The first episode of Lanterns gave audiences an interesting conversation to last them the week as Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) began looking into the mysterious murders in Rushville, Nebraska, which were indeed extraterrestrial-related. To top it all off, we jumped to 2026, where John and Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) found themselves in front of Hal Jordan’s frozen corpse and without his ring, which has already led to many theories, but after this episode, we seem to be closing in on the likely option of what happened to Hal Jordan in 2026.
With this second episode, we get to explore more of the bigger picture of what’s really going on in Rushville and finally begin getting somewhere with this mystery. Despite finally getting some leads, we also leave this episode still looking for answers. There had yet to be a DC show with this level of engagement, and Lanterns arrives, showing how to keep your audience engaged with the storyline while also appeasing every type of fan watching the show.
The start of this episode is important to focus on as John Stewart receives a rude, wet awakening from Hal Jordan as he prepares him for his first true lesson: how to fly! The problem here is that Jordan doesn’t exactly teach him how to do it and trusts that with instincts he’ll manage, but instead of speeding into the sky, he constructs a bird that follows him around and keeps its structure long after Stewart has taken off the ring. It’s a moment like this that highlights how powerful John Stewart’s willpower is and possibly why he’s been chosen to be Jordan’s protégé.
It might upset some viewers, but as far as this episode goes, we don’t get any more constructs with the ring, but don’t worry; that’s only due to its power being down and needing a recharge.
Hal Jordan in this episode still very much highlights his stubbornness and how he treats people, and it becomes clear with how he shoves John Stewart away from him as he continues to investigate and how he treats Kerry. We discover that she knows more than she’s letting on when it comes to aliens, as she was aware of the alien detectors which stand out as metal detectors to the normal eye.
As always, Hal Jordan trusted his gut, bringing the deceased bodies from the morgue back to the football pitch, making the detectors go off, but the question that needs to be asked which we don’t get the answer to, is why Macon is placing alien detectors around Rushville and what threat is he preparing for that Jordan and Kerry aren’t aware of.
Once we reach the ranch again, Kerry tells Hal that she’ll do the talking but continues to behave heedless and disobeys her. Ironically, it ends up with him having a bullet lodged in his shoulder, but that’s not enough for him to stop talking back to the literal woman that has all the power. For Hal Jordan, the most interesting thing about him isn’t the fact that he’s a veteran Lantern but from the scene with him and Kerry in the hospital, it’s their relationship that makes him feel slightly more human.
He continuously tries to act like he doesn’t care for anyone, but throughout the episode, it’s made clear that if there’s one person he does care for, it’s Kerry. Answering her when she calls out “honey” when she’s clearly talking to her husband and getting excited when it sounds like their relationship is not as strong as it seems. It makes you wonder what relationship Hal and Kerry had in the past. This episode is the first we get to see any sort of layer of Hal being unwrapped.
With Kerry herself, she seems more involved with whatever’s going down with Will Macon (Garret Dillahunt) and the benefactor. It’s likely that she’s still being kept out of the shadows and is unaware, but with how she was able to keep her knowing about the alien’s involvement, it highlights that she still manages to hold that control of her job and the power it gives, despite other people trying to walk all over it and break the control that she holds. When she’s giving a speech to the town hall, it’s her major moment where she tells Hal that she’ll take as long as she wants before allowing someone like him to try take over.
In addition, it seems Hal isn’t the first superhero Sheriff Kerry has dealt with. In this episode, we learn she hails from Gotham City, and as Hal points out, she doesn’t exactly scream Rushville, Nebraska. Looking back at the pilot, the hints were already there: Kerry tells Hal she can’t do this again when the topic of jurisdiction comes up, and we later hear her on the phone with an unnamed caller, refusing to discuss an active investigation before signing off with “tell Barb I said hey.” For a former citizen of Gotham, there’s really only one Barb that line is possibly pointing to, and that’s Barbara Gordon.
Add those clues together, and it’s fair to wonder whether Sheriff Kerry has had a few run-ins with the DCU’s Batman.
John’s Stewart side of the episode delivers us the most important message that Lanterns has offered yet, and that’s we finally know what we’re looking for: a Manhunter.
Stewart is sent back to Coast City to retrieve the Lantern from Hal’s house, which is grand like Jordan’s ego but also hollow like his personality. After receiving the lantern and glancing a look at the Green Lantern costume which, for a second, he imagines himself in, he proceeds to get kidnapped by Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) and his group.
For ages, it has been theorised that Antaan could possibly be Atrocitus, who’s known in the comics to be a Red Lantern and enemy of the Green Lanterns, especially Hal Jordan and now with the release of this episode, that theory seems to hold more weight as both characters draw from similar backgrounds of having witnessed their loved ones be killed by the Manhunters themselves.
A synthetic race known as the Manhunters came before the Lanterns and used brutal methods to carry out justice across the galaxy. It’s now known that one of them remains on Earth, and there’s a ticking clock running for John to discover who’s hiding among them as a Manhunter. It’s clear as day that Will Macon’s benefactor is either the Manhunter or has a relationship with the Manhunter and is involved with all this advanced tech that Macon is getting his hands on.
Just like the previous episode, we end it on a cliffhanger that only puts into perspective how dangerous of a threat these Manhunters are. After Hal discovers that they may be involved, he suits up for a special occasion and flies off to an outer-space prison where we find Sinestro locked up.
We learn earlier in the episode that Sinestro was once a Green Lantern but attempted a coup, killed one of the “bosses” (presumably a Guardian of the Universe) and was apprehended by Hal. Despite Hal not wanting to discuss who Sinestro is, all of this is public information for anyone to read about. Sinestro is seemingly a real threat himself if he’s managed to kill a Guardian of the Universe so if Sinestro is saying “if one still existed, they’d be the second greatest threat you’re currently facing.”
If a genocidal race such as the Manhunters is the second greatest threat for Hal, then what could the first be? Well, Sinestro answers that by asking Hal to tell him about John Stewart.
Lanterns Episode 2 continues to keep the audience on their toes, and despite giving us answers and opening up more of the picture of what this mystery is all about, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. As we near the end of the episode, we believe that we’ve learnt so much about who the Manhunters are, but we get redirected back to Hal and John’s relationship, which may be more of a threat to Hal than these Manhunters could be, and knowing Hal Jordan from these first two episodes, his pride and ego mean more to him than anything else.
