The series premiere of Lanterns ends with John Stewart discovering Hal Jordan's dead body in 2026. The hero has seemingly been shot in the head and left in the Nebraskan snow to freeze, with his Green Lantern Corps ring now missing.
Kyle Chandler's Hal will continue to make his presence felt in the series, as a big chunk of the action looks set to take place in the 2016 timeline. His ring also houses the "Halogram," a copy of Hal's 2006 consciousness.
During an interview with Deadline, Chandler broke his silence on the hero's demise, saying it "opens up the whole mystery of the show." He added, "The whole search is to find out what happened to him. I like the fact that the show is non-linear and they’ve layered it like that."
Likening Lanterns' approach to telling this story to "three-dimensional chess," Chandler explained, "Once you get all your pages taped on the wall and you know where all your scenes are, then you can take this page in the script and this page in the script, and figure out how to play with the material to reveal things differently, or to lay Easter eggs as the actor."
"So, maybe later on, if not anyone else, I remember I did that. You can have fun doing things, but it’s complicated."
Complicated is a good word to describe Lanterns' cliffhanger, as Hal's missing ring raises some big questions about what's going on in the DCU. In 2016, Hal is training John to take his place when he dies, but for some reason, Guy Gardner has a Green Lantern ring in 2025, the year before his fellow ring slinger's demise.
Addressing that in Lanterns' official podcast, writer Tom King said, "I mean, people who saw Superman in theaters and liked it, there was a hidden mystery in the middle. Guy Gardner was Green Lantern. And that was a mystery, because why? How did we get there? Because at the end of this episode, Hal is dead."
"But also, you see John's hand. He's not wearing that ring. Guy has the ring," he added. "So why does Guy end up with the ring? And where do we go after this? Because this moves us forward."
So, Guy has Hal's ring? How does that work? Similar to how a Clayface was introduced in Creature Commandos with relatively little in common with what we've seen of Matt Hagen in the upcoming Clayface movie, this may be a continuity conundrum that now needs to be solved due to a lack of planning on James Gunn's part.
Fortunately, it sounds like answers are coming. It's worth noting that in the comics, Guy was chosen as a backup Lantern, so King may have misspoken here, as his ring is likely completely separate from Hal's. So is whatever reason the Guardians of the Universe have for wanting John to succeed Hal and wear his ring.
"Lanterns gets off to a solid start with its pilot, and while an ending that veers wildly from the comics risks alienating comic book fans, a compelling story and pitch-perfect performances from Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler are reason enough to come back next week," we wrote in our review of the pilot.
The first episode of Lanterns is now streaming on HBO Max.