Lanterns Season 1 Episode 7 Review: A Heartbreaking Secret About Hal's Father
Hal Jordan's father killed himself, and so did his grandfather. Most of this Lanterns Season 1 Episode 7 review is about that reveal, which the Halogram delivers to John on a rowboat in the middle of an alien storm. Once you know it, Kyle Chandler's performance over the first six episodes plays differently, and Hal's recklessness looks more like a man who didn't care what happened to him. The murder case barely moves in "The Jordan Boys' Legacy."
A Kid Who Won't Give Up the Ball
The episode opens in 1975. A young Hal (Henry Samiri) sits in his coach's office with a black eye, holding a baseball. The coach pulled him from the mound during a no-hitter, Hal refused to hand over the ball, and his team had to forfeit. His father Martin (Jake B. Miller) asks the coach if Hal's version is true, the coach says it is, and the two men end up fighting.
Afterward, Hal and Martin sit on the edge of a hangar with matching black eyes, eating popsicles and watching military jets go over. Martin gives Hal a key to a safe for the day Martin dies, the same thing his own father did for him. Hal asks why his mom isn't getting the key, and Martin says she can't carry what's in the box. Then he tells Hal to throw the baseball as far as he can, because you can't hold onto something forever. The first time through, it plays as a sweet father and son scene.
The Halogram Wants Answers
In 2026, the Halogram looks down at Hal's body and tries to be happy that John finally became a Green Lantern. Then he learns John never did. The ring is almost dead, with less than an hour of power left, and the Halogram won't open Hal's voice-activated vault until John takes him to Sheriff Kane.
On the drive, John pulls the ring off to prove a point, and the Halogram stays. The Halogram tells him he's never met a Lantern who could do that, including himself. Aaron Pierre plays it like John has never heard a compliment from Hal before, which fits everything we saw of the two of them in 2016. John also works out that singing pushes the Halogram out of his head, and that comes back at the end of the episode.
John finds Kerry at the high school hat ceremony, where Noah Macon puts off picking a college. Her scene with the Halogram is hard to watch. Kelly Macdonald is talking to a copy of Hal that has no memory of their relationship, and it seems to hurt her more than it helps. She does understand why John dug up the ring.
Through the Portal
Back at the vault, the Halogram opens it. Inside is a backpack with a poncho and a handgun, plus a paper bag holding a black blob that the Halogram stretches into a wormhole. On the other side is a desert planet under an empty floating city, with bones buried across the sand. John recognizes it from the memory Antaan forced on him in 2016. The Manhunter filled this planet with a gas that turned people against each other, and some of them jumped from the city to get away from it.
The Boat
The gas is still in the rain, and it gets to John out on the water. Apples float up around the boat. His young father (J. Alphonse Nicholson) sits across from him with one balanced on his head, and then it's ten-year-old John (Cairo Cash Lee) yelling at him to shoot and calling him a coward. When John comes to, the Halogram tells him he had turned the gun on himself.
That's where the Halogram tells John the truth about Martin. Everyone believed Martin died in a test pilot accident. When Hal opened the safe, he found a suicide note, and Martin had found a similar note from his own father years earlier. The Halogram calls it the Jordan boys' legacy and says Hal lived with the same depression his whole life. He wonders if Hal shot himself, but there was no note this time. John suggests Kerry might have found the gun and hidden it, the same way the Jordan men kept each other's deaths quiet. He calls the Halogram "Hal" for the first time since digging up the grave.
In the comics, Martin dies in a plane crash while Hal watches, so this is a big change and comics fans will argue about it. It's the right call for this version of Hal. Chandler has played him as reckless since the pilot, and now that recklessness has a reason behind it.
Where Lanterns Episode 7 Stumbles
The biggest problem is the ring battery. It was at 5% during the Episode 5 fight ten years ago, and it's still at 5% now. The Halogram says there's less than an hour of power left, and then that hour stretches across a night at the storage unit, a full day in town, and a trip across another planet.
The Maggie blackmail subplot is still hard to care about. She takes John's watch as a down payment on the $315,000, and the episode moves on without doing anything else with it.
Sinestro
John loses the gun overboard, and they reach a tower on the far shore with the ring nearly empty. Inside, a hooded man grabs the Halogram and holds a knife to his throat, demanding the ring. The Halogram tells John he must be playing their song. John sings until the Halogram disappears, then knocks the attacker down with one punch. Under the hood is Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), last seen in a cell in Episode 2.
The episode ends back in 1975. After Martin's funeral, young Hal walks back out in his suit and picks the baseball up off the field.
TL;DR (For The Skippers)
In 1975, Martin Jordan gives young Hal a key to a safe and tells him to throw away a baseball he won't let go of
The Halogram learns John never became a Green Lantern and won't open Hal's vault until he sees Sheriff Kane
John takes off the ring and the Halogram stays, which surprises the Halogram
Kerry's reunion with the Halogram goes badly
The vault holds a gun and a portal to the Manhunter's dead planet
The fear gas makes John hallucinate his father and his younger self, and the Halogram pulls him out of it
The Halogram reveals Martin Jordan died by suicide, like his father before him, and that Hal lived with the same depression
A hooded attacker in a tower turns out to be Sinestro
After his father's funeral, young Hal goes back for the baseball
The Verdict
The murder case barely moves, and the ring battery stops making sense halfway through. The boat scene is one of the best of the season, and Chandler and Pierre are both excellent in it. Sinestro's return gives the finale a fight to build toward.
Verdict: PRESS X
This episode deals with suicide and depression. If you're struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Outside the US, findahelpline.com lists free support in your country.