HBO’s “Lanterns” used its penultimate episode Sunday to reveal a painful family secret behind Hal Jordan, and it sent the show’s two Green Lanterns toward a showdown with Sinestro.
The episode, titled “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy,” opens in 1975. Young Hal comes within two outs of a perfect game and refuses to give up the ball. His teammates jump him, his team forfeits, and his father, Martin, takes his side and fights the coach. The scene sets up a stubbornness that carries through the story.
In the present, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) exhumes Hal’s body and takes his decommissioned power ring. The ring awakens the Halogram, a digital echo of Hal played by Kyle Chandler, who helps John open a lockbox in a storage unit. Inside sits a dark matter manhole.
The revelation comes as the episode digs into Hal’s past. His father, a test pilot, died by suicide and left a note saying his son would be better off without him. The Halogram describes the pattern of fathers and sons as the Jordan boys’ legacy. Chandler tied Hal’s fear of losing the ring to that history, comparing his dread to the prospect of retirement.
Chandler said the writers planted the backstory deliberately, as something meant to draw viewers closer to the character. Pierre said John’s read on Hal has shifted throughout the season. The two men, he said, now trust each other with their lives, a bond he described as separate from affection.
Later, the Halogram rescues John from a gas that drove the people of Anton’s planet to kill themselves. The episode closes with Hal and John confronting Sinestro, who has been hiding there.
The murder mystery remains open. Critics at IndieWire consider it a safe bet that Hal did not take his own life, and doubt that Sheriff Kerry, whom the Halogram accused on sight, is the culprit. The Halogram also accused John.
“Lanterns” wraps its first season next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.
