Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan Dies in Lanterns Premiere and Damon Lindelof Already Knows Fans Are Furious
HBO’s newest DC Universe entry arrived this weekend with the kind of ambition James Gunn’s slate has been building toward for years. ‘Lanterns’ pairs Kyle Chandler’s veteran Hal Jordan with Aaron Pierre’s rookie John Stewart in a story that trades capes and cosmic battles for a grounded murder mystery, drawing comparisons to ‘True Detective’ for its dual timeline structure and small town dread.
The premiere spends most of its runtime in 2016, following the two Green Lanterns as they investigate a strange killing spree in Rushville, Nebraska, tied to an alien conspiracy. Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart uncovers a suspect who turns out to be extraterrestrial, and the case pulls back the curtain on tension between the two heroes that has clearly been simmering for years.
But it is the final minutes of the episode that have fans buzzing, because the episode jumps forward a decade to find John Stewart called back to a snow covered Rushville, where Sheriff Kerry Kane leads him to a football stadium and Hal Jordan is sitting dead with his power ring missing. The show that just introduced its version of Hal Jordan to the DCU appears to kill him off before the credits even finish rolling on episode one.
That gut punch is exactly what showrunners Damon Lindelof and Tom King wanted to talk about with DiscussingFilm, and their honesty about the risk they took is already making the rounds online. “The fans are going to hate us,” Lindelof admitted, adding that “there were all these reasons not to do it, but the story kept pushing us to do it anyway, especially since we really wanted to serve the emotional stakes of their relationship.”
Lindelof did not stop at acknowledging the backlash. He also got specific about what he wants viewers to feel in the aftermath of Hal’s apparent death, telling DiscussingFilm that he wants “audiences to feel sad, and we want them to feel mad, and we want them to feel confused, because those are the feelings that people have when someone they care about dies.”
It helps that the mystery itself has legs. The younger version of Hal that appears earlier in the episode is later revealed to be a consciousness uploaded to his Power Ring, which advised John that Green Lanterns should back up their memories on a weekly basis, a detail that has already sent fans hunting for clues about whether Hal is truly gone or simply trapped somewhere unexpected. Critics have largely responded the same way, with reviewers noting the premiere’s slower pacing is redeemed by its shocking ending, and predicting fans will keep tuning in for answers to the Hal sized cliffhanger the show leaves behind.
‘Lanterns’ also stars Kelly Macdonald as Sheriff Kerry Kane, and the series folds James Gunn’s larger DCU timeline into its own murder mystery framework while keeping its two leads at the emotional center. Whether Hal Jordan is really dead or the show has something stranger planned, Lindelof and King have made it clear they built this twist with their eyes wide open.
Do you think Hal Jordan is truly gone for good, or is ‘Lanterns’ setting up a twist within the twist for its remaining episodes?
