‘Lanterns’ Stars Kelly Macdonald and Jason Ritter Talk Episode 5’s Reveal, Coen Brothers’ Influence and Gotham City Roots

[This story contains major spoilers for Lanterns episode five, “Lights Out.”]

Lanterns’ pivotal fifth episode finally laid bare the true dynamics within the small town of Rushville, Nebraska, particularly those surrounding Kelly Macdonald’s Sheriff Kerry Kane and her attorney husband, Billy Macon, played by Jason Ritter.

The entire populace is beholden to Billy’s stepmom, Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan), their resident Manhunter in hiding. The synthetic shapeshifter, wanted for intergalactic war crimes, has rewarded the townspeople with good health and prosperity in exchange for protecting her identity and taking up arms should trouble ever come to Rushville. Chief among Zoe’s longtime protectors are her rancher husband, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), Billy and Kerry.

Written by Justin Britt-Gibson and directed by Geeta Vasant Patel, “Lights Out” begins with a 2007 flashback in which Zoe rescues then-Gotham City runaway Kerry Kane from a criminal outfit intent on killing her at Rushville’s central diner. The henchmen are tying up loose ends after eliminating Kerry’s father, who informed on the Gotham crew to avoid serving his prison sentence.

The Kane family has a notable history in DC Comics. Bruce Wayne’s mother, Martha, was born Martha Kane, while his cousin Kate Kane became Batwoman. But Macdonald isn’t exactly sure where Kerry fits into the family tree, and it doesn’t sound like the remaining three episodes of Lanterns will provide much clarity. “[Lanterns] doesn’t go too much into that, to be honest,” Macdonald tells The Hollywood Reporter.

After saving Kerry from the kill order on her head, Zoe bound her to the aforementioned protection agreement, one that would eventually lead to Kerry becoming the local sheriff and running interference if anyone came looking for a Manhunter. That’s precisely what Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his replacement-in-waiting, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), would ultimately do in 2016.

When Zoe and Kerry formed their pact, Zoe was already involved with William, so she presumably set Kerry up with William’s son, Billy. The question, then, is whether their eventual marriage and son together were based on genuine affection or were instead an arrangement designed to further Zoe’s interests. Macdonald and Ritter both believe it was the former, rather than a calculated pairing that allowed Zoe’s handpicked sheriff and personal attorney to work in concert.

“Whereas there is a transactional element to Zoe and William’s very different relationship, it always felt like Billy and Kerry had something genuine, even if it started to fall apart recently,” Ritter says.

Below, during a spoiler conversation with THR, Macdonald, who’s known for playing Carla Jean Moss in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, also discusses the famous Coen character that inspired her take on Sheriff Kane.

Lanterns’ fifth episode reveals how Kerry became indebted to Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan). Did Zoe and Kerry target father and son Macon from there since they had the resources to protect Zoe?

KELLY MACDONALD For Kerry, it’s a “you live or you die” situation. She makes this promise to Zoe, and that’s all she’s thinking about. So I imagine that Zoe already had [the Macon arrangement] all set up. And after Kerry arrived in town, she became close to the Macon family through Zoe.

To put it another way, were these both arranged marriages that became genuine over time?

JASON RITTER Did you really love me?

MACDONALD (Addressing this writer.) Did Jason put you up to this? (Laughs.) I think she did love Billy, possibly.

RITTER Thank goodness.

MACDONALD I mean, what is love?

RITTER & MACDONALD (Laughs.)

MACDONALD It probably started out as quite a genuine thing, but they’re very different people.

In any case, I wondered if Zoe forced Kerry to get close to Billy. She knew she was going to put Kerry on a path toward becoming sheriff, and perhaps it made sense to pair her with Billy since he’s a lawyer. Together, they could provide cover for her. Jason, do you see it as something more pure than that?

