Bad Optics
John Stewart appears to have left the Lantern Corps behind and built a new life as an architect. But when he returns to Rushville for a meeting with Hal Jordan, the reunion quickly becomes a murder investigation after Hal is found dead just hours later.
Warning: Spoilers Below
Moving On
It’s been ten years since the events in Rushville, and John has reunited with his brother Marcus while building a new career as an architect. His latest project is designing panic rooms, and his sales pitch even includes references to Batman and The Suicide Squad as proof that people need protection. John clearly knows both his craft and how to sell it, but it’s equally clear that something is still weighing on him.
John Johnson/HBO Max
He’s been ignoring calls from his mother until she finally reaches him at work. She tells him Hal Jordan has returned to Rushville and wants to apologize. John is stunned, not only by the request, but by the revelation that his mother has been talking to Hal at all. Despite his hesitation, he makes the drive back to Rushville to hear the apology for himself.
Return to Rushville
John meets Hal at the diner, where the two reflect on the events of Rushville from a decade earlier. Their memories may be the same, but their interpretations couldn’t be more different. Hal immediately reveals that the promised apology, delivered through John’s mother, isn’t coming, because he didn't promise anything. Instead, he argues that he “took the fall” by spending years in prison for what happened in Rushville in 2016.
John Johnson/HBO Max
John fires back that Hal didn’t take the fall, he simply fell. Hal counters by reminding John he isn’t the only killer sitting at the table, prompting John to respond with a punch that breaks Hal’s nose.
As John storms out, Hal gives him one final warning: don’t tell anyone he was in Rushville. The town despises the Lanterns, especially Hal and John, for what happened ten years prior. John ignores the warning, drives home, and thinks the encounter is over, but a phone call from Sheriff Kane sends him straight back to Rushville.
Murder Investigation
John meets Sheriff Kane on the high school football field, where the series revisits the opening scene from the pilot. Hal is still lying dead with a gunshot wound to the head, and neither he nor John has a Green Lantern ring.
Kane explains that after Hal was released from prison, he returned to Rushville hoping to make amends. He even pursued a relationship with her after her marriage to Billy Macon fell apart. She admits she called John because everyone else in town hated Hal, and she figured John was the only person who might still have a soft spot for him. It’s a telling moment that Hal’s closest remaining friend is the former trainee he abandoned in multiple car crashes and rarely treated well.
John Johnson/HBO Max
Kane takes John to the diner where he previously met Hal and wastes no time addressing the obvious question: whether she killed Hal. After dismissing that possibility, she begins questioning John, who lies about the last time he saw Hal. The diner waitress, who witnessed their meeting earlier, keeps his secret and gives him a knowing wink, making it clear there’s more going on than she’s saying.
Meanwhile, John heads to the center of town, where a Green Lantern beacon now stands beside the memorial honoring those killed in 2016. The moment he activates it, he unleashes a massive new problem.
Under Arrest
After activating the beacon, several Rushville residents confront John and demand that he shut it down. Although John makes it clear he isn’t a fan of the current Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, he insists he needs to speak with him.
Billy Macon soon arrives and immediately recognizes John Stewart. He tries to force John out of town, but the confrontation quickly turns physical as John takes down Billy and the rest of the group that attacks him.
John Johnson/HBO Max
Later, John joins Sheriff Kane and her son, Noah, for dinner, where he surprisingly eats her meatloaf, a noticeable change from earlier in the series, when he was established as vegan.
The peaceful evening doesn’t last. Kane receives a call informing her that John assaulted her ex-husband and several other residents. She reluctantly arrests him and holds him in jail overnight, explaining that the town’s deep hatred of the Lanterns leaves her little choice. Under normal circumstances, John would have been viewed as the victim.
John falls asleep in his cell, only to wake up and find Guy Gardner waiting for him.
Guy Gardner
Guy wakes John and immediately points out the similarities between their first meeting and his own introduction to Hal, which also took place while Hal was behind bars. Guy, a former gym teacher, became a Green Lantern after John took Hal’s ring from him and turned it over to the Guardians in 2016. Now, John wants Guy to retrieve Hal’s old suit and the decommissioned ring so Hal can be buried with them.
John Johnson/HBO Max
Guy isn’t thrilled about the idea, especially after someone recently broke Sinestro out of his prison on Oa. Hal would have been the obvious suspect if he hadn’t been locked up on Earth at the time. Still, John knows exactly how to manipulate Guy into doing what he wants. He calls Guy “afraid,” and that’s apparently all it takes to get him moving. Guy is determined to prove John wrong and retrieve the ring and suit.
It’s remarkably similar to the earlier dynamic between Hal and John. Apparently, every Green Lantern has a little Marty McFly in them as they just can’t stand being told they’re afraid.
Saying Goodbye
John holds a funeral for Hal, but, unsurprisingly, very few people show up because of his reputation following the events of 2016. The people of Rushville still hate Hal, and he had managed to alienate much of the Lantern Corps before losing his ring. Even Guy, who brings Hal’s old suit and his decommissioned ring, refuses to stay for the funeral, dismissing the situation as “bad optics.” John and Sheriff Kane are left to say goodbye to Hal with barely anyone else around.
It turns out Hal wrote his own eulogy for John to read at the funeral. Carol Ferris provides it, which is an interesting connection given that she is Hal Jordan’s girlfriend in many of the comics. Here, though, it’s clear that Hal and Carol are barely on speaking terms at this point in his life. The eulogy also becomes unintentionally ironic because Hal clearly expected honored dignitaries and members of the Lantern Corps to attend rather than the handful of people who actually showed up.
John Johnson/HBO Max
At the same time, John and Kane are trying to figure out what Hal left behind in a storage unit. They find a box they can’t open and discover that it requires Hal’s voice to unlock it. They try playing a recording of him, but the system recognizes that it isn’t actually Hal speaking.
Eventually, John realizes what he needs to do. He digs up Hal’s freshly buried body and takes the decommissioned ring, which still has 5 percent of its charge. He needs what the system calls a “Halogram.” So John literally has to pry the ring from Hal’s “cold, dead hands”—the exact thing Hal once told him would be the only way John could ever take it from him. He strikes the ring on the headstone and hologram of Hal Jordan appears.
Final Thoughts
Hal and John are finally reunited, although one is a hologram, and now they have to figure out who shot Hal. It’s a good old-fashioned “who done it?” mystery, much like the famous “Who shot J.R.?” storyline from Dallas. And there’s certainly no shortage of suspects.
It’s still unclear what happened between John leaving Rushville and Hal being shot, but Sheriff Kane points out that Hal didn’t appear to fight back. It was almost as if he welcomed his own death. That immediately makes me suspicious of Kane. Could she have shot Hal and figured she could leave the case unsolved because the entire town hated him? Maybe she told John about Hal’s death simply because she knew keeping it from him would make him even more suspicious. For now, that’s my theory, but there are plenty of other possibilities.
Meanwhile, the diner waitress is using the situation to extort John. She says she wants reparations for what happened ten years earlier. The episode heavily hints that she is the young girl seen at the end of the previous episode, when John handed her a watch and apologized as she cried over her dead father. She clearly has a role to play in this story, although she doesn’t seem to have much of a connection to Hal himself. For now, she feels more like a foil for John and a reminder of the consequences of what happened in Rushville a decade ago.
Still, I’m finally excited about the 2026 storyline. Now we have a mystery worth investigating: who killed Hal Jordan?
Check out Lanterns streaming exclusively on HBO Max.
Article Written By: Jeremy Brown for Stelmach Brown Media 2026
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