RECAP: ‘Lanterns’ Episode 7 — “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy”

In the season’s penultimate episode, Lanterns Episode 7, “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy,” fully invests in the 2026 investigation into Hal Jordan’s murder. While the majority of the episode takes place in 2026, there are two brief flashbacks to 1975 to help give some additional context into who Hal Jordan was before he became the Green Lantern.

Lanterns Episode 7 begins in 1975. A young Hal Jordan (Henry Samiri) sits in his baseball coach’s office in his baseball uniform with a black eye, gripping a baseball. Hal’s father, Martin (Jake B. Miller), walks in to find out that during the game, the coach pulled Hal from the pitcher’s mound, but Hal refused to let go of the ball. Because the game couldn’t proceed without Hal’s cooperation, the team forfeits.

When Hal interjects that he pitched a no-hitter and the game was nearly over, Martin asks the coach if that’s true. When the coach confirms Hal’s version of the story, Martin and the coach end up fighting.

As Lanterns Episode 7 transitions to the next scene, Hal and Martin sit on the edge of a hangar with matching black eyes, eating popsicles and watching military planes fly overhead. Martin gives Hal a key and tells him that when he was Hal’s age, Martin’s father gave him a key to a safe for the day he would pass away.

There’s less jumping around in time in Lanterns Episode 7, sticking mainly to 2026.

Hal asks him what was in the safe. Martin says the safe contained some pictures, a bit of money, and things meant just for the two of them. He tells Hal that the key he gives him now is for when he passes away. Hal asks why he isn’t giving the key to his mom, to which Martin explains that she can’t carry what’s in the box. Then he encourages Hal, who still clutches onto the baseball, to throw it as far as he can because he can’t hold on forever.

In 2026, the holographic Hal, the Halogram, looks at the lifeless body of Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) on the ground. He seems genuinely upset that his real self is dead but tries to be happy for John becoming the Green Lantern. It quickly comes out that John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) isn’t actually the Green Lantern, and the Halogram is both confused and suspicious.

John takes him to the voice-activated vault inside Hal’s storage unit. On the way there, Hal calls his brother, asking him to wire him $315,000 from the business account because of the diner waitress, Maggie’s (Hannah Christine Shetler) blackmail.

Upon arriving at the vault, the Halogram refuses to speak to open the vault. Once they close the storage unit back up, the Halogram insists on speaking to the authorities. John is understandably hesitant because of Hal’s relationship with Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald).

Nothing can prepare Sheriff Kane for her face-to-face encounter with the Halogram.

Still, the Halogram insists on speaking with Sheriff Kane before he’ll cooperate. He ensures John’s compliance with his demand by reminding him how low the ring’s battery is and that there’s probably less than an hour of talk-time left before the ring runs out of power for good.

On their way to Sheriff Kane, the Halogram pops back up in the truck. When John protests, the Halogram explains that he can only be there because the ring-bearer is thinking about him. To prove a point, John takes the ring off, but Hal doesn’t disappear. The Halogram is genuinely impressed and compliments him saying that he’s never met a Lantern who could do that including himself. John is genuinely surprised at the compliment, having never received one from the real Hal.

John, armed with the knowledge that the Halogram is only there because of his own thoughts, starts singing a song to push out unwanted thoughts, and eventually Hal disappears.

When John arrives at the police station, the office is closed up with a hand-written sign saying that everyone is at the hat ceremony. John makes his way to the school where Maggie confronts him in his truck. John explains that he’s working on getting the money but that he needs a little more time. Maggie helps herself to John’s expensive watch as a way for John to buy more time.

Noah Macon’s future is undecided, with a big decision put on hold.

Inside the school, the football team is introduced and lastly, the quarterback, Noah Macon (Shea Pritchard) comes out to select the hat indicating which college he’s chosen. Noah talks about the upcoming game but refuses to choose a hat that day.

When John is finally able to get Sheriff Kane alone, he brings back the Halogram, which is emotionally devastating to Sheriff Kane. They exchange a few words, but the scene feels like the Halogram’s presence is doing more harm than good. Still, Sheriff Kane understands why John dug up the ring, and with that, John heads back to the vault.

