Hal Jordan’s journey as the Green Lantern becomes even more convoluted after his sudden, mysterious death. He may have been reduced to being an arrogant, rugged, and self-centered hero, but there’s still a lot to unpack about why and how he became what he was. To get a better understanding of his psychology, Lanterns takes the viewers down memory lane once again.
Episode 7 opens with a flashback to 1975; a young Hal is sitting in his baseball coach’s office. He’s had a disagreement with his teammates and coach, and his father has been called to the school. After a few moments, Martin Jordan, Hal’s father, arrives and learns that Hal wanted to pitch, but the coach decided to go with someone else.
Young Hal was enraged because he knew he was the team’s best shot, so he decided to keep the ball even when his whole team went against him. They ended up forfeiting the game because Hal wouldn’t let go of the ball. Surprisingly, while Martin admitted that Hal was in the wrong, he also talked back to the coach for making a stupid decision—the meeting ended up with another fistfight.
Later that day, Hal and Martin sat near the runway and watched jets fly. That’s when he hands Hal a key to a safe where he keeps money and keepsakes for his son, in case something happens to him one day. His grandfather did the same for his son, and that’s how the Jordan Boys’ legacy moves on. Hal seems worried, but Martin assures him that he’s going to live for a hundred years.
The next thing we see is young Hal Jordan attending his father’s funeral. Everyone is there, the pipes are playing, the jets are flying, and men are saluting. However, only Hal knows what he has lost. It’s a loss that will change his life forever.
John and Hal work together again
Fast-forward to 2026, Hal’s subconscious construct stands looking down at his dead body in a dug-up grave. The hologram is confused and angry, but then he remembers John from ten years ago when he delivered a message to him. He’s annoyed over the fact that someone else is the Green Lantern, but he soon figures out that it was John who dug him up to take the ring, and it doesn’t belong to him.
While they’re arguing, Hal asks how the funeral went, and John has no choice but to lie and say it was as grand as Hal imagined. Hal asks if the entire Corp was there or Mogo, to which John replies that he and Mogo stood together at the funeral. However, John’s caught because Mogo is a planet, and Hal can’t understand what’s happening.
For the time being, it’s too much for John to handle, and he makes Hal disappear. On his way to the storage unit, John calls his brother to arrange for the money to give to Maggie. John summons Hal again inside the storage unit, but he refuses to open the box and demands to be taken to whoever is in charge of the town. John refuses, and Hal suspects that he’s being suspicious. For all he knows, John could be his murderer.
However, John explains that Hal ruined things, went to jail, and somehow fell in love with Sheriff Kerry. Now, if she sees his ghost while dealing with her death, it’ll be hard on her. Unfortunately, Hal puts a condition that the box won’t open until he sees Kerry. John is at his limit with Hal’s tantrums, but he agrees.
On their way to Kerry’s, Hal appears again, startling John, who is confused as to how he can appear without John willing it. Hal explains that he can be summoned even if John thinks about him. That’s when he sees Bernadette calling and asks John about her. Talking about his mother is a pain point, and John flat-out tells Hal that he doesn’t want to discuss this.
He wills him to go, but he doesn't, so he takes off the ring and places it on the dashboard. Hal is stunned to see John projecting him without the ring. He asks how he’s doing, but John never knew how he could construct things without the ring. He calls out to Hal that when he did it before, his mentor didn’t have an ounce of appreciation for him, nor did he explain what was different about him.
Surprisingly, this version of Hal praises John for doing something as extraordinary as projecting without wearing the ring. John doesn’t believe he’s hearing good words from Hal and shows slight happiness over being acknowledged. Shortly after, they arrive at the station, but Kerry’s at the gym for Noah’s hat ceremony.
While there, Hal sees the Green Lantern beacon and the names of the people who died that fateful day. That’s when John tells him that the Hal he knew never trusted him enough to tell him what he was thinking or planning. He brought him to Rushville to deal with a Manhunter, and that’s when Hal picks up that John fell in love with the Manhunter disguised as Zoe and blames him for her death.
Unfortunately, John is nowhere near ready to relive all those painful memories and explain everything to a different version of Hal about how things went haywire because of his stubbornness. He also picks up a quick trick that if he focuses his mind on something else, like singing his favorite song out loud, he can make Hal disappear.
Everyone’s a suspect in Hal’s eyes
At the gym, everyone’s celebrating Noah’s achievements when John pulls Kerry to the side. He asks her to keep an open mind, and before he can explain further, Hal’s consciousness appears. Kerry is both shocked and grieved to see and even touch Hal again. She answers all of Hal’s questions correctly, which is clearly a test of sorts to judge how trustworthy Kerry is.
John explains that he needs to get Hal's consciousness to the box in the storage unit before the ring’s battery runs out. However, Kerry suggests that they go to her house first because she’s hosting Noah’s party, and then they can all go together to figure out what’s in the box. John agrees, and as he gets ready to drive to her house, Hal stops him.
