One of the things that is both a blessing and a curse in any comic book adaptation is that when you kill a character, you can always come up with a way to bring them back. In the case of Lanterns, Hal Jordan might be dead, but John Stewart has resurrected his Sentry to help in the investigation. How far will that go? Who killed Hal in the first place? And why the heck is this episode starting in a whole other year yet again? Let’s recap the penultimate episode of Lanterns season one.
The year is 1975, and a young Hal Jordan has a black eye. He got into a fight with his entire baseball team when he disagreed with the coach’s decision to pull him from the game and refused to give up the ball. Coach calls in Hal’s dad, Martin, but when Martin hears the specifics of the situation, he sides with his son and fights the coach. We see where Hal gets it.
Now both sporting black eyes, the Jordan boys have a chat in an airplane hangar. Earlier in the season, Hal briefly mentioned that his dad was a fearless, test pilot, hero type, and now we see it. He tells his son to get rid of the baseball he’s still holding on to because he seems to not believe in holding onto things, metaphorically speaking.
Martin also gives Hal a key. It’s to a safe in his home and has everything in it if Martin dies. We learn this is the same thing Martin’s dad did to him when he went off to war, but Martin tells Hal he plans on living forever. Which, unfortunately, he does not. Soon after those events, Martin dies too, leaving Hal alone with his mom.
Back in 2026, Hal’s Sentry is rightfully confused about why real Hal is dead. He hasn’t been activated in over a decade, so after he sniffs through John’s lies about the funeral (which featured a little nod to the DC character Ch’p, a Green Lantern squirrel), he accuses John of killing him. He’s even more suspicious when he overhears John asking his brother for $315,000 in blackmail money.
John brings Hal 2 (let’s just go with that) to the storage unit to help him unlock Hal’s safe, which now has a whole other level of meaning to it thanks to the backstory. This, of course, is why John brought Hal 2 back in the first place. But when Hal 2 realizes why he’s there, he pushes back. John explains what Hal had been doing the last decade (went to jail, fell in love), and Hal 2 says he won’t unlock the safe until he can meet Kerry, the sheriff Hal was in love with.
On the way, John takes off the ring, and Hal 2 is stunned. Apparently, it should not be possible for a construct like himself to continue existing without someone wearing the ring. It reminds us that John was somehow able to create a green bird that stayed alive much longer than it should have. John is taken back, not by the fact he’s done something so unique and important, but that it’s the first time any version of Hal has ever been so complimentary to him.
While looking for Kerry, Hal 2 learns about the Manhunter, Guy Gardner, and everything else. Basically, his appearance is acting as a narrative reminder of everything that happened this season. But he also makes it clear that neither he nor Hal would kill anyone on purpose.
The sheriff is at a hat ceremony where her now-star quarterback son, Hoah, is going to choose his college. Which, oddly, he decides not to, leaving everyone hanging until later. Noah’s whole storyline has felt like such a fumble (get it? football joke), but we keep coming back to it. Clearly, he has something to do with all this. Or, he’s just a supporting character with not much to say or do.
John manages to sneak Kerry away, and before he can fully explain what’s about to happen, Hal 2 pops out. She is taken aback and confused but ultimately understanding. We learn about how she and Hal shared things about their past, and eventually he asks what real Hal thought of John. She says he described him like his favorite football team. He was constantly disappointed, but he never stopped caring. He was a fan.
Hal 2’s biggest takeaway from this conversation is the same one he had about John earlier in the episode. He thinks the Sheriff killed Hal. John disagrees, but they decided to skip her party just in case and go straight to Hal’s safe. Inside, there are two things: a shopping bag and a duffle bag. The duffle bag has some essentials, like a poncho and a gun. The shopping bag has a black sphere exactly like the one the Guardians used when they first made contact with John. This one leads to an alien planet that Hal clearly wanted John to go to and so they do.
The pair arrive on a desolate planet with some blinking beacon off in the horizon. Above is what appears to be a giant floating city. Hal 2 has never been there before, but John feels like he has. Which is impossible, as he’s never been into space before. Well, he quickly realizes this is the planet we heard about way back in episode two. The one the Manhunter completely decimated, save for a few people, and those were the people on Earth who recruited John and shot him in the head with a memory gun. So John hasn’t been there, but he’s been implanted with the memory. And the memories aren’t good.
The pair start making their way to that flashing thing and end up in a small canoe. It’s pouring rain, and they go at it a bit, with John telling Hal 2 why he so always so angry at Hal. John then starts to have hallucinations of his father, of his younger self, and he realizes that whatever poison was set off to kill everyone on this planet, it still lingers a bit. Hal 2 reminds him that real Hal packed him a poncho probably for this very reason.
Things simmer down, though, and we learn what happened to Hal’s dad. He may have told Hal he was going to live forever, but in reality, he died by suicide while flying. Apparently, Hal’s father and grandfather had mental health issues that made them both take their own lives. They called the pain “the Jordan Boys legacy,” and though Hal didn’t end up going out the same way, his wanting the person who opened his safe to go to this place now feels even more important. The moment also bonds Hal 2 and John in a way the originals never did.
Finally on shore, the pair enter the large blinking tower only to be ambushed. The hooded figure wants their boat and the location of the portal to get off the planet. Hal 2 purposefully disappears; John decks the man, and we see that it’s Sinestro. We knew he’d broken out of prison, but how he got here, and why, we’ll have to wait and see.
The episode then ended back in 1975 as young Hal went and grabbed the baseball his dad told him to let go of. Hal wasn’t his father. He wasn’t his grandfather. He was his own man, and he decided long ago maybe it was good to hold onto a few things.
Overall, while there was certainly a ton of consequential moments, I do think this was my least favorite episode of the show this season. The stuff with Hal and his dad was great, but it really felt like a long way to go to get to that Sinestro moment. Also, while we love having Hal 2 around, his being linked to the quickly depleting ring felt forced in a way things usually aren’t. It was just a messy episode. One that, we hope, ends up really paying off next week in the finale.
Do you agree with me on “The Jordan Boys”? What were your big takeaways? Let us know.
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