RITTER That’s a possibility. I always imagined that Zoe and Billy’s father had already been with each other. Then Kerry comes to town, and as a new friend of Billy’s stepmom, he became intrigued. The [attraction] was just like, Here’s a new person in town. And then I think it was genuine from there. Billy also feels a little bit like he doesn’t belong in this town to a certain degree. He’s always felt a little bit different or that he belonged somewhere else. So whereas there is a transactional element to Zoe and William’s very different relationship, it always felt like Billy and Kerry had something genuine, even if it started to fall apart recently.

MACDONALD Yeah, at some point.

Kelly, your character is from Gotham’s Kane family. That’s Bruce Wayne’s mother’s family. Has anyone informed you of Kerry’s exact relation to Martha or Bruce Wayne?

MACDONALD No is the answer. [The show] doesn’t go too much into that, to be honest.

Did you ever ask?

MACDONALD I mean, I sort of knew a little about it. Her father was in prison in Gotham. That’s kind of what I know. [Writer’s Note: Ritter performed some kind of coded expression with his face as Macdonald answered.]

Jason, in episode five, there’s a quick moment outside where Billy wants to be more involved in the war that’s coming, but he’s shut down by Zoe and Kerry. He’d mostly been a very pleasant guy to that point, but there’s clearly a simmering frustration that seems likely to boil over at some point. Would you agree with that assessment?

RITTER I would say that’s a fair assessment. He is a guy who is constantly coddled or put to the side: You can’t be part of this group. You’re soft. There’s an element of his masculinity that is challenged throughout the show, and he really tries hard to put himself out there. He fancies himself tougher than he is, and everybody is probably right about him. They are probably right to say, “Don’t come along. We don’t need you to just get killed immediately. You’re much better served by being with our son and making sure that he’s not scared.” But there is an element of Billy that’s constantly feeling shut out and that everyone else is more capable than him in a lot of different ways. So he was probably the last pick for the dodgeball team every year.

So his mustache is more of a sad mustache then.

RITTER Yeah, it’s a sad mustache. His mustache covers up a lot of pain, as they often do.

Kelly, I spoke to director James Hawes when he was filming the first two episodes, and he compared this series to your Coen brothers’ movie, No Country for Old Men. But I didn’t realize at the time that you playing a sheriff probably factored into his tonal comparison. Was No Country ever openly referenced on set?

MACDONALD No, but it’s been mentioned during panels about the show. It was definitely a reference point for the makers of Lanterns, but for me, the Coen brothers came into it in another way. It’s hard to think of a sheriff in small-town America without thinking of Frances McDormand in Fargo, so she was a reference for me. But I totally concede the No Country aspect. It’s a Western. Strangers come to a small town, and the locals are not very friendly to them, which is classic Western territory.

RITTER They didn’t let me have Javier Bardem’s haircut [as Anton Chigurh].

MACDONALD Guy Gardner already had it.

MACDONALD & RITTER (Laugh.)

You got Josh Brolin’s mustache instead.

RITTER (Laughs.)Yes, exactly!

Kerry and the Macons all work toward the same goal of protecting Zoe, but there are moments where Kerry and Billy don’t seem in alignment. For example, it seems like she didn’t expect Billy to show up in court to defend Hal. So were they not always on the same page? Or was Kerry putting on a ruse for Hal and John?

MACDONALD I think Billy has taken it upon himself to have a little bit of the spotlight on him.

RITTER I think his dad sent him to take care of the problem and get them out of town. My sense was that Kerry has her way of handling it, but probably more times than not, Billy’s father will say, “No, this is the way we’re doing it.” So they both have to just do it, and I would imagine that Billy is happier to do his bidding than Kerry is.

MACDONALD Yeah.

RITTER So we’re on the same page in terms of the outcome.

Even in the scene where John is forced to sketch William in the buff, Kerry interrupts the proceeding to get John and Hal out of there.

MACDONALD We all just want them gone. We’ve all got the same goal in mind, but we’re all going about it in different ways.

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Lanterns airs new episodes every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max until Oct. 4. Check out the rest of THR’s coverage including Poorna Jagannathan and Garret Dillahunt; Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler; EPs Damon Lindelof and Tom King; showrunner Chris Mundy and writer Vanessa Baden Kelly.