He thinks that Kerry killed him and she shouldn’t be trusted. John is appalled by how quickly Hal’s suspicion is transferring from one person to the next he sees. Hal thinks there’s guilt written all over Kerry’s face and they should head to the storage unit without her. John agrees, and this time Hal doesn’t play with him and opens the vault with his voice.
Inside, there’s nothing much except for two bags. One has a poncho, some protein bars, and a gun; the other has a small ball of black goo that works as an Einstein-Rosen bridge. The portal the black goo creates can connect two points anywhere in the universe. So, point A is the portal they have here, while point B is wherever Hal set it up on the other side.
Hal puts his head through the portal and is happy to find that it certainly leads to somewhere with breathable air. John doesn’t understand why Hal would have a planet in a storage box but is determined to find out what’s on the other side. However, Hal suggests that they do it somewhere else if the pretty yet evil Sheriff decides to come back and do something unnecessary in Point A.
A planet with a surprise guest
The duo drives up to the abandoned Macon farm and finds a good spot inside the broken water tank. They set up the portal and go through it. On the other side is a desolate planet with nothing but barren land as far as the eye can see. Hal doesn’t seem to remember the place, but John thinks it looks familiar, as if he has been here before.
John points out a small island in the middle of the lake in the distance, but as they look up, they see a giant circular structure, resembling a floating city of some kind. John projects Hal up to the structure so he can get a better look while he also looks around himself. He takes a few steps and finds something ominous buried in the sand. It’s a skull, and not just one, but the entire ground is embedded with corpses.
Hal returns to inform John that the entire city is abandoned, and that’s when John understands what really happened. He tells Hal about Antaan, who came looking for the Manhunter to exact revenge for destroying his planet. When he kidnapped him, Antaan injected him with his people’s experience, and that’s when he saw what happened in the city.
A lethal gas was used against the people, which made them so scared and confused that they started killing each other. They jumped to their deaths from the floating city to the ground. John vows to find out exactly what happened and why Hal was there.
They take a boat to the lake, but the atmosphere is incredibly gloomy and dark. As John rows, Hal tries to dig up more about the true purpose of his visit to Nebraska since he doesn’t live here. John explains that his mother told him Hal wanted to apologize, but he didn’t, and he ended up sucker-punching him. However, Hal keeps pushing him to reveal more and digs up old wounds.
That’s when John snaps and tells Hal that he was the reason he was kicked out of the Marines, thrown down the hill in a car, and again crashed into a pole with him still inside the car. He disrespected John, lied to him, and disrespected the institution that gave him everything. The two start arguing again, and John makes Hal disappear.
But the next moment, he starts to feel weird. He sees the entire lake filled with apples, then sees his father sitting in the boat with an apple on his head, asking John to shoot him. His father then morphs into a younger version of John, who accuses him of being scared of the fact that he never wanted to be a Lantern. As he hallucinates, John is knocked off the boat and nearly drowns but is miraculously saved by Hal’s consciousness at the last moment.
John realizes that it’s the effects of the toxic gas that must still be in the atmosphere. Hal points out that maybe the poncho wasn’t as useless as John thinks. The duo slowly move towards the structure in the lake when Hal reveals that his father killed himself. It was made to look like an accident because he was a test pilot, but Hal knew.
He tells John that his father gave him a key to a safe a few months before his death. When he died, he opened it and found a note inside. It was a suicide note telling Hal that his father had felt pain all his life, and it just got worse with time. He thought his family would be better off without him dragging them down. He also mentions that his grandfather left the same note to his father when he died, claiming to be in the same kind of pain.
It’s obvious that Hal’s referring to the possibility of mental health issues in his family that are passed down from generation to generation. This was the Jordan legacy that his father referred to, not some kind of glory, and it was in their genes. Hal thinks he left John the key because he might have also left a note telling him what happened.
John asks Hal if he thinks he killed himself, and he affirms. He believes he shot himself and Kerry found him. She must have thrown away the gun to protect Hal from the grim reality of going out in such a way, like how once Hal protected his father. He thinks he’s fearless because he’s broken, and for the first time, John genuinely feels for Hal and apologizes.
The two finally reach the small island and see a rotting structure in the middle. The two go inside, but it looks fairly deserted until a mysterious person grabs Hal from behind and asks John to surrender or else he’ll kill him. John is nonchalant and asks the man to kill Hal since he doesn’t like him anyway. The man in the hood grows agitated, but that’s enough for John to make Hal disappear and tackle him.
When he removes the hood, it reveals the man to be Sinestro, who knows John Stewart. Hal reappears and appreciates John for his quick thinking. However, the scene immediately intercuts to a young Hal, who arrives at the runway to pick up the ball. It's the same ball he'd held onto all day when he got beaten. His father asked him to throw it away because it's unhealthy to hold on to things so obsessively. The scene reinforces that Hal was never the one to let things go, whether it was a game ball or the Green Lantern’s ring.
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