Lanterns Episode 2 takes us back to 2016, where Hal and John are already investigating the strange events in Rushville following the deaths of four aliens. What starts with Hal trying to teach John how to fly soon becomes something much bigger when both Lanterns independently discover there may be another alien hiding in town.
By the end of Lanterns Episode 2, that mystery has a name: a Manhunter. And if the group that kidnaps John is right, the creature Hal and John are looking for could be disguised as anyone in Rushville.
Hal Tries to Teach John How to Fly
We are back in 2016. Four aliens are dead on the football field, while another has blown up the sheriff’s station. John wants to solve the case and doesn’t understand why Hal still hasn’t called the Guardians. Hal has something else planned. Today is the day John learns how to fly.
There aren’t many instructions. Hal tells him that flying is basically automatic; he thinks about flying, and he flies. Being a pilot probably helps.
John doesn’t have the same luck. Instead of taking off, he creates a small green bird that lands on his shoulder. Hal is immediately interested in what John has done, especially when he notices something John doesn’t: the bird continues to exist after John removes his ring. Hal doesn’t tell him how unusual that is.
Hal’s ring is also running low on power, which means he needs Hal’s lantern to recharge it. Hal sends him back to his house to get it, but John has to travel there by plane. His seat is already booked, revealing that Hal never really expected the flying lesson to work. He gives John another assignment before he leaves. The bird has to go with him, and it has to come back alive. If John loses concentration, it will disappear, if that happens, he fails.
Hal Realizes the Metal Detectors Are Looking for Aliens
Hal returns to the football field, the same place where John will find him dead ten years later. The town is holding a meeting about whether the football schedule should continue following what happened, while Billy has managed to get all the charges against Hal dropped. Hal, however, is more interested in how Billy’s father and his men managed to shoot four aliens.
They didn’t fire randomly. They targeted the aliens specifically, which means they must have known exactly who they were shooting at. Hal also notices something strange about the metal detectors around the field. They don’t appear to be working like normal metal detectors.
His suspicion takes him to the morgue; since everyone in Rushville seems determined to get rid of him, Hal decides that’s probably a good reason to stay. He steals aliens’ bodies and takes them back to the football field. When he passes the body through the detector, he finally understands what the technology is actually doing: it isn’t detecting metal, it’s detecting aliens.
John Finds Hal’s Lantern and Gets Kidnapped
John, meanwhile, arrives at Hal’s enormous house and is stunned by the place. Hal has supposedly lived there for eight years, but it looks like he has barely moved in. Finding Hal’s lantern is a different story. John sees the Green Lantern uniforms hanging in Hal’s closet, and the moment clearly means something to him. He also meets Earl, who turns out to be neither a dog nor a cat. Earl is a carnivorous plant that John has to feed raw meat.
John gets the lantern, but he doesn’t make it very far; two men attack and capture him outside Hal’s house; the bird is still there.
When John wakes up inside their van, he fights back, grabs the bag containing the lantern, and briefly escapes. His green bird continues flying beside him throughout the entire ordeal. He doesn’t stay free for long, the men capture him again.
Sheriff Kelly Takes Hal to William Macon’s Compound
On his way back from the football field, Hal is stopped by Sheriff Kelly, who already knows about the alien detectors: her father-in-law, William Macon, installed them.
Kelly initially tries to discourage Hal from going after William, but eventually agrees to take him to the compound on one condition: she does the talking.
William isn’t pleased to see him. As far as he’s concerned, the aliens are dead, so there is no reason for Hal Jordan to still be in Rushville. Hal doesn’t bother pretending this is a friendly visit. He tells William that he believes something is being hidden on the property. The technology is part of the problem. Hal has never seen anything as sophisticated as the detectors William is using. He also realizes William invited him to the compound days earlier because he wanted Hal to confirm whether the man being held in custody was an alien.
William claims the technology was donated by his benefactor, the man who owns the property, he refuses to identify him because of an NDA. Hal wants to know what other technology William has inside the compound. he tries to go farther onto the property and gets shot.
Who Are the Manhunters in Lanterns Episode 2?
John’s kidnappers take him to Antaan, who wants information about the Manhunters. Antaan assumes John knows something because of his connection to Hal Jordan. John tells him the truth: Hal basically tried to get rid of him by sending him on an errand.
Since John knows nothing about the Manhunters, Antaan decides to show him. According to the story John is given, there was once a period of chaos across the galaxy, then the Manhunters appeared.
Nobody knew where they came from. They were synthetic beings capable of building new bodies, allowing them to assume the form of other species and hide within societies undetected. They could create technology far beyond what the planets they inhabited could produce. They were brutal and deceptive, carrying out what they called justice. Entire species were lost before the Manhunters disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived.
Except one of them didn’t; a Manhunter remained behind on a planet disguised as a human and quietly engineered a holocaust. Antaan’s men force memories of what happened into John’s mind. We don’t see what John sees, only the pain it causes him. When it’s over, Antaan tells John the effects of that collective loss will stay with him for some time.
Eventually, the scale of the destruction attracted the attention of a Green Lantern sent by the Guardians. That Lantern took the Manhunter into custody and guaranteed it would be executed. Antaan doesn’t believe that happened; his people spent years searching for the surviving Manhunter until their investigation finally led them to Rushville.
