Lanterns Episode 7: The Jordan Family Secret and Sinestro's Trail on a Dead Planet

HBO's Lanterns enters its final stretch with a seventh episode that not only answers the mystery of Manhunter's identity but also exposes the old wounds of Hal Jordan's family. Airing as the penultimate episode, it delivers a shocking moment: John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) reunite in an unexpected form—a hologram of Hal's consciousness from 2006 stored inside a Green Lantern ring.

The central mystery now shifts: who really killed Hal Jordan? To investigate, John digs up Hal's grave and takes his ring, then activates the Hal-ogram. The hologram agrees to open an alien vault in a Rushville storage unit, but only on the condition that he can meet Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) first. Inside the vault are only survival supplies—a gun, a water bottle, and a black portal orb—which John calls "hiking gear." But the new context from this episode's flashback reframes those items as a kind of preparation for death.

The flashback takes viewers to 1975. Young Hal clashes with his baseball coach for refusing to hand over the ball, causing his team to lose. His father, Martin Jordan, comes to his defense and gives him a strange key. Martin explains that Hal's grandfather left money and valuables in a vault before going to war, and now he is passing the key to Hal as part of the "Jordan family legacy." At first, it seems like a military tradition for facing the possibility of not coming home.

But the truth that emerges later is far more painful. Martin gave the key just months before he took his own life. Inside the vault, Hal finds money, coins, photos, and a note explaining that his father suffered from worsening pain and believed his family would be better off without him. Hal's grandfather also died by suicide. "The same pain passed down from generation to generation," Hal says, revealing the true meaning of the "Jordan legacy."

After opening the portal, John and the Hal-ogram cross a desert planet littered with bones. A vast abandoned city hangs in the sky, while an island and a lighthouse appear to be the only structures accessible from the ground. John feels déjà vu because he has experienced the memory of that dying alien civilization—recollections injected by Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) in the second episode.

"We're not the only ones looking for Manhunter," John tells the Hal-ogram. "I was captured by Antaan. He said he was the last of his kind. I didn't believe him, so he injected his people's experience into me, and I felt it. Like it was happening to me."

John remembers being inside the city when the gas spread. Anyone who inhaled it became so terrified that they attacked each other, killed themselves, or jumped from heights. At the time, John didn't understand why so many people fell. "I didn't know the city was in the sky," he says. "I didn't understand why they jumped. Now I know."

The shape-shifting Manhunter once took the form of Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) on Earth. Antaan reveals in the fifth episode that they had a romantic relationship and failed to have a child. Because Antaan blames Manhunter for the genocide of his people—and Zoe herself admits her programming forced her to do it—viewers are led to conclude that Zoe designed the gas's release.

Traces of the gas still linger in the planet's clouds and water. As John and the Hal-ogram cross a lake by boat, a storm triggers John's hallucinations. He sees his abusive father and his younger self, both calling him a coward. When John falls into the water, the Hal-ogram appears and pulls him back into the boat, saving his life.

The bigger mystery is why Hal had a private portal to this planet. Was he investigating the destruction of Antaan's people before the Rushville incident? Or did he start after getting out of prison? Whatever the reason, John and the Hal-ogram are stunned when they reach the island and find Sinestro trapped inside a building that appears to be venting gas into the atmosphere.

In the sixth episode, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) tells John that someone freed Sinestro from "Spacekaban," the space prison where Hal visited him. It is now known that Sinestro is stranded on Antaan's dead world. Since Hal had easy access to the portal, is he responsible for freeing Sinestro? If so, why?

Sinestro knows more than Hal about Manhunter and the Guardians' crimes in 2016, so perhaps Hal did it to learn more. But that doesn't explain why Sinestro attacked someone resembling Hal with a knife. The episode builds a strong chain of connections: someone freed Sinestro, Hal maintained a secret route to his hiding place, and Hal was killed months after returning to Rushville. Sinestro may not be the trigger man, but he may know why Hal died.

For viewers in Indonesia, this episode offers a psychological layer rarely found in superhero series: intergenerational trauma and mental health. The theme of suicide passed from grandfather to father to son mirrors an issue that remains taboo in society. Meanwhile, Sinestro's presence and the portal mystery open speculation about the finale's direction—was Hal involved in Sinestro's escape, and is his death tied to a larger secret? The answer will determine whether Lanterns can close its first season satisfyingly or leave a gaping plot hole.