The Jordan Boys' Legacy
John and the Halogram continue digging into the mystery surrounding Hal’s murder, and their investigation produces a new group of suspects. At the same time, the Halogram is forced to deal with the complicated legacy Hal inherited from his father.
Warning: Spoilers below
Hal’s Childhood
The episode starts with a flashback to Hal as a child. His father arrives while Hal is being held in his baseball coach’s office. The coach tried to remove Hal from the game, but Hal refused to give up the ball and wound up fighting his teammates. It’s a clear allegory for Hal trying to hold onto the ring when John took it from him. Once the coach explains what happened and Hal pleads his case, Hal’s father takes his side and fights the coach.
Back at home, the pair lick their wounds, and Hal’s father seems to be a gentler presence in his life than John’s father was in his flashback episode. Unfortunately, he starts speaking cryptically about death and inheritance before giving Hal a key to a lockbox. What does it unlock? It’s unclear, but what is clear is that there’s a lot more to why Hal was fearless than simply having supportive parents.
Halogram
Back in 2026, John is speaking to the Halogram in the cemetery. The Halogram surmises that Hal is dead and asks about his funeral. John lies to him and claims it was grandiose with the entire Green Lantern Corps celebrating Hal’s life. Hal asks about “the squirrel” and “Mogo.” John tries to placate the Halogram saying he and Mogo were standing next to each other honoring his memory until the Halogram reveals Mogo is a planet and he knows John is lying. After all, Hal told us earlier in the series that “Mogo doesn’t socialize.”
John Johnson/HBO Max
The Halogram learns that Hal actually fell in love, so he wants to talk to the woman who was apparently able to tame him. John wants to get into the box in the storage unit, which can only be opened using Hal’s voice. The Halogram won’t cooperate, so John has to take him to meet Sheriff Kane. While all this is going on, John is also trying to get his brothers to wire him more than $300,000 from his account. He has to pay off the diner waitress who is extorting him because she knows he was the last person with Hal before he died.
Hat Ceremony
John shows up at the high school where Sheriff Kane’s son, Noah, is expected to pick where he will attend college at the hat ceremony. The coach mentions that Noah wasn’t going to make a decision without his offensive line, showing a clear dichotomy between Noah’s upbringing and Hal’s. Noah needs his teammates, while Hal fought his teammates. Noah ultimately decides not to make a decision, saying he will wait until after the game.
John Johnson/HBO Max
Billy Macon and Sheriff Kane both spot John at the ceremony. Billy goes to confront the former Green Lantern, but Sheriff Kane steps in and points out that this man already beat up several assailants, including Billy, in the previous episode and that she had to arrest him to protect them. John tells her he needs to show her something, and the two head down to a science lab for his revelation.
John tries to explain what he’s about to show her, but he seems to be beating around the bush. The Halogram appears, and when he speaks, Sheriff Kane recognizes Hal’s voice. Credit to Kelly MacDonald, as the look of both shock and agony on her face when she hears Hal’s voice is amazingly well done. Her visual acting is light years ahead of her poor American accent. The Halogram seems genuinely surprised that he was able to connect with anyone. The sheriff tells the two former Lanterns that she has to make an appearance at the party at her house for her son but will then join their investigation. As she leaves, the Halogram makes a bold proclamation: she’s the one who killed him.
Storage Unit
Rather than wait for Sheriff Kane, Hal and John decide to go to the storage unit and investigate Hal’s murder themselves. The ring is running out of power, so they only have a limited amount of time. However, John has shown a unique ability to keep constructs going without the ring, so he may be powerful enough to keep this Halogram around.
John Johnson/HBO Max
The Halogram’s voice unlocks the device in the storage unit, where they find a backpack, a gun and some basic supplies, along with a paper bag containing an alien fabric that forms a portal between distant points in space. The pair set up the device and head through the portal to investigate where it takes them.
Barren Planet
The pair end up on a barren planet and notice a high-tech city floating above the desert where they land. They find a shallow mass grave and a rowboat, and John notes that this is eerily similar to what the aliens showed him in 2016 when they were hunting the Manhunter.
John Johnson/HBO Max
As they make their way toward a beacon on the planet, the Halogram reflects on his life and talks about the "Jordan boys’ legacy." His grandfather never returned from the war, and he says he believes his father actually took his own life by causing the crash that killed him because his lockbox contained a suicide note. The Halogram now wonders if Hal killed himself.
The pair find “that Sinister Sinestro” (again, this is how he must always be referenced thanks to the Super Friends cartoon) as he tries to steal their boat. John is able to stop him, and Hal delivers a “Great arm, kid” to John.
Final Thoughts
This episode should’ve been titled “Daddy Issues” with how much it unpacked. We see Hal’s complicated relationship with his father. In earlier episodes, we saw John’s complicated relationship with his father, while the subplot of him dealing with his family has revealed that he won’t even take his father’s calls anymore. That Sinister Sinestro was Hal’s mentor and father figure in the Green Lantern Corps before betraying both the Corps and Hal. And Hal was selected as John’s Green Lantern mentor, a role that should’ve made him a father figure, but he was cold and distant with his trainee. Both John and the Halogram are forced to confront some daddy issues as they head toward the finale.
As for the murder, Hal’s instincts have proved correct every previous time in this series. He seems aloof as an investigator, but he always figures out what he needs to know to solve the case. He’s a regular Colombo. That makes me think he’s correct that Sheriff Kane shot him. My question now is whether the Halogram’s thoughts about Hal taking his own life apply as well. Did Hal ask her to do it? Or was she forced to do it to keep herself safe in her adopted hometown?
Check out Lanterns streaming exclusively on HBO Max.
Article Written By: Jeremy Brown for Stelmach Brown Media 2026
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