Lanterns co-creator and co-writer Tom King has revealed why the team chose to seemingly unpunish Hal Jordan's murderer, explaining that the reality is so much worse than going to jail.

Warning, the following contains major spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 8, so make sure you're all caught up before reading on.

In the Lanterns finale, we finally learn who shot and killed Hal Jordan. It turns out to be his girlfriend, Sheriff Kerry Kane. Yep, the same person who found Hal's body frozen on the bleachers and alerted John Stewart back in episode 1. But when John finds out the truth, instead of punishing Kerry or taking her to intergalactic jail, he lets her be.

"We had a big debate. It was like, 'Does Kerry Kane get punished?'" said King on The Ringer-Verse's House of R podcast. "Nothing could punish her more than the fact that she did that thing and she has to live with it. There's no, like, jail isn't worse than that."

John leaves Kerry to live with the fact that she has killed the person she loved. After finding out that Kerry's son Noah is a Manhunter, Hal asks Kerry to meet him at the football field, where he reveals what he knows. He asks Kerry to run away with him. But instead, she panics and shoots him in the head, seemingly out of fear that Hal would kill her son – which is what he would have done if he were following Corp guidelines.

John also lets Noah get away scot-free. As explained earlier in the season, Manhunters are incredibly dangerous extraterrestrials and have wiped out whole species. But even though he saw the destruction one Manhunter caused on a different planet, John chooses not to kill Noah, despite Noah asking him to do it. Instead, John wants Noah to make his own choices aside from what he is programmed to do. In a way, John sees a lot of himself in Noah. You can read more about that in our Lanterns ending explained.

It is not clear if we will ever see Hal again, in the flesh or as a hologram. However, the writers' room for Lanterns season 2 is already open despite HBO not yet renewing the DCU series for a second season. Next up for James Gunn's DCU Chapter One is Clayface followed by Man of Tomorrow, which welcomes back Aaron Pierre's Stewart.

Lanterns season 1 is streaming in full on HBO Max. For more, check out our Lanterns review, and keep up with upcoming DC movies and shows on the way.