Lanterns Episode 5 seemed to close the door on the first part of the seasonal storyline, as Green Lanterns Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) moved to stop the Manhunter, Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan), who had embedded herself in the town of Rushville. Zoe didn’t go quietly: she sacrificed her devoted flock of townspeople to battle Hal and the alien terrorist Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) before John took her out. However, a lot of fans don’t believe what their eyes were seeing, and now it turns out they may have also missed another trick pulled off right in front of our eyes.
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In the midst of the battle against the Manhunter, Hal Jordan and John Stewart see their respective tensions boil over into an all-out brawl, which nearly got them both killed. But did that fight go down exactly as we saw it? We’re not so sure…
Did John Stewart Actually Fight the Halogram?
After John and Hal have their fight, Hal is left beaten up badly on the ground. Zoe approaches Hal to finish him off, only for both of them to realize that John has set a trap for Zoe, using Hal as bait. John snipes Zoe and then takes her heart as a trophy for the Guardians, and Hal’s Power Ring and battery as a trophy for himself. Last we saw Hal, he was still lying in the rubble of the motel, and some viewers are now speculating that it wasn’t Hal lying there at all
Lanterns Episode 1 introduced us to the “Halogram,” an AI backup for Jordan’s consciousness that is stored in the ring and is supposed to be routinely updated. In Episode 5, Hal performs the curious act of chipping off a small piece of his ring’s emerald to manifest Halogram and use him as a tactical and recon assistant in the battle. But, according to a potential massive spoiler that HBO Max let slip through the cracks, the fan theory that Halogram took the beating from John Stewart is now heating up in a major way.
After John Stewart beats Hal Jordan down and takes his ring and battery, Hal admonishes him for being naive that the Guardians won’t one day replace him too (John), just like they did the Manhunters and Hal. What’s highly curious is that the Spanish-language version of Lanterns Episode 5’s subtitles list Hal’s monologue to John as being spoken by “Clone de Hal,” or “Hal’s Clone.” It seems to be a screw-up by the production department, and one that could prove to be one of the only big spoilers Lanterns has leaked early.
This lends big credit to the rumor that Hal faked John and Zoe out during the fight and was pursuing some other mission objective that’s yet to be seen. It’s the kind of shrewd tactic that Hal Jordan has demonstrated since Episode 1 (manifesting counterfeit money to play a jukebox repeatedly in a bar), and may also explain why he doesn’t ever update Halogram, preferring to use the AI’s dumbed-down version as his own personal tool. And if poor Halogram takes a few hard hits? So be it…
This Theory Could Be The Key to Lanterns‘ Biggest Mystery
If it gets confirmed that it was Halogram (or some other kind of copy) that John battled in the motel, it’s not just a big twist for Episode 5, but for the entire show. Knowing that it’s even possible for Hal Jordan to pull off such deception makes us immediately look back at the premiere episode’s cliffhanger ending in a whole different way.
Suddenly, Hal Jordan’s “death” doesn’t look so tragic and permanent anymore. In fact, it feels like the biggest tragedy in the show may end up being the way poor Halogram gets treated.
Lanterns airs on HBO and streams on HBO Max.
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Forum Conversation: LANTERNS EP 4 MANHUNTER REVEAL
Go to Forum“Atrocitus” huh LOL
We don’t know how Hal knows — the ring could have told him. We DO now that Hal is not in the habit of checking in, and he goes “with his gut”, so he could just be reacting to his perception of the information he has. The ring could have detected another ring being used when John has his test, and knowing he hasn’t exactly been a model corps member and his age now being more and more a factor, plus his ego… it’s more than likely his behaviour is all driven by assumptions (they are trying to replace me) that just happen to be partially correct, therefor (in his eyes) reinforcing the prospecting telling him all he thinks he needs to know.
What I do love about this show is it leverages the Rashomon storytelling style of telling one even from the perspective of different characters (sometime unreliably), and every time we are told what we “already know”, we actually learn more about what really happened. The answers are most likely right in front of us, it just hasn’t clicked (by design) from the right perspective yet.
Yeah, my comment wasn’t praise (per se) about John’s method — just pointing out their very different approaches — which I feel adds to their disconnect since they aren’t communicating motives. They could actually learn a lot from each other (both for this case, and how to be better Lanterns) had they not been played against each other by Lianna.
Personally, I don’t think time matters (narrative-wise) in relation to one or several Manhunters. They have no real individual personality or motivation outside their human cover, and since we’ve already been introduced to who they are and what they did, having one, three or ten hiding in the town, or hell — the whole town — would need little more setup. All the things you mention can be covered easily in the remaining four episodes, while also revealing half the town (for instance) are Manhunters seeking refuge from those searching for them. What If that is what Abin Sur discovered? Not one, but a colony of them — having Zoe as the narrative’s “representative” for them — and that way providing their exposition.