Lanterns Episode 7 Review: “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy” Reveals a Dark Jordan Family Secret
Lanterns goes deep into Hal Jordan’s family history in “The Jordan Boys’ Legacy,” and what starts as another piece of the mystery surrounding his death turns into something much more personal. This episode gives us more insight into Hal, John and the strange legacy hanging over the Jordan family while still pushing the larger Rushville mystery forward.
The episode opens all the way back in 1975, where a young Hal gets himself into trouble with his baseball coach after refusing to give up the ball. Things escalate until Hal is basically fighting the whole team, and naturally, his father gets involved and winds up fighting the coach too.
It is one of those flashbacks that tells us plenty about Hal and his family without spelling everything out. Hal and his father eventually sit at the airfield watching planes while eating popsicles, and the conversation turns to the safes that have been passed down through the Jordan family. We already know Hal has one in the present day, but now we finally begin to understand where that tradition came from.
Hal’s father tells him that he plans to stick around for years, flying planes until someone forces him to retire. He also gives Hal a piece of advice that ends up carrying far more weight than either of them could possibly know: throw the game ball as far as you can, because there is no point holding onto it. That idea of letting go hangs over the entire episode and becomes even more meaningful as the truth about the Jordan family starts to come out.
The story then flashes to his father’s funeral before returning to the present, where John is still trying to understand exactly what he has with the Hal hologram. The copy does not remember everything immediately, forcing John to explain who he is while carefully avoiding the truth about what happened.
And by carefully, I mean John lies about basically everything surrounding Hal’s death. It works for about five minutes before Hal starts asking the wrong questions and immediately realizes something is off. Once Hal asks about Mogo, he realizes John is hiding something. John shuts the hologram down and calls his brothers looking for the blackmail money, only for them to hang up on him. The problem is that Hal somehow heard the entire conversation, so now he knows John is lying and that something much bigger is going on.
Hal refuses to help John open the lockbox until he gets to talk to Kerry. John eventually tells him what happened, including everything involving Kerry, but Hal still will not cooperate until he speaks with her himself. John then takes off the ring, except Hal does not disappear. Even Hal seems impressed, pointing out that no other Lantern can apparently do what John just did, and you can tell John enjoys hearing that more than he wants to admit.
As Hal’s memories continue returning, he remembers more about the Manhunters and is definitely not thrilled when Guy Gardner enters the conversation. John eventually starts singing along with the radio just to drown Hal out, giving the episode one of its funnier moments and showing that this version of Hal can still get under his skin with very little effort.
Meanwhile, Maggie tracks John down because she wants her blackmail money. She takes his watch and threatens to make life miserable for the sheriff if she does not get paid, which is just one more problem added to John’s already ridiculous list.
At the hat ceremony, Noah still has not made a decision because he wants to focus on the game. Bill spots John and tries to get tough with him, but John’s brothers finally come through with the money, solving at least one problem for the moment.
John then does something much more important and shows Kerry the Hal hologram. Understandably, Kerry is stunned because there is no normal way to react to seeing a digital recreation of your dead former lover suddenly standing in front of you.
As Kerry talks with Hal, we learn something significant about how Hal viewed John. Despite how complicated their relationship became, Hal respected him, and that lands as an important reveal considering everything these two have been through. Kerry also learns that John dug up Hal’s body, and surprisingly, she understands why. Even though she is supposed to be hosting Noah’s party, she decides she wants to be part of whatever John discovers inside the vault.
At this point, Hal has already accused John of potentially killing him, so naturally his next theory is that Kerry might have done it. This hologram is working through the suspect list quickly, but it also shows just how fragmented Hal’s memories still are.
John and Kerry eventually make their way into the storage unit, where they discover two bags. Inside is a portal — essentially a dark matter manhole leading to another planet, along with a gun, and John takes the weapon before they move everything to the water tower.
Right before going through the portal, John asks Hal to ask him whether he is afraid. John answers with a smiling “Fuck no,” and honestly, that’s my guy because he says it like he is heading into something mildly inconvenient instead of another planet. Once John reaches the planet, he immediately feels as though he has been there before. He projects Hal’s hologram toward the city, but there does not appear to be anything there at first, which only makes the familiarity even more unsettling.
Then we find out why the place feels so familiar: it is Antaan’s planet. The city is suspended in the sky, and the people who once lived there apparently jumped to their deaths, making it pretty clear that this place is anything but normal.
John and Hal continue exploring, eventually passing through a graveyard and getting into a boat. Along the way, Hal asks the question that has been sitting between them for a while: why did John come back if he does not even like him?
John finally stops holding back and tells Hal everything, including what happened between them and everything he has been carrying. It is one of the more revealing moments between the two because John finally lets some of that resentment and pain out instead of burying it under sarcasm. Afterward, John makes Hal disappear again, and that is when the storm begins to intensify. Apples start appearing in the water before John sees his father, but the vision eventually transforms into John’s younger self as whatever is in the atmosphere continues affecting him.
Things quickly spiral as John loses control of what he is seeing and nearly shoots himself before Hal intervenes. John finally puts the poncho on, but what Hal tells him next completely changes the meaning of those Jordan family safes.
Hal reveals that his father died by suicide and that his grandfather did too. The safes were never simply sentimental family heirlooms; they are part of what Hal calls the Jordan Boys’ legacy, with notes passed from one generation to the next explaining what happened and asking the next son to keep the truth hidden.
Suddenly, Hal begins questioning his own death. What if he died the same way, and what if Kerry threw away the gun afterward to protect Hal’s reputation just as Hal once protected his father? It is easily one of the biggest developments in the mystery yet because it completely reframes what John has been investigating. Instead of simply asking who killed Hal, John now has to consider whether the truth could be far more complicated than anyone expected.
Then John realizes his gun is missing, and Hal immediately points out how bad that is considering the ring is once again nearly out of power. Naturally, because Lanterns refuses to let John have even five peaceful minutes, Sinestro shows up.
Sinestro puts a knife to Hal’s hologram’s throat, forcing John to make Hal disappear before delivering one fantastic punch directly to Sinestro’s face. Hal, of course, still gets the final word with “Great arm,” which is exactly the kind of comment you would expect from him after everything they just went through.
“The Jordan Boys’ Legacy” is another strong episode of Lanterns, giving us much more of Hal while continuing to pull John deeper into the mystery surrounding Rushville, Antaan and the Jordan family. What works especially well is how the episode connects Hal’s childhood to the present without making the flashbacks feel like filler.
The safes begin as a small family tradition before becoming something much darker, while that early lesson about letting go ends up taking on an entirely different meaning by the end. At the same time, John and Hal continue to be the heart of the series because even with Hal existing as a hologram, their complicated dynamic still works.
There is resentment, respect and plenty left unsaid between them, and this episode gives both characters room to confront some of that baggage. We may finally be getting closer to understanding what actually happened to Hal Jordan, but of course, Lanterns answers one question by handing us five more.
And I’m completely locked in.
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