"Lanterns" Episode 1's Ending Twist Raises a Ton of Questions About the DC Universe

This contains spoilers for the "Lanterns" series premiere.

"Lanterns" wasted no time delivering its shock. The show's first episode ended with John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) finding his old mentor Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) dead. That's jarring not only because Chandler's hero is one of the series' leads, but because it raises huge questions about the entire DC Universe.

The DCU really gained momentum with James Gunn's crowd-pleasing "Superman." But the latest link in the saga, "Lanterns," is a much more sober affair drawing on the prestige dramas of the last decade — especially "True Detective" and "Slow Horses." True to the spirit of both shows, "Lanterns" builds its central mystery around a murder; only this time, the victim is one of the show's own stars.

The HBO series unfolds across three separate timelines: 1996, 2016, and 2026. In the 2016 timeline, Chandler's Jordan is training Pierre's Stewart, sending the pair to investigate strange occurrences in the town of Rushville, Nebraska. The show's weight seems to rest on this timeline; but at the end of the first episode, we jump to 2026 in a scene that feels straight out of "True Detective: Night Country." Stewart arrives in a snow-covered Rushville, this time alone, and meets Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) in front of the high school football field. When they go inside, we understand why: Hal Jordan is dead.

What does Jordan's death mean for John Stewart and Guy Gardner?

Stewart asks, "Does anyone else know?" The sheriff's answer is clear: "Just the field guy." They find Jordan in the bleachers, in the same spot where he sat next to Stewart a decade earlier. But this time there's a bullet hole in his forehead and his body is frozen stiff. What's more, when Stewart brushes the snow off his hand, we see that the Power Ring is missing.

What should we make of this? The first question is: why isn't Stewart a Lantern in 2026? Even though his hands are mostly in his pockets throughout the scene, we briefly see both of them; there's no ring on either. Thanks to "Superman," set in 2025, we know that along with Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner, there's more than one Lantern on Earth in 2026. So why isn't Stewart one of them? Did the 2016 training fail?

And the biggest question: who killed Jordan, and who took the ring? Maybe Guy Gardner isn't one of the Lanterns on Earth but someone directly connected to this death; maybe he's carrying Jordan's ring. Could DC's angriest superhero be this show's villain? It's possible, but there are other explanations too.

Major implications for the DCU

"Lanterns" is DC's riskiest bet yet, and the first episode is a perfect example of that. The episode implies Earth only has a single Green Lantern. In the 2016 timeline, Jordan tells Stewart how he got the ring: in his early years as a test pilot in the Air Force, he was pulled from his bed and sent to Rushville, where an alien named Abin Sur had crashed. According to Jordan, Sur was the Lantern "responsible for protecting the peace and sovereignty of sector 2814," which includes Earth. Alone.

When Sur gave him the ring, the reasoning was simple: the ring had "chosen" him as a successor. So when a Lantern dies, another takes their place. In 2026, we know Gardner is the leader of the Justice Gang in "Superman." Did he get his ring before Jordan's death? How? Or did Jordan leave Earth to protect another sector, leaving the spot to Gardner? And why didn't Stewart take over?

Where the body was found is another matter. Rushville is both the town where Jordan was chosen as a Lantern and where the pair discovered aliens in the 2016 timeline — too central a location to be a coincidence. As Jordan says in a bar conversation: "Something in me always told me that fall wasn't an accident. If it's telling me a storm is coming, I make sure I have a lookout who'll warn me when it arrives." The body being found in the same area shows that the storm really has arrived.

"Lanterns" is streaming on HBO Max.