‘Lanterns’ Theory Explains One of the Show’s Biggest Mysteries: Why Was John Looking For Hal’s Ring?

Tonight’s episode of Lanterns, titled “The Jordan Boys Legacy,” is expected to fill in some gaps in the audience’s understanding of Hal Jordan, the aging Green Lantern played by Kyle Chandler. The series, which jumps around in time, revealed in its premiere that Jordan was murdered via gunshot in 2026, and then left that cliffhanger out there for more than half the season before returning to it on last week week’s episode, “Bad Optics.”

But something that fans have been wondering ever since that first episode is why John Stewart wiped snow away from Hal’s hand, seemingly looking for a Green Lantern ring that he objectively knew was not there. There hasn’t really been a satisfactory explanation, but a newly-released Instagram video proposes one eye-opening theory.

In the video (which, despite considerable effort, we have not been able to relocate), the creator notices that there was a green residue around Hal’s ring when he pulled it off his middle finger in the series’ pilot. Presumably, that’s some kind of radiation that comes from 30 years of wearing the ring nonstop, and as such, it’s unlikely it would have fully faded by 2026. John, the video reasons, likely noticed the residue, and was looking for that — not the ring itself — when he brushed the snow away from Hal’s middle finger at the end of the episode.

There’s a logic here; the premiere episode established that John is observant, since he clocked the same odd behavior by the disguised alien that Hal and Sheriff Kane did. He could easily have been aware of the “ring scar” on Hal’s finger, and could have deduced — as the video did — that Hal wasn’t really dead and the body was a decoy, based on the lack of a green stain.

To be totally fair — before that mysterious user even made his video, there was a month-old Reddit thread in which a user proposed that the green residue around the ring was some kind of clue:

Hal’s ring finger leaving green mark residue
byu/Jojopatch inLanternsTVSeries

If true, this could explain why John was “looking for the ring,” something that has raised question marks since the first episode, given that it was always pretty clear Hal wouldn’t be wearing one by 2026. It could also explain why he has decided to stick around Rushville and solve the ongoing mystery once and for all, since it seems likely that if this is all true, Hal had relocated to here, at least in part, to finish the job he and John started in 2016.

New episodes of Lanterns premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET.

Listen to Sons Of A Gunn:

Want more deep dives into DC Studios’ TV shows and movies? Plus, semi-regular news updates on everything going on in the DCU? Then check out our podcast.

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE, AMAZON, SPOTIFY, RSS, OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON BLUESKY, INSTAGRAM, TIKTOK, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON.