Did Lanterns Just Destroy Hal Jordan's Legacy? | Lanterns Explained

The Death That Won’t Sit Right

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A football field, a man finally willing to lower his guard and one incredibly simple decision in a finale filled with cosmic consequences. Lanten's episode eight made a choice with Hal Jordan that I'm still trying to make peace with. Maybe the question isn't whether it was good or whether it was bad. Maybe it's why something so simple feels so difficult to accept. Welcome to the Fandom Portals, the show that proves that the biggest pop culture movies and TV shows have something to teach you. I'm Aaron, a teacher and a film fan. And before we get any further, massive spoilers for Lanterns, season one finale ahead. If you have not seen episode seven, go and watch that first because here it comes. Hal Jordan is dead. Kerry killed him. And even though the show told us from episode one that that was gonna happen, that Hal was gonna die, I still wasn't prepared for how much the actual circumstances would really, really bother me because Carl Chandler was phenomenal. What a GOAT. I've seen people compare this casting to RDJ's casting as Iron Man. And I don't think that's because the performances are similar, but because Chandler very quickly became difficult to separate from the character itself. By the end of Lanterns, he was Hal Jordan for me. So this isn't really me trying to prove the writers were right, and it's not me trying to prove they got it wrong either. I'm genuinely here just trying to understand why this death frustrates me so much. Because intellectually, I understand it. I know what they were doing. Emotionally, though, I still wanted more. I still wanted more Hal Jordan.

A Legend Dies Without Spectacle

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Let's start with the obvious problem. This is Hal Jordan, one of the defining Green Lanterns in DC, if not a defining character of DC. And he dies after being shot by his girlfriend beside a high school football field on a cold winter's night. That's it. No Sinestra showdown, no final construct, no enormous sacrifice. Kerry pulls a gun, Hal tries to reason with her, she shoots him in the head. My first reaction was literally, that's how Hal Jordan dies? John later tells Guy Gardner that Hal died a hero. And I really do love that line, but literally speaking, this death isn't particularly heroic. And that's where some of my frustration comes from, I think. Hal Jordan carries decades, absolute decades of history. So when a character like that dies, part of me expects the death to feel as big as the mythology surrounding him. And Lanterns deliberately refuses to do that. The creators have talked about avoiding the obvious superhero ending and keeping the emotion focus on Hal and John rather than building towards a conventional spectacle as some other industries do. And I understand that choice, but understanding it doesn't immediately make it satisfying for me. And One Fan reaction captured that distinction perfectly. Hex Man0000 wrote, I'm fine with Hal being dead. I'm super extra 100% not fine with how the scene went down. And that's pretty close to my starting point, to be honest. We already knew Hal was gonna die. That was a given. The frustration is looking at everything this character represents, everything Carl Chandler brought to him, and then watching it end so simply. And I think for me, the moment that I saw it, I found it really hard to understand. My first thought wasn't that's an interesting rejection of superhero convention. It was actually, you've got to be kidding me. That's how Hal Jordan goes. And look, you know what? This is where I started trying to understand the scene instead of simply rejecting it straight away because I didn't really like

Why Kerry Pulls The Trigger

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it. Because Kerry initially frustrated the hell out of me. Hal isn't trying to hurt Noah, for one, he's trying to help them. But Kerry has spent years protecting that boy's secret. Her entire life has been built around keeping him safe. Then Hal appears, someone who's already threatened this community with a net Manhunter before, knowing the one thing that could destroy everything that she has. To Hal, the conversation is we know what Noah is, people are in danger, let's get him out of here and let's try and protect him. To Kerry, her worst nightmare has just literally walked through the gates of that football field. Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof have explained that simply making Noah responsible for Hal's death felt too straightforward, and I know a lot of fans predicted that one as well. But Kerry becoming the killer connected the death directly to the season's overall ideas about parents, children, and how far people will go to protect someone they love. That makes this scene more understandable for me. Terry is terrified. She feels cornered. She isn't processing Hal as the man who loves her, she's processing him as the person who now holds the secret could destroy her son's life. That doesn't excuse what she does, but fear isn't always rational. And Lanton spends this season showing us characters making destructive decisions because they're frightened of losing something. Hal, John, Noah, and now Kerry, they're all trying to control the things they fear the most. Kerry's fear just produces the worst possible outcome. She kills the person trying to help her. And honestly, again, I understand Kerry far more now than I did when I watched that scene for the first time, but I still don't like what she does. And maybe I'm not supposed to.

Hal Opens Up Then Dies

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As a fan, what bothers me even more than the simplicity of this death is where Hal is emotionally when the death happens. Because Hal spends pretty much all of this season keeping people away. He literally says, Arms distance, John. He jokes with people, he antagonizes John directly, and he hides behind that arrogance. He treats connection like it's a weakness. And episode seven finally gives us the reason. It's his family, it's his father, it's his history, his fear that maybe something inside him is fundamentally broken. Then we see the Hal who survives at Rushville. He goes to prison, he comes home, and he stays. And Kerry tells us that he spends years trying to repair the damage that he caused. And eventually, he allows himself to belong somewhere again, something he's never done. There's that tiny moment when Kerry asks him to go to Noah's football game, and Hal looks at her and says, Do you mean together? And Carl Chandler plays that moment like it's a massive emotional risk because it is for him. Suddenly, Jordan isn't worried about being worthy of a Green Lantern ring. He just wants to know whether somebody actually wants him around. And that's totally human. Then we reach that final confrontation and Kerry pulls that gun. Hal keeps trying to reach her and eventually he says the things so heartbreaking that this character has struggled to say all season. He says, I love you, and she shoots him right in the head. And that's what makes the scene so brutal. Hal doesn't die completing his arc. He dies right as he's finally about to reach the point where he can finish that arc. He's vulnerable. He's honest. He's accepted that maybe he can be good for somebody. And the moment opens himself up completely and then he dies for it. And you know what? That's what makes this tragedy really work. Because Hal finally finds something worth living for. He just doesn't get the chance to live for it. And that doesn't make me like the death even more because I understand it. I definitely know and understand it, but it so hurts more. It really hurts more.

The Point Of An Ordinary Ending

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And here's where my opinion starts shifting a little bit. Would people be debating this as much if Hal died in some enormous heroic sacrifice? Imagine it. Like he fights Sinestro, huge battle, Hal gives everything he's got. John gets the ring in the end, beautiful music, rolling credits. People would probably say that was a great death. And then move on. But instead, Lanterns gives us something unfair. It's awkward, it's so avoidable, and people are arguing about it. One viewer said, important repeat, 6281. They pushed back against the idea that Hal was treated badly. They said, hey, life's unfair. He lived a life of extreme highs and extreme lows. This show did not do him dirty. And I think that's a fair challenge to my reaction. Maybe part of my problem is that I've attached a mythology to Hal Jordan that didn't exist in this canon. And also, Hal Jordan to me is larger than life. Therefore, his death should be larger than life. And Lantern spends eight episodes stripping that legend away. This isn't really a story about the greatest Green Lantern. It's about the man underneath that. Real people, as sad as it is, don't always receive endings proportional to the lives that they lived. That can feel unfair without necessarily being bad storytelling. That's also the real difference between I hated that this happened and also this should never have happened. The first is an emotional reaction, one I definitely had. And the second is a criticism of the story, which I'm not doing. I'm not sure they're the same thing, though. And the online reaction proves how thin that line really is. Some viewers think Hal was wasted. Others think the ordinary nature of his death is exactly why it lands. That debate probably doesn't happen if the show gives us that safe, heroic version that we've seen so many times in other media. Which brings me back to John saying Hal

John’s Line Redefines Heroism

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died a hero. Because I don't think John is describing Hal's final 30 seconds here. I think he's describing the man. And John spends the whole season discovering who that man actually is. At first, he sees an arrogant old man, an old lantern representing everything wrong with the corpse. Then he sees underneath that, he sees the fear, he sees the guilt. He talks with Kerry and they identify the loneliness, the loyalty that he has, and eventually the love. And that relationship became my favorite part of Lanterns between John and Hal. So when Hal says, or when John says that he's actually a hero, I don't think he's saying that Hal died a hero. I think what he's supposed to be saying is, I knew this man. And despite everything he believed about himself, he was a good man. And that interpretation works for me far more than threatening to shoot at some grand sacrifice that we might have.

Wanting Chandler Back And Farewell

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And you know what? I don't think any of this hits as hard without Carl Chandler. New Biggie Lefts wrote the fact people liked him despite his arrogance is a credit to Carl Chandler's performance alone. And I think the writing gave him plenty to work with. But that point lands. Chandler made his Hal feel alive. He took what could have been a grumpy veteran archetype and gave him arrogance, gave him humor, gave him sadness and warmth. And you know what? I think, I think the fact that he is the coach from Friday Night Lights really helped with this because we already liked him from a previous role and he already had that warmth and that connection to us through that media. That being said, Lanterns did such a good job making me care about Hal Jordan. And I'm annoyed that Lanterns is taking Hal away. That is so frustrating. But it's also a pretty massive compliment to the character that make me care that much and for the performance, to be honest as well. By the end, I wasn't really watching Carl Chandler play Green Lantern or Hal Jordan anymore. I was literally watching Hal Jordan on the screen. He made it his own. He took it. So where do I land with this? I still don't love the death. I'm not going to pretend carry shooting Hal beside a football field is suddenly something perfect to me because it's not and it doesn't. I really want more Karl Chandler. I will always want more Karl Chandler. I wanted more Hal and I wanted more John, but I can understand the storytelling choice now. Hal doesn't need to die fighting a giant space monster for his life to matter. John's relationship with him matters, partly because John has something to carry forward from Halman. And maybe the hardest part of the ending is also what makes it really honest. A meaningful life doesn't guarantee a grand ending. Sometimes timing is terrible. Sometimes someone finally becomes ready to live differently and then bites the dust, they don't get enough time to do it. That doesn't erase the growth that came before that, though. Alright, so here's our portal out segment. And maybe that's where I've landed with Hal Jordan. I did want a bigger ending because Hal Jordan feels like a bigger character, but Hal doesn't become heroic because of how he dies. As John said, he was already a hero. He was a flawed one, a frightened one, a stubborn one, and eventually a man willing to let people love him. And what is more heroic than that? That's what John carries forward. So yeah, I guess I can accept Hal's death. I still don't like it. And DC, I'm absolutely still hoping this isn't the last time Carl Chandler puts on that green jacket or that ring. There is obviously no confirmed return right now, but flashbacks, another DC story, some ridiculous comic book resurrection. We heard a little hint of it in episode eight. I'll take it. I will take it. Because anything about accepting Hal's end, it doesn't mean that I have to stop watching Carl Chandler, please. So where did you land? Did the simplicity of Hal Jordan's death make it more tragic? Or did the DC's greatest Green Lantern deserve something bigger for you? And to Karl Chandler, do you want Carl Chandler back somewhere else in the DCU? Let me know below and subscribe to our YouTube for more lanterns DC and pop culture deep dives where we look at what these characters can actually teach us. Now we're doing a lot of clayface content here on the Phantom Portals podcast recently, and that is because the new movie is coming out, and we're excited to see that. So make sure you check out the ending screens. The links for those pieces of content will be out there as well. If you're a person who prefers to listen, then definitely check out our Spotify and our Apple Podcast. The links for that will also be in the show notes below, and we are anywhere that you type in Phantom Portals, you'll find us right there. All right, thank you so much for joining us on this lantern's run, guys. It's been an absolute pleasure. I haven't connected with a TV show like this for such a long time, and I thank everybody that's joined us for the ride. So really do appreciate it, guys, and we'll see you through the next portal.