We assume that the majority of you have seen the series premiere of Lanterns at this stage, but just in case, spoilers for that major death and the events of this week's episode follow.
The DCU series left the 2016 timeline behind with the explosive "Lights Out," as John Stewart eliminates the Manhunter threat (it was Zoe all along) and forcefully takes the ring from a beaten-down Hal Jordan.
"Was it worth it?"
“I think that rings in John’s ears the entire way, and that’s why wanted to have that long walk,” director Geeta Vasant Patel explains to The Wrap. “We decided that the long walk was going to be through the rubble through the wreckage as a metaphor for John taking survey of everything in his life. So when he’s walking through the wreckage, and then he has this moment where he turns around and looks back, and there’s only half of his face there. That is the moment where we were thinking, he is a broken man. This is all that’s left of him. He’s looking back – ‘No, I’m not going back. I’m not becoming the person I’ve been. I’m going to be someone else.’”
Stewart takes the ring to the Guardian Lianna, before telling her that he's decided that he doesn't want to be a Green Lantern anymore. With John giving up the ring and Hal deemed "unworthy" of wielding it, we finally know why Guy Gardner has been operating as Earth's ring-slinging hero for the past decade.
Gardner has yet to appear in the series, but a character poster featuring the notoriously prickly GL was released after last night's episode aired, and he shows up right at the end of the teaser for episode 6.
The promo also finds John and Sheriff Kane investigating Jordan's murder in the 2026 timeline.
It certainly looks like Hal is really dead, but we wouldn't be at all surprised if the character returns in some capacity - even if it's only as the younger and far less jaded "Halogram."
HBO in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. The pilot episode is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, who are co-creators for the series. Mundy serves as showrunner. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, James Gunn, Peter Safran, King, Ron Schmidt, and Hawes. Based on the DC comic characters from Green Lantern.
The series stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones.
The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.