John Has 48 Hours to Find the Manhunter
There is radiation associated with the Manhunter, which means Antaan’s people can detect it when they get close enough. The problem is getting close. A team entered Rushville and was exposed and killed, an hour later, Hal Jordan arrived.
Antaan doesn’t know whether Hal was deliberately protecting the Manhunter, but his people can no longer enter Rushville without being detected; they need someone else to find it: they need John.
The green bird still flying beside him is proof, in Antaan’s eyes, that John can accomplish what should be impossible. Because the Manhunter has taken human form, it can also be killed as a human. John has 48 hours to identify it.
Hal and Sheriff Kelly Finally Talk
Hal wakes up in the hospital after being shot, but he’s fine. Kelly has questions of her own. Hal repeatedly mentioned the name Sinestro while unconscious, and she has done some research. She knows Sinestro was a Green Lantern who attempted a coup and killed one of his superiors. She also knows Hal was the one who stopped him but Hal refuses to discuss it.
Kelly is more concerned with what’s happening in Rushville. She reminds Hal that she is the authority in town. When he ignores her and goes directly after William, he makes William look like the real seat of power, which is already a narrative being pushed around Rushville. She can’t have Hal undermining her authority. Hal respects that and apologizes.
Kelly isn’t on William’s side, but she isn’t on Hal’s either; she’s trying to keep the town together.
Hal then asks why, if Kelly knew the metal detectors could identify aliens, she fought him over jurisdiction. Her answer is simple. The other aliens were already dead, and if the surviving prisoner didn’t trigger the detector, he wasn’t one of them. She didn’t want William making the entire town paranoid about an alien invasion.
But Kelly has a question Hal still hasn’t answered: If the aliens are dead, why is he still in Rushville? Hal tells her he can feel that something is wrong with the town. What he can’t understand is why Kelly is so determined to make him leave. From Kelly’s perspective, Rushville is already losing its mind, and Hal isn’t helping, if she needs him, she’ll call.
As he’s being discharged, Hal notices something else strange about the hospital. He appears to be the only patient there, much of the equipment looks like it has only recently been taken out of its boxes. He also learns that Kelly is originally from Gotham and moved to Rushville on what she describes as a whim.
John Asks Zoe Whether He Can Trust Hal
Back in Rushville, John runs into Zoe; his bird is still with him.
John tells her that if he’d known she was married, he wouldn’t have slept with her. He wonders whether she and William have some kind of unconventional relationship, but Zoe’s explanation is much simpler. William gives her security. He chose her over a blonde woman from Texas. He puts her through a lot, but she thinks it’s worth it, and when she needs a break, she takes one.
John eventually admits what’s really bothering him: he isn’t sure whether he can trust Hal. Zoe tells him that if he’s already asking himself that question, he probably knows the answer.
Hal Connects Abin Sur to the Manhunter
John returns to Hal with more than the lantern. He also brings back Hal’s Green Lantern uniform.
Hal has already made up his mind about their next move. William is hiding something inside the compound, and his mysterious benefactor may be the key to it. They aren’t leaving Rushville until they figure out who the benefactor is and what William is hiding.
John is distracted, and seeing the state of his car after everything he’s been through finally makes him snap.
He asks Hal about the Manhunters. John tells him about the people who grabbed him outside the house and explains what Antaan told him. They believe a Manhunter is hiding somewhere in Rushville, and John has been given 48 hours to identify it. If he fails, they are threatening to blow up half of western Nebraska.
They chose John instead of Hal because they don’t trust Hal. Antaan’s people believe the Guardians themselves may have hidden the Manhunter in Rushville. Hal says the Guardians wouldn’t do that, and John agrees.
But the Manhunter story only makes Hal more certain that something is deeply wrong with the town. Then he makes another connection: Abin Sur must have brought the Manhunter to Rushville and Hal believes the Manhunter killed him.
Lanterns Episode 2 Ending Explained: Why Is Sinestro Still Alive?
Before they separate, John tells Hal something else important: the bird remained alive even when John wasn’t wearing his ring. Hal already noticed this earlier, and he knows it matters. He tells John that because he created the bird subconsciously, it must mean something to him. John insists it’s just a bird, then he makes it disappear.
Hal, despite telling John that he wasn’t going to involve the Guardians, has other plans. Once he’s alone, he puts on his Green Lantern uniform and leaves Earth. At the Guardians’ facility, he meets someone we have heard about throughout the episode but haven’t seen: Sinestro is alive.
Hal asks him what he knows about the Manhunters. Sinestro tells him that if one still exists, it would be the second-greatest threat Hal is currently facing. He doesn’t immediately explain what the greatest threat is. Instead, Sinestro asks Hal to tell him about John Stewart.
The ending brings together several mysteries that Episode 2 has been building. Antaan believes a Manhunter is hiding in Rushville. Hal now thinks Abin Sur brought that Manhunter there and that it later killed him. William has access to alien-detecting technology supplied by an unidentified benefactor, while Rushville itself continues to show signs that something isn’t right.
The biggest question, however, may be Sinestro’s warning. If a surviving Manhunter is only the second greatest threat Hal is facing, then Sinestro knows about something even more dangerous. And his immediate interest in John suggests Hal’s new partner may already be part of that problem.
