We've reached the halfway point in Lanterns, but when will we finally return to the premiere's big 2026 reveal? As we're sure you'll recall, the jump from 2016 to the present day showed John Stewart discovering Hal Jordan's dead body in Nebraska, a moment that raised many questions.
HBO and DC Studios have been extremely guarded with Lanterns screeners and, as far as we're aware, no critics have seen the finale yet. That alone suggests something huge happens, whether it's a villainous turn for Hal or simply the identity of his killer.
According to scooper @MyTimeToShineH, "Episode 5 of Lanterns will be the last one to be set in 2016. From episode 6, we jump to 2026." That means next week's action-packed effort will wrap up the 2016 storyline.
However, we expect at least one of the remaining episodes to tell Hal's origin story. Whether we'll finally see him in his prime as Green Lantern alongside Sinestro remains to be seen.
In a recent interview with The Wrap, Sinestro actor Ulrich Thomsen confirmed he hopes to continue exploring what makes the villain tick. "I’m ready to dig in," he enthused. "It’s a great world. It’s a great take on the Lanterns, I think. Bring it on. I’m ready."
"There’s so much more to explore about who he is. I mean just the name — Sinestro — right? I’m ready to get in there, man, for sure. I read the scripts, and I read about him, Sinestro. I didn’t know so much about it, and I look at him, and I go, wow. That guy would sell himself, the way he looks and all that."
"It’s inherent in the scenes, I thought," Thomsen later said of Hal and Sinestro’s friendship. "It’s just great drama, you know? You have your best of enemies, right, and that’s always fun. But in order to play that, it should be in the scenes. Otherwise it would be difficult. But it was well written that way."
Lanterns has been extremely grounded, with only a handful of constructs and very little cosmic action. Whether that will change in the remainder of the series remains to be seen, but DC Studios' take on the Green Lantern Corps appears to be vastly different from the comics.
Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
Alongside Kyle Chander and Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Nicole Ari Parker, Jason Ritter, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones round out the cast.
Four episodes of Lanterns are now streaming on HBO Max.