Lanterns Episode 7: Hal Jordan Confronts His Past And Future

We’ve reached the penultimate episode of Lanterns, which made the unusual but appreciated choice to dig deeper into Hal Jordan’s background instead of pushing the core mystery forward. 

The episode opens in 1975, where we see a young Hal sitting in his baseball coach’s office. His dad pulls up, and we see how Hal’s inherent arrogance is bolstered by his dad, Martin Jordan. The coach tells Martin that Hal refused to hand the ball to a substitute pitcher, which led to the team forfeiting. 

Hal explains that he was two outs from pitching a perfect game and there were no guys on base. After hearing out the situation, Martin fights his coach, and we see exactly where Hal gets his will from. After the fight, the two are chilling at an Air Force base, and Martin gives him a key to a lockbox. Martin explains that Hal’s grandfather did a similar thing and the lockbox is only to be opened after he dies. 

After imparting some fatherly advice, we cut to Hal attending his father’s funeral. As Hal watches his father’s casket drop, we match cut to holo-Hal looking down at his dead body. 

The exchange between John and holo-Hal was great from the jump, with the two having a slightly less contentious but still funny dynamic. John takes Hal to the storage facility, but Hal refuses to open the lockbox until he speaks to the sheriff, as he’s not convinced that John didn’t have anything to do with his death. 

John relents, and the two head back to meet Kerry at Noah’s hat ceremony. During the car ride, John reveals he can keep the holo-Hal construct going without wearing the ring. 

John is then shocked when holo-Hal compliments him and is genuinely impressed by the ability. 

It’s impressive how different holo-Hal is from what we saw of the real Hal; shoutout to Kyle Chandler for pulling off two very different performances with the same character. It raised the question of what happened to make Hal the jaded man we saw during his training with John. 

This beat is short-lived as the two inevitably start to argue again. Hal tells John that the only way he can get rid of him is if he stops thinking about him. John begins singing “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” by OutKast until holo-Hal disappears. 

Solving problems with OutKast? Yeah, Lanterns is a capital B Black show, y’all. 

When they get into Rushville, Holo-Hal sees the Green Lantern signal Guy Gardner erected and the memorial to everyone who died during the manhunter incident. Holo-Hal is dismayed at how south it went and tells John that he’s not whatever his future self became. 

John pulls up to Noah’s hat ceremony, and I gotta say, the whole extortion subplot with the waitress is doing nothing for me. I guess it adds another problem for John to face, but it’s taking up time that could be spent focusing on other characters. 

Noah does the hat ceremony, but decides not to pick a school, citing the upcoming championship game. My money is on Noah killing Hal and Kerry covering it up for him, but we’ll see. 

Anyway, John pulls Kerry away after Noah makes his nondecision and introduces her to holo-Hal. 

Oh man, Kerry’s face when she first sees holo-Hal. That palpable grief crushed me, y’all. Holo-Hal is somewhat shocked that he fell in love and opened up to her. We learn through Kerry that Hal was a big fan of John. I loved that she compared him to a football team that he always had hope for but kept letting him down. 

After meeting Kerry, Holo-Hal immediately thinks Kerry killed him and wants to go back to the storage unit without her. They find a portal in the storage unit that takes John to another planet. I love how the show turned into a Hype Williams music video as soon as they hit the new planet. It’s really the high-contrast visuals combined with John’s leather jacket.

One fun aspect of this episode is that holo-Hal is actually trying to train John. John reveals that the planet they’re on is Antaan’s destroyed home, which he was forced to witness being annihilated earlier this season. The planet is a graveyard, but they see a boat and a lighthouse in the distance. So obviously they go to check it out. 

The two argue on the boat over John’s treatment of the real Hal, and John sends Hal away. As he paddles through the water, apples appear in the river after Hal disappears. His dad suddenly appears and tells him to shoot him. His dad then turns into a younger version of John and once again tells him to shoot him if he’s not afraid. 

Holo-Hal pushes John into the water before pulling him back into the boat, revealing that John was hallucinating and that some of the manhunter gas is still in the air. After saving John, Hal reveals that his father killed himself. When he opened the lockbox, there was a suicide note from his father. His grandfather did the same thing to his father, and the family calls it the Jordan Boys’ Legacy. 

Hal says, “I’m not fearless because I’m brave; I’m fearless because I’m broken.” (Kerry called it.) Holo-Hal opens the safe because he thinks he might find a note of his own. John empathizes with Hal for the first time, and we see their relationship start to shift. 

Sidenote: they made a point of saying the ring was only operating at 5% when John constructed holo-Hal, and that thing has lasted for several days. Part of me thinks that the ring is dead and John has managed to keep holo-Hal alive through sheer force of will. 

When the boat arrives at the lighthouse, a cloaked figure immediately holds Hal at knifepoint and threatens to kill him. John disappears Hal and then punches the cloaked figure, revealing it’s none other than Sinestro! 

So I’m a big comic book reader. Like, at the shop every Wednesday, picking up the latest issues type of reader. This episode felt most like a live-action comic book, and I wasn’t surprised to see Tom King as the co-writer. While he has a, uh, divisive reputation among comic book readers, when King hits, he hits. This episode reminded me of his work in books like Mister Miracle and The Human Target, both of which I highly recommend. 

Also, if you haven’t been watching the featurettes after each episode, they’re well worth a watch! It’s crazy to find out that the whole scene of them canoeing through what seemed like a vast lake was shot in a flooded parking lot. 

Next week is the season finale, where we hope to find out who killed Hal Jordan, what’s going on with Noah, and finally see John Stewart take his place among the Green Lantern Corps. It’s been a fantastic ride; here’s hoping they stick the landing. 

SEE ALSO:

Lanterns Episode 6 Recap: John Stewart Can’t Outrun the Past

‘Lanterns’ Episode 5: All Hell Breaks Loose In Rushville