Wait, did Hal Jordan kill himself? The Lanterns Episode 8 preview contains a huge clue

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for Lanterns episode 7*

Lanterns episode 7 reveals the real ‘Jordan Boys’ Legacy’, hinting that maybe Hal Jordan wasn’t murdered at all – he may have taken his own life. But the episode 8 preview hints at an altogether different outcome. 

The very first episode of the DCU series ended with a flash forward in time to reveal that Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) had seemingly been killed. And it’s a mystery that continues in the penultimate episode, meaning we’ll have to wait until the finale for a definitive answer. 

In the meantime, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Halogram head through the dark matter portal into Antaan’s (Paul Ben-Victor) devastated alien world. While there, they find none other than Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), who is trapped there. 

Did Hal Jordan kill himself?

Lanterns episode 7 makes the suicide theory plausible, but it dashes this with the last scene, showing a young Hal going against his father’s suggestion. In short, it’s possible that Hal took his own life, but this is likely a red herring. 

Alongside the modern-day timeline, the latest episode gives us more of Hal’s backstory, travelling back to 1975 to show a young Hal getting told off by his baseball coach for not being a team player. 

Hal’s father, Martin Jordan, shows up, and we learn Hal refused to leave the pitch when the coach tried to replace him. This led to a fight between him and his teammates, and the game was ultimately forfeited. 

Rather than telling him off, Martin backs his son up. Later, while the pair are hanging out, Martin gives Hal the key to his safe, just like his father did for him before going to war. If anything should happen to him, the contents of the safe will be Hal’s responsibility. As his father describes it, it’s the “Jordan boys’ legacy”. 

Martin then notices Hal’s still clutching to the baseball – the one he’s been holding since the fight at the game. “You can throw it away,” he tells him. “You can’t hold onto it forever.” When Hal asks why, his father replies, “‘Cause it’s f**king exhausting.”

Essentially, he’s teaching his son the lesson of letting things go and not clinging on to anger, pain, failure or anything you can’t change. And so, Hal throws the ball as far as he can. In the next scene, we learn Martin died in a plane crash. 

Later on in Lanterns episode 7, in the present day, John and Halogram head to Antaan’s planet, and it’s here that we learn what Martin left in the safe: a suicide note. 

While the pair paddle through the waters of the planet, Halogram explains, “My father killed himself. He was a test pilot, so nobody had any reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.”

He opened the safe after his death to find cash and coins, old photos and a note. “My old man was convinced we’d be better off without him. He said he had that pain his whole life. Said it was getting worse. He couldn’t hide it,” Halogram says. “He couldn’t bear to let us see it. He couldn’t bear to let us see him.”

And it turns out Hal’s grandfather died the same way and similarly left a suicide note for Martin. This is the real Jordan boys’ legacy, which begs the question: did Hal suffer the same fate after years of struggling in silence?

It’s certainly a plausible theory. We know Hal has kept his pain a secret, with Halogram making a devastating confession: “I’m not fearless because I’m brave. I’m fearless because I’m broken.” In other words, the quality that defined him as a Green Lantern may actually have been a symptom of the same pain his father and grandfather struggled with.

Although Halogram previously suggested Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) could be the killer, he tells John, “Maybe she just found my body and tossed the gun away.”

But the very last scene of Lanterns episode 7 throws this idea into doubt. It shows young Hal returning alone to retrieve the baseball he threw away. It could be argued that this represents Hal breaking the Jordan boys’ legacy and deciding to forge his own path. 

As one Redditor wrote, “Idk how everyone is missing the point of the last scene. Hal didn’t commit suicide. The whole purpose of him going back to get the ball was illustrating that he is going to hold on. There is a reason they put that specific scene at the very end.”

Although this is just speculation at this stage, it seems too easy to suggest Hal took his own life. There’s also the fact that he secretly returned to Rushville, begged John not to tell anyone he was there and left behind a portal leading to the planet where Sinestro is now trapped.

The clue in the Lanterns episode 8 preview

The Lanterns finale trailer provides us with another clue against the suicide theory, as it challenges the Green Lantern Corps’ belief that being fealess is what makes someone strong. 

As Sinestro tells John, “The Green Lantern Corps thinks that fear makes you weak. They couldn’t be more wrong.” Later on in the preview, John asks Halogram what he would do, to which he replies, “Don’t be afraid to be afraid.”

Combined with the final scene of episode 7, where young Hal goes back for the baseball his father told him to let go of, this could be hinting that Hal ultimately kept fighting despite his fear. 

And there’s another clue in the episode 8 trailer that may complicate the suicide theory even further. You see, the earlier midseason teaser contains a mysterious shot we still haven’t seen in the series: Hal lying on the ground with a circular mark on his arm.

It’s the same mark John was left with after Zoe used Manhunter technology to regenerate his damaged tissue. This has already fuelled theories that this tech could have been used to create a duplicate of Hal – especially after Spanish subtitles seemingly identified a version of the character as “Clone Hal”. 

Once again, we see this mark on Hal’s arm in the episode 8 trailer. And as this is shown, Sinestro is heard saying, “Maybe you don’t have to have died in vain. I know a way.” Not only does this hint at the clone theory, but it could also be Sinestro directly addressing Hal before his death.

If that’s the case, Halogram’s suicide theory might have been a false assumption from the start. The real Hal may have survived, while a duplicate was the one found dead in Rushville. 

As you can tell, there are still a lot of unknowns. The mark could simply mean Hal was healed using the same Manhunter technology as John, or Sinestro’s comments could be referring to something else entirely. 

As one DC fan wrote in response to the trailer, “Looks like 2026 Hal is back or that is purely showing how he ended up dead since those are new scenes. With what Sinestro said though, it looks like they brought him back.”

But another countered, “I don’t think so. I think it’s a flash back to events leading up to Hal’s death, but we’ll see. I think there’ll be some sort of shenanigans where he was compromised in some fashion and then brought back by Kerry or Noah or whomever in the same way Zoe saved people and then insisted on/demanded loyalty and subservience.

“Hal prob realised he’d been infected or changed or whatever, and killed himself with a wound that would look just like the shot John took at Zoe. Makes me think that John also has a little manhunter in him from Zoe’s blood so that’ll be interesting to figure out.”

When is the Lanterns finale out?

Lanterns episode 8 drops on Sunday, October 4, at 6pm PT and 9pm ET. If you’re in the US, you can watch it live on the HBO channel or on HBO Max.

The rest of the world can watch it on HBO Max. We’ve listed several timezones below so you know when to tune in: 

8pm CT (Central Time)
2am BST (UK Time, Monday)
3am CEST (Central European Summer Time, Monday)
6:30am IST (India Standard Time, Monday)
10am JST (Japan Standard Time, Monday)
11am AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time, Monday)
1pm NZST (New Zealand Standard Time, Monday)

The finale runtime is still up for debate, but according to the HBO TV schedule, it’s set to be around an hour long.

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Featured image credit: HBO