LANTERNS Episode 4 Trailer Warns Hal Jordan "Will Need to Kill John Stewart"
Things between Hal Jordan and John Stewart are about to get ugly on HBO’s Lanterns. The trailer for Episode 4 has arrived, and John finally getting his Green Lantern ring might be the least surprising part of what’s coming.
The footage points to a growing conflict between the two Lanterns as Sinestro works on Hal and pushes him toward a dangerous confrontation with John.
Sinestro asks Hal about John and dismisses the younger Lantern as “a contingency plan, a backup.” Hal doesn’t agree with his assessment, but Sinestro takes things much further when he warns him, “You really will need to kill John Stewart.”
That’s one hell of an order, especially after everything Episode 3 revealed about why John was raised to become a Green Lantern in the first place.
John’s parents spent years preparing him for the ring. His father, John Stewart Sr., previously encountered Abin Sur’s ring but admitted that fear prevented him from answering the call. Bernadette Stewart later discovered from a Guardian that Green Lantern eligibility could be passed through genetics.
From that point forward, John’s childhood essentially became training for the day the ring might choose him. When he was only five years old, he shot an apple off his father’s head. His mother eventually had him perform the same exercise with her standing in as the target.
John carried that discipline into the military, eventually becoming a Marine sergeant major and developing a reputation as a patient sniper. His career fell apart after Hal interfered with a months-long assignment, resulting in John being discharged.
Episode 3 has revealed what the Guardians actually have planned for him. A Guardian interviewed John inside an abandoned shopping mall and revealed that his true mission is to replace Hal as Green Lantern.
Hal doesn’t know about that plan, but he already sees John as a threat. When the two finally confronted each other, Hal made his position pretty damn clear, telling John he would get the ring “over my dead body.”
Now Sinestro appears to be feeding Hal’s distrust while John moves closer to taking his place. The Episode 4 trailer makes Sinestro look like a puppet master trying to steer Hal toward an even more dangerous path.
The big question is whether Hal can figure out that he’s being manipulated before he does something he can’t come back from.
New episodes of Lanterns air Sundays at 9 PM on HBO Max.