Isaac Mizrahi’s legendary Fall 1994 collection. Expands nationwide in October.

Sumerian Pictures opened Sundance comedy The Incomer on two screens (NYC and LA), grossing an estimated $18.2k.

Greenwich Entertainment’s The Scout is eyeing a $14.5k, also at Film Forum exclusively. The debut feature from Paula González-Nasser adds LA next week.

Holdovers: John Wilson’s comedic documentary The History Of Concrete from Magnolia Pictures had a strong expansion to 50 screens (from 1), grossing an estimated $350k for a cume of $511k. Expand to over 50 markets next week.

If I Go Will They Miss Me from Rich Spirit, starring Danielle Brooks and J Alphonse Nicholson and directed by Walter Thompson-Hernandez, is reporting $158k in week 3 on 101 screens for a $758k cume. Many engagements saw higher box office this weekend over last despite fewer shows due to a rush of new releases, indicating strong word of mouth.

American Doctor from Watermelon Pictures passed the half million mark with $23k at 30 theaters. The cume to date is $556.7k for the Gaza-set documentary that opened August 14.

R-rated kids show horror satire Buddy from Roadside Attractions is looking at another $717k from 709 runs for a cume pushing $26.4 million since its August 28 opening.

Daniel And The Fiery Furnace from faith-based distributor EKKL Entertainment is reporting a $1.5 million second weekend on 1,301 screens for a $6.2 million cume.