Lanterns Season 1 Ending Explained: Who Killed Hal Jordan

Published Oct 4, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

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Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for HBO's Lanterns season 1, episode 8.The Lanterns season 1 finale is here, and with it, the mystery of who killed Hal Jordan has been answered, with the HBO sci-fi series' final episode for now also revealing what is next for John Stewart, while leaving some questions in the air. At the end of Lanterns episode 7, the DC series explored how Hal Jordan is a character who never gives up, using the flashback of a young Hal going to get his baseball. That was a metaphor for a few things, one of them being that Hal would never commit suicide, which was a possible answer to his death.

Lanterns had also set up Ulrich Thomsen's Sinestro to play a major role in the season 1 finale. After all, when John Stewart and the Hal-o-gram traveled to Antaan's planet, they found Sinestro hiding there after he escaped from prison, which Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner had described as "Space Azkaban," another of Lanterns' Harry Potter references ahead of that fantasy franchise's HBO reboot series that is coming in December. Thomsen's Sinestro, Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan, Aaron Pierre's John Stewart, Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner, and more return in the Lanterns season 1 finale, and with those major characters come many answers.

Hal Jordan Is Really Dead - Everything Lanterns Reveals About His Death

Image credit: John Johnson/HBO Max

Heading into the Lanterns finale, DC fans had come up with many different theories for Hal's fate. Some thought that he had not died, faking his death instead of being resurrected. A few of the theories hinged on Hal becoming Parallax, infected by the living entity of fear in the DCU. While that fear part of the emotional spectrum was explored in the Lanterns season finale, it was not through Hal Jordan. When it came to the mystery surrounding Hal's death, Lanterns confirmed that he really did die, shot in the head by none other than his love interest, Sheriff Kerry.

That was part of a bigger plot twist, as Lanterns revealed that Noah Macon, Kerry's son, was a Manhunter like his grandma. In fact, Noah used the same advanced technology that Zoe previously employed to save John's life after his car caught on fire, to save Hal and give him new skin after Chandler's character passed out in his burning house, which Rushville residents mad about Hal's actions a decade before started when he finally got out of prison. John initially thinks Noah killed Hal, and the teenager even asks the DC hero to kill him as he fears not being able to escape his programming.

However, it was all a lie. Noah did not kill Hal, but he was willing to die to protect his mom. After learning that Noah was a Manhunter, Hal approached Kerry at the football stadium, the place he would die. Frantic, he started coming up with all these rules and plans for how they could run away and start a new life where Noah would be okay, which scared Kerry. The latter, fearing for what future her son might have, shot Hal straight in the head in the heat of the moment, immediately regretting the decision when she could no longer take it back.

Upon piecing together the clues and confronting Kerry about it, John chose not to take her to the police, as he felt like that was not what Hal would have wanted, given his loving connection with the woman who ended up murdering him. Additionally, given how Noah actively wanted to avoid his Manhunter programming and was willing to die to keep his mom safe, John Stewart gave him a vote of confidence, letting the kid be. By the end of the Lanterns season 1 finale, Hal Jordan is truly dead.

John Stewart Is Earth's New Green Lantern

With the mystery surrounding Hal's death resolved, Lanterns focused on John Stewart's next chapter in James Gunn's DCU. We already knew that Pierre would return as the Green Lantern in 2027's Man of Tomorrow, Gunn's Superman movie sequel. Now, Lanterns explains exactly how he will factor into that story. Talking to Sinestro, John discovers that it was Noah who broke him free using Manhunter technology, and in turn, he got Sinestro to forge him a lantern, with the power battery being enhanced by the energy originating from all the fear in the air and water of the planet they were on, as manifested by its yellow streaks.

At the end of the Lanterns season 1 finale, John calls Fillion's Guy Gardner using the Green Lantern signal in Rushville. He then tells Guy to relay an encoded message to the Guardians of the Universe that would make them understand how he knew everything about Noah and the Manhunters, and how it was in the Guardians' best interests to let him operate alone with his unsanctioned lantern and Hal Jordan's Green Lantern ring. John declares that he is now the Green Lantern in charge of Earth and Guy can take the rest of Sector 2814, going the cosmic route.

This sets up John Stewart perfectly for Man of Tomorrow. Now that he is the Green Lantern who must protect Earth from alien threats, when Brainiac presumably comes to the planet in the Superman sequel, he will be rushing to the scene to help David Corenswet's Superman, Milly Alcock's Supergirl, and others fight him. John Stewart also comes up with his own Green Lantern oath that embraces fear and his flaws, leaving behind the strict rules he lived by to become a Green Lantern in the first place and the Guardians' issues. He is his own man and hero.

What Is Next For Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner?

Well, now that Guy Gardner is no longer in charge of Earth, his role in the DCU will likely change in a big way. After all, Guy is one of the heroes in Maxwell Lord's Justice Gang, and he is set to appear in Gunn's Man of Tomorrow, just like Pierre's John Stewart. Given how Brainiac is such a huge threat, one Green Lantern alone might not be enough to defeat him, and so Guy's team ends up getting him to come back and join the fight. That said, we already know of another DCU project that will feature Guy Gardner.

That is Tom King's animated Mister Miracle series, which should have many scenes set on other planets, like Apokolips and New Genesis. Given how Guy is now in charge of cosmic threats, that could be what sets him up to appear in the new show, perhaps aiding Mister Miracle with something Darkseid-related. Additionally, Guy Gardner's cosmic adventures could become the focus of Lanterns season 2 if the show takes an anthology approach to new seasons now that the Hal Jordan mystery has been explained and John Stewart's origin story is complete. Fans have been asking for a cosmic Green Lantern show, and Guy would lead to that.

Can Sinestro Still Resurrect Hal?

Finally, while Hal did die, Sinestro made an important comment in the Lanterns season 1 finale. According to the DC villain, he could have used Hal's Green Lantern ring, which was with John, to fully bring him back to life. It is true that the DC series later revealed that by charging the ring on Sinestro's unsanctioned lantern, the Hal-o-gram and any chance of resurrecting Hal would be terminated. John did that after an emotional goodbye with Hal that included a sweet and funny exchange of I love yous. As such, it seems like Hal's resurrection is off the table.

However, this is Sinestro we are talking about. There is always a chance that he was lying about not being able to resurrect Hal Jordan if John charged the ring on the lantern he forged, as he wanted the Hal-o-gram to turn on John and free him. As such, Hal's status could still change whenever Lanterns season 2 arrives, with Sinestro still being trapped on that planet, where fear reigns supreme, and perhaps a Parallax Hal Jordan could end up happening if Lanterns is renewed.

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  Kyle Chandler

  Hal Jordan

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  Aaron Pierre

  John Stewart