Lanterns Recap: Episode 7 - The Jordan Boys’ Legacy

Ash Walker • 29 Sep 2026 Features

“I think being murdered allows for a little paranoia.”

SPOILERS AHEAD!

For a show about Green Lantern - a famously cosmic character - there’s so far been precious little in the way of space or alien planets on offer in Lanterns. Part of it is the show’s dogged commitment to being a grounded, Earth-based detective story and, let’s be honest, part of it is probably budget-related, too.

But Episode 7 finally takes our heroes to an alien world, complete with two moons and a floating city in the sky! Hopefully this is a taste of what’s to come in future seasons - if they do indeed make future seasons, as has been rumoured.

Before any cosmic shenanigans, we first open with yet another flashback, this time to Hal Jordan’s troubled childhood. Young Hal (Henry Samiri) is in trouble for refusing to hand over the ball in his Little League game, and fighting the whole team over it. Hal’s dad (Jake B. Miller), a swaggering test pilot just like Hal himself will become, feels that this should be something to celebrate, rather than punish.

Later, the two share a popsicle at the air base, and Hal’s dad tells his son about the family tradition to leave a ‘fail safe’ - literally a safe with stuff in it - to the next generation in the event of their death. We later learn that this conversation should have been a massive red flag… but more on that later.

Back in the present day, John (Aaron Pierre) tries to get the Halogram (Kyle Chandler) to open Hal’s own fail safe, but the cheeky construct refuses to do so until John takes him to meet the woman Hal loved - Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald). There’s a lovely scene in which Kane comes face to face with her dead lover, and of course the Halogram immediately suspects she was the one who killed him.

The safe is finally opened, revealing a well-stocked rucksack and an antimatter portal to a mysterious point somewhere in the universe. You know, standard stuff. The portal leads to the world that Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) - remember him? - once called home, and which is now a lifeless desert.

John reveals that the population was killed by being exposed to some kind of catastrophic fear gas, which caused them all to go insane. Now that same gas is in the clouds, and gives John trippy visions of his father and himself as a small boy.

The gas nearly makes him shoot himself too, until the Halogram saves his life. Hal then reveals that his father killed himself, as did his grandfather before him - this is the Jordan boys’ legacy of the title - and that he suspects that he has the same darkness inside him. Perhaps Hal Jordan was his own murderer after all?

We have no time to dwell on the idea, though, as John and the Halogram arrive at some kind of ruined alien refinery, in which they find Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) - Guardian-killer, wanted fugitive and Hal’s former mentor. Did Hal lead them to Sinestro on purpose? It seems likely. And what is Sinestro doing there? Did he have something to do with Hal’s death?

We’ll find out next week, in the season finale!

Random Thoughts:

• This sub-plot with Maggie (Hannah Christine Shetler) and her ‘reparations’ has to be going somewhere, right? Surely there’s more to this character. Is she the killer? Did she and Noah (Shea Pritchard) team up to take Hal out?
• What on earth is a ‘hat ceremony’? Did these people really turn out to see which university Noah decided to go to? I guess there isn’t much else to do in rural Nebraska.
• In the comics, Sinestro breaks bad and eventually forges a yellow ring, powered by fear. Might he be up to something similar here? A dead planet, literally drenched in fear, seems like a pretty good place to make a fear ring…

Verdict: A masterful episode that finally takes our heroes to the stars, with some wonderful character moments and some real plot progression.

Lanterns is available to stream every Monday from 2am on HBO MAX, available now as part of Sky Ultimate TV.