September 7, 2026

The Hiring Lesson Hidden in Lanterns

Last week, HBO Max's Lanterns gave viewers the kind of reveal people pretend they saw coming. Episode 4 finally outs Rushville's mystery Manhunter, and suddenly the whole story looks different in hindsight.

That is the thing about a good reveal. It does not just surprise you. It exposes what you missed.

And honestly, that is hiring in a nutshell.

I spend a lot of time with founders, CTOs and Heads of People trying to solve painful hiring problems in data, cyber, infrastructure and engineering. The pattern is hilariously consistent. Everyone is focused on the flashy candidate, the noisy skills gap, the urgent vacancy, the LinkedIn theatre. Meanwhile, the real risk is often sat quietly in the corner, passing every surface-level test.

Lanterns episode 4 is not just a plot twist. It is a masterclass in why smart teams keep getting talent decisions wrong.

For context, this take is inspired by TechRadar's coverage of the ending reveal in Lanterns episode 4, which explains who the Manhunter turns out to be and why it matters to the wider story. Source: TechRadar, 'Lanterns episode 4 ending explained: who is the Manhunter in the new HBO Max sci-fi crime drama series?' https://www.techradar.com/streaming/hbo-max/lanterns-episode-4-ending-explained

Everyone hunts the obvious suspect

In mystery dramas, the loudest suspect is usually bait. The writers want you looking at the person who feels dangerous, eccentric or conveniently guilty.

Businesses do the same thing in hiring.

They obsess over visible markers:

• The candidate with the glamorous CV
• The one from the big-name brand
• The person who interviews like they were built in a lab for stakeholder management
• The candidate who says "strategic transformation" with a straight face

Meanwhile, the real question gets neglected: can this person actually do the job in your environment?

A brilliant infrastructure lead in a FTSE giant may fall apart in a scale-up where documentation is patchy, budgets are lumpy and half the architecture decisions happened in Slack at 11.47pm.

The market loves polish. Performance is fussier.

The dangerous ones rarely look dangerous

The point of a reveal like the Manhunter twist is not just identity. It is camouflage.

The strongest candidates who go wrong are rarely cartoon villains. They are not turning up with a sign that says "future bad hire". If only. Recruitment would be much easier and I could probably retire to somewhere sunny.

Bad hires often look reassuring because they know how to signal competence:

• Confident answers to vague questions
• Well-rehearsed leadership stories
• Technical depth that sounds impressive but is never pressure-tested
• Cultural charm that gets mistaken for true alignment

This is where leadership teams get caught. They hire certainty over evidence.

And certainty is seductive. Especially when you have an urgent mandate, investors asking awkward questions, and a team held together with caffeine and goodwill.

But confidence without context is how you end up with a cyber lead who has never built resilience in a messy environment, or a BI manager who can present dashboards beautifully but cannot get commercial teams to use them.

Plenty of people can wear competence like a Halloween costume. Fewer can operationalise it when the lights come on.

Your process is probably rewarding the wrong things

If the wrong person keeps getting through your process, that is not bad luck. That is design.

Most hiring processes still over-reward:

• Presentation over problem-solving
• Experience labels over actual capability
• Speed over rigour
• Consensus over conviction

It is amazing how many businesses still run critical hires through a process that basically boils down to: chat, good vibe, maybe a task, references, fingers crossed.

That is not talent acquisition. That is recruitment roulette in smart-casual dress.

If you are hiring for leadership, cloud, data, cyber or engineering roles, you need a process that tests for the things that actually predict success in your business:

• Decision-making under ambiguity
• Ability to influence different stakeholders
• Commercial judgement
• Technical credibility
• Adaptability to your stage, pace and politics

Because here is the uncomfortable bit: the candidate is not only being assessed on whether they can do the job. They are being assessed on whether they can do your job.

Those are not the same thing.

The best hiring teams think like investigators

The smartest founders and leadership teams I work with do not just interview. They investigate.

Not in a creepy trench-coat way. Calm down. I mean they build a picture from multiple angles, then test it for cracks.

They ask:

• What would great look like after 12 months?
• What kind of environment will expose this person's weak spots?
• What evidence have we actually seen, not just heard?
• Where are we filling gaps with optimism?
• Would this person still impress us if you removed the brand names from their CV?

This matters because senior hiring mistakes are expensive in ways spreadsheets struggle to capture.

A poor leadership hire does not just miss targets. They slow teams down, create political drag, muddle priorities, and quietly lower the talent bar around them. One wrong appointment can turn a healthy function into a monthly rescue mission.

That is why proper search work matters. It is not just about finding candidates. It is about reducing false positives.

The Manhunter lesson for hiring

If I boil down the Lanterns reveal into one hiring truth, it is this:

The biggest threat to your business is often the person your process is least equipped to spot properly.

Not because they are malicious. Usually they are not. But because misalignment hides well until reality gets involved.

So if you want fewer expensive surprises, tighten the method.

A simple framework: Spot the hidden risk

Use this before you brief any senior or specialist hire:

• Define the real mission
  Not the job description fluff. What must this person actually fix, build or lead?
• Map the failure patterns
  What usually goes wrong in this type of hire? Lack of pace? Weak influence? No startup resilience? Get specific.
• Test in context
  Use scenarios rooted in your world, not generic competency questions.
• Interrogate the signal
  Is this evidence of ability, or just evidence they have done something near it before?
• Challenge the consensus
  If everyone likes the candidate, force someone to make the sceptical case.

That last one is gold, by the way. Group enthusiasm has killed more good judgement than most people realise.

What leaders should do this week

If you are hiring right now, especially in tech, data, cyber or infrastructure, ask your team these questions:

• Are we clear on the outcomes, not just the responsibilities?
• What are we assuming because we like this person?
• What part of the candidate's story have we not properly tested?
• Would they still be our top choice if urgency was not breathing down our neck?
• Have we designed the process to identify success, or simply avoid discomfort?

If those questions make the room a bit twitchy, good. That usually means they are useful.

And if your internal process cannot answer them properly, bring in a recruiter who lives in the market, knows how to pressure-test a brief, and is comfortable telling you when the shiny option is the wrong one.

That is not a sales pitch. Well, not just a sales pitch. It is common sense.

Conclusion

Lanterns episode 4 works because the reveal forces you to re-read the story. Hiring mistakes do the same thing, except with more budget meetings and less cinematic lighting.

The lesson is simple. Stop hunting the obvious suspect. Build a process that spots what is hiding in plain sight.

Because in business, the cost of getting it wrong is not a dramatic cliffhanger. It is six lost months, a frustrated team, and a very expensive lesson you could have avoided.

If you are making a critical hire, do not just ask who looks right. Ask who holds up when the plot twists.

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