This time, Hal opens the vault and inside are a backpack and a paper bag. Inside the backpack is a poncho and a handgun. While John looks at it bemused, the Halogram takes the paper bag and inside it finds a black blob. When John asks about it, the Halogram explains that it’s a wormhole to another location but it could lead anywhere.

The Halogram raises the blob up into a circular sheet of black, which eventually shows itself to be a portal. He pokes his head inside and says it appears to be somewhere on another planet. John pockets the gun before the two of them head inside.

A barren wasteland forces memories to return to John in Lanterns Episode 7.

On the other side of the wormhole, John and the Halogram find a barren desert. As they walk around, John asks if the Halogram knows where they are. The Halogram says he’s never been here, which John finds strange because John feels like he’s been here before. Above them is a floating city. John projects the Halogram up to the floating city to investigate and continues searching below.

As John uncovers a piece of a skull, the Halogram returns, explaining that there’s no one up there. John shows him the skull and says that it’s because they’re all down below. The camera pans out, and it becomes clear that the bones of many people litter the dry wasteland.

John recalls meeting the group of aliens hunting the manhunter in 2016. Their leader Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) had injected John with something on the day they met to show him all that the manhunter had done to his people. The planet had been filled with a gas that made people turn on each other and begin fighting. Others had jumped from the floating city to their deaths.

Still unsure why the wormhole goes this way, the two continue walking across the vast graveyard until the scene fades out. Lanterns Episode 7 continues, and it appears that John and the Halogram have found a boat and are traveling across a vast body of water through a storm.

The Halogram becomes a vehicle of catharsis, transformed through John’s unburdening.

After a particularly tense moment where John angrily tells the Halogram all the things Hal put him through in 2016, he eventually has had enough of the Halogram and begins singing until he sits alone in the boat.

As he continues into the storm, apples begin to pop up to the surface of the water. John is suddenly sitting in the boat across from a young version of his father, John Senior (J. Alphonse Nicholson). His father has an apple balanced on his head, a callback to previous episodes of Lanterns that showed his parents toughening him up by shooting apples on his head and asking him to do the same to them.

As the phantom of his father yells at him to shoot the apple, John suddenly finds that it’s no longer his father but rather a 10-year-old version of himself (Cairo Cash Lee) yelling even more aggressively than his father. John is pointing the gun at him but continues hesitating to pull the trigger even as his younger self calls him a coward.

Suddenly, as if by a strong wind, John appears to be thrown from the boat into the water. When he comes to a moment later, he’s back in the boat, and the Halogram is standing over him. John accuses him of trying to drown him, but the Halogram claims he was saving him. The Halogram explains that he was yelling about being a coward and had started pointing the gun at himself.

A frightening, yet all-too-real legacy emerges in John and the Halogram’s conversations.

John reasons that the manhunter’s poisonous gas was still on the planet and affecting the water, the clouds, and the rain. The two continue their journey together until their conversation turns incredibly heartfelt. The Halogram opens up about Hal’s father, Martin, and the circumstances regarding his death.

Hal’s father had been a test pilot, so no one knew the awful truth: Martin’s death, largely accepted by everyone as a hazard of his job as a test pilot, was actually a suicide. Further, after Martin’s death, when a young Hal opened up the safe his father had given him the key to only a few months prior, Hal found Martin’s suicide note explaining that he thought the world, including his family, would be better off without him.

This isn’t the first time the Jordans experienced this kind of pain. Martin had found a similar note in his father’s safe. The Halogram called it “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy,” admitting that Hal also similarly dealt with severe depression while he was alive. Further, the Halogram wonders if Hal was even murdered or if he had killed himself.

John fills in the blanks, assuming that would mean Sheriff Kane had covered up finding the gun much the same way Hal had hidden the nature of Martin’s death, just as Martin had done for his father before. The moment is a turning point for John and the Halogram, and John even calls him Hal for the first time since conjuring him.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with a familiar face emerging under a cloaked hood.

