LANTERNS Fans Spotted a Interesting Clue That Could Change Everything About Hal Jordan
If you still haven’t watched the series premiere of Lanterns, major spoilers follow.
The first episode of Lanterns ended with Hal Jordan dead. But, is her really dead? The premiere, titled “Pilot,” closes with a pretty brutal reveal as John Stewart and Sheriff Kerry Kane discover Hal’s frozen body in the 2026 timeline, complete with a bullet wound to the head.
It certainly looks like the end of the legendary Green Lantern, but the new “Weeks Ahead” trailer may have slipped in a clue that changes everything.
Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan will remain a major part of Lanterns thanks to the show’s 2016 storyline, so his apparent death doesn’t mean Chandler is disappearing from the series. Still, fans are already digging into whether Hal actually died at all.
One theory points to a blurry but potentially important moment in the “Weeks Ahead” footage involving the alien body Hal steals from the morgue. The corpse appears to have a head wound in nearly the same location as the injury seen on Hal’s body at the end of Episode 1.
A fan also noticed another possible connection involving the skull that John Stewart later picks up. "The body Hal drags out from the morgue has a wound on its forehead, exactly where "Hal's" wound is at the end of episode 1," they wrote.
"And the skull John picks up also has what looks to be a healed wound in a similar area. Lends me to suspect Hal's still alive, and these are all aliens being murdered."
That’s a pretty interesting theory, especially for a Green Lantern story dealing with aliens and a mystery that clearly has more going on than we currently understand. If the body found by John and Kerry somehow isn’t really Hal, then the matching injuries could be breadcrumbs pointing toward a much bigger reveal.
Maybe Hal faked his death. Maybe the body has been switched. Maybe there’s an alien explanation we haven’t seen yet. Whatever is happening, the repeated head wounds are suspicious enough to keep the “Hal Jordan is alive” theory on the table.
There’s also a comment from Lanterns co-creator Damon Lindelof that becomes a lot more interesting in light of the theory. Lindelof knows some fans aren’t going to be thrilled about apparently killing Hal Jordan right out of the gate, but he suggested viewers should wait until the entire eight-episode season plays out before judging the decision.
"I guess our feeling is, let's see how you feel at the end of Episode 8, and if you still feel like it was exploitative or unnecessary, or that it wasn't exactly what had to happen in order for this story to get told, then we deserve it. But I think we're willing to absorb the boos from the audience in the first inning, as long as we still have a shot at winning the game."
That doesn’t confirm Hal survived, of course. Lindelof could simply be talking about the larger purpose of Hal’s death and how it affects John Stewart’s story. Still, his confidence that viewers may see the premiere differently after Episode 8 makes it hard not to wonder what Lanterns is hiding.
There are also some big questions this theory would have to answer. If Hal Jordan is alive, why has his Green Lantern ring gone to Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion?
There’s also the fact that Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart is apparently positioned to become Earth’s Green Lantern in Man of Tomorrow. Those details would seem to support Hal actually being gone, unless the series has found a way around the usual rules.
Then again, this is a cosmic murder mystery involving Green Lanterns, aliens, mysterious bodies, and multiple different timelines. A fake death wouldn’t exactly be the strangest card the show could play.
For now, Hal Jordan’s fate remains one of the biggest questions hanging over Lanterns. The premiere wants us to believe he’s dead, but that “Weeks Ahead” trailer has given some fans a pretty convincing reason to keep looking closer.
Check out the trailer and screenshots below and let us know what you think. Is Hal Jordan really dead, or did Lanterns just pull off one hell of a fake-out?