‘Lanterns’ Season 2 Can’t Undo the HBO Series’ Greatest Twist
Julio is a Senior Author for Collider. He studied History and International Relations at university, but found his calling in cultural journalism. When he isn't writing, Julio also teaches English at a nearby school. He has lived in São Paulo most of his life, where he covers CCXP and other big events. Having loved movies, music, and TV from an early age, he prides himself in knowing every minute detail about the things he loves. When he is older, he dreams of owning a movie theater in a small countryside town.
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Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Lanterns Season 1.
After eight excellent episodes, Lanterns Season 1 has finally come to a close, confirming the twist it laid out all the way back in the series premiere: unfortunately, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) is definitely dead. The season finale, "Dirt and Stars," however, hints at the possibility of him coming back in a not-so-distant future, when Thaal Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) tells the "Hal-o-gram" and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) that he knows a way to use Hal's ring to bring him "back to life, for real." There has since been a lot of speculation about whether Sinestro was telling the truth or only bluffing, but, regardless, Hal shouldn't be brought back to life in the upcoming Season 2. As great a character as he is and as perfect as Chandler's portrayal is, it's time for us all to let Hal go.
Hal Jordan Comes Back Many Times in the Comics, but the DCU Should Follow Its Own Path
Before Lanterns premiered, one of the main bets among Green Lantern fans was that Hal's character would somehow either become Parallax, or at least that the series would introduce this concept for further seasons or movies. Lanterns did neither, but Sinestro's line about potentially bringing Hal back has some fans hopeful that this might be how Parallax shows up, considering that Hal has been resurrected many times in the comics. So, it isn't a stretch to imagine the DCU doing the same, right?
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.
⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)
💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)
⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)
🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)
01
What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.
02
How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.
03
What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.
04
How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.
05
Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.
06
What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.
07
What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.
08
What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.
Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you would be having within a week.
Harry Potter
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within about five minutes and has never stopped.
- This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every single person in your life would be.
- The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you do with things you love.
- The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the arguments are about to start all over again.
Lord of the Rings
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
- This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
- Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all, which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
- Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make that argument.
Star Wars
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
- Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly 1980 with no sign of resolution.
- The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
- You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good time.
Star Trek
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
- The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
- Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
- You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you will always find somebody willing to have it.
Not really. As James Gunn once pointed out about how death works in the DCU, "if you die, you're dead." So it really isn't likely that Hal Jordan, the real one, will come back, and neither should he. The Hal-o-gram also straight up declines Sinestro's offer to be "brought back." The real Hal's arc in Lanterns is defined by his difficulty with letting things go, but, in his final moments, there seems to be some peace about this. Although he certainly wasn't planning on dying, he did know of the risk and left things set up for John to solve the mystery without him.
Concerning Hal's fate and Parallax's role in the future of the DCU, by now it's clear that Gunn's take on this universe is about forging an original path inspired by the classic DC Comics, but not necessarily about following them to the letter. This has also been addressed by series showrunner Chris Mundy, who described Lanterns as a "remix" — just like Gunn's Superman, by the way. If Hal is to be brought back, it should be to serve the narrative established in Season 1, not to undermine it.
Hal’s Return Would Hinder John Stewart’s Development Arc in ‘Lanterns’ Season 1
Hal may have come back countless times in the comics, but TV isn't comics. Resurrection isn't a tool that should be used often, and doing it with Hal Jordan — especially after we've seen how he dies — hinders the impact of his loss on John Stewart. As Lanterns co-creator Damon Lindelof put it, showing us that Hal is really dead only to bring him back later would be the "worst possible schmuck-baity thing." That's precisely how such serious tools lose credibility.
As it stands, bringing Hal back in the present-day DCU timeline would fulfill only fan-serving and commercial purposes, not narrative ones, as there is simply nothing about Hal that John needs to learn or confront anymore. John is Lanterns' undeniable protagonist, which is ultimately about his rise as a Lantern and Hal's successor. In that sense, Hal's main purpose as a character is to provide John with the foundation to grow. Right now, John has outgrown Hal, who, in turn, has played his part and gotten his own memorable ending.
Even if Hal really does end up being brought back as Parallax, there is still no point in having John fight him. They spend most of Lanterns either trying to work themselves out, or going at one another, so John has already faced as much of Hal as he could possibly need to. Kyle Chandler's take on Hal really is excellent, and it would indeed be a shame not to see it again, but there is a 20-year gap in which he serves as Sector 2814's Green Lantern; that's where his potential DCU return is.
There Are Other Ways for Sinestro and Parallax To Become Major Villains
The greatest issue around this whole "bringing Hal back" debacle is that Sinestro doesn't usually lie and is more of a "brutal truth" kind of guy, so if he says he can do it, he probably can. There are indeed plenty of ways for that to happen, from digging out Hal's body from the grave to making the Hal-o-gram a living thing, but to do any of that, he must go through John first, so, if anything, Sinestro's line should set him up as John's next big confrontation. Right now, he seems at the cusp of establishing his own Sinestro Corps in the DCU, and that's the way to go.
In the comics, Hal really is the closest character to Sinestro, so it might feel weird at first to see John going against him instead. But it's already been established that the DCU is a "remix," not a faithful adaptation of the comics, so John being Hal's successor may imply more than becoming a Lantern, too. His yellow-streaked lantern might hint at him becoming Parallax in the future, for example, and, right now, that wouldn't feel out of place in the DCU at all. This would make way for more Lanterns to be introduced, too, which is definitely more urgent than bringing anyone back from the dead unnecessarily.
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