As their conversation ends, Lanterns Episode 7 finds John and the Halogram reaching the other side of the water. After disembarking, the two make their way to a large structure. John realizes he lost the gun when he was knocked into the water. The Halogram isn’t concerned because John has the ring, but John reminds him that it’s critically low on battery.

As they enter the structure, a hooded figure grabs the Halogram from behind and holds a knife to his neck, demanding the ring. When John hesitates, the assailant reiterates his demand, saying he won’t hesitate to kill him. The Halogram tells John he must be playing their song.

John catches the hint and begins singing until the Halogram disappears. With the attacker stunned by the loss of his hostage, John punches him in the face and sends him to the ground. Hal reappears, and the two stand over the man and uncover his face to reveal Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen).

As the credits get ready to roll, the audience is transported back to the end of the funeral in 1975, where a young Hal Jordan, still dressed in his suit, finds his baseball so he can continue holding on to it.

Lanterns Episode 7 struggles with maintaining its continuity and logic issues.

While certainly better than Episode 6, Lanterns Episode 7 still suffers from a heavy amount of common sense-defying logic. The last time audiences saw the ring was in Lanterns Episode 5 when Hal was desperately trying to get it charged so he could continue helping victims of the manhunter’s assault. In the midst of that, the ring kept audibly reminding Hal he had 5% battery, underscoring the urgency of charging it.

Now in Lanterns Episode 7, the ring still somehow has the same 5% battery it had 10 years ago and is curiously quiet about it. In fact, John explains to the Halogram that the only reason he got it to turn on in the first place is because of a trick Hal showed him – knocking it against something can give a small boost.

Then we’re told that the ring has less than an hour of talk time. That scene at the first visit to the storage unit happens at night. Then the drive to the police station, the visit to the school, and the trip back to the storage unit all happen during the day, and the ring keeps going.

After going in through the portal, we’re reminded again by John and Hal at different points that the ring’s battery is low. It becomes harder and harder to track exactly how low the battery is because it feels more and more like it should already be long dead.

The strongest, most heartwarming parts of Lanterns Episode 7 focus on familial histories of depression.

While John is on the water and makes the Halogram disappear by singing, the Halogram eventually saves him during his hallucination. How exactly, if John was hallucinating events of the past, did John recall the Halogram?

Still, flawed logic aside, Lanterns Episode 7 was incredibly successful at most of what it was attempting to do. Initially, it felt like the Halogram was hot and cold about whether or not he was going to be an arrogant jerk or act like a decent person. His insistence on meeting with a person who loved Hal and was actively grieving Hal’s death felt very scuzzy.

On the other hand, complimenting John in the truck and opening up about his family’s history with suicide in the boat both felt very heartwarming. This 20-year-old holographic memory is much different than the man Hal would become.

After the revelation that Hal had been fighting demons his whole life, the epic leaps from one temperament to another begin to make a lot more sense. He’s not inconsistently written as a flaw of the writing, but as a flaw of the character.

The re-emergence of Sinestro opens up a lot of questions.

Lanterns Episode 7 returns to the “Sinestro revealed just before credits” well, and it works almost as well here as it did in Episode 2. In Episode 2, Sinestro is in jail, and the big surprise is that Sinestro is alive and well, albeit in a cell.

By contrast, Sinestro on this remote planet feels somewhat predictable, but it opens up a whole new can of worms. How did Sinestro get out of space jail? Why does Hal have a portal right to him? Why is Sinestro hiding out on a poison gas planet that makes people hallucinate of all places?

Lanterns Episode 7 starts answering a lot of questions but also creates a bunch of new ones. Still, anyone willing to squint long and hard to avoid seeing the absurd implausibility of some of the episode’s logic will likely have a very enjoyable time with it. With just one episode left, the penultimate episode of Lanterns mostly succeeds in enticing viewers to come back for what promises to be a thrilling conclusion.

Lanterns Episode 7 is streaming now exclusively on HBO Max, with new episodes airing Sundays.

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