Lanterns: The Murder of Hal Jordan
In episode 6, John and Kerry investigate Hal’s death in 2026, revealing how much Rushville has suffered over the prior decade.
Returning to the present day of 2026, it's time to explore the circumstances of Hal’s apparent murder. In the decade since he rejected the Green Lantern ring, John has launched an architecture firm with his older brother Marcus, a detail introduced during a pitch meeting with a group of politicians in Midway City, where John wants to build a series of bunkers to shield the population from intergalactic threats. It’s exactly the kind of practical thought experiment that writers like to consider when crafting “realistic” takes on the superhero genre, playing into Lanterns’ identity as a show that isn’t really interested in being about Green Lantern.
As we work through the latter half of the season, the story threatens to veer into Surf Dracula territory. In addition to my ongoing complaints about the show’s main plot (i.e., that it isn’t a compelling crime drama), Lanterns also doesn’t offer a convincing reason to find the eponymous Green Lanterns entertaining in their own right, which strikes me as a bit of an oversight. This creative team is so bogged down in delivering a grounded American drama that they’ve forgotten to show off all the cool stuff you can do with the ring, or to explain to new audiences what Green Lanterns are actually meant to do—or, for that matter, stand for.
“Firepower does not save lives,” John tells the panel at this 2026 pitch meeting, illustrating just how far he has come since his time in the military. In a great little moment from Aaron Pierre, John adopts a charismatic salesman persona for a speech that smoothly ties his traumatic experiences in Rushville to his current desire to shield civilians from harm—as long as he can land $30 billion in federal funding to do so. He presents a convincing case, but once the speech is over, his eyes flicker nervously across the panel, aware that the power to complete his mission still lies in other people’s hands. Even after the panel signs off on his designs, they inform him that he’ll still have to persuade a higher authority to sign the check: a tough Army colonel who will meet with him later in the week.
After the meeting, John receives a call from his mother, Bernadette, telling him that Hal has changed, and he wants to apologize. This is surprising news on several counts, because a) John and Hal haven’t spoken in ten years, b) John had no idea that Bernadette was even in contact with Hal, and c) Hal isn’t known for his heartfelt apologies.
John’s current relationship with his mother seems distinctly frosty, and he learns here that she and Hal became friends while Hal was in prison, paying for his role in Rushville’s destruction. Now Hal has served his time, he’s made the unexpected choice to move to Rushville, and Bernadette says he wants to speak with John. Naturally, John can’t resist the temptation of a long-awaited apology from Hal. So he drives across country on a dark winter night to meet Hal in Rushville’s diner, where Hal promptly reveals that he has no intention of apologizing at all. Bernadette fabricated this meeting because she wants the two men to get along.
After ten years in prison, Hal feels guilty for his actions in Rushville, but on an interpersonal level, he’s still an asshole, mockingly scolding John for “breaking his mother’s heart” by choosing to reject the ring. Hal refuses to apologize because he believes he “took the fall” for what went down in 2016, to which John replies: “You didn’t take the fall. You fell.”
