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Lanterns: Lindelof & Mundy on Hal Jordan Decision, Avoiding "Fridging"

Lanterns EPs Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy on Hal Jordan being the focus of the mystery and the writers' room avoiding the "fridging" route.

We're going to be diving into the big jaw-dropping moment that wrapped up the series premiere of Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King's Aaron Pierre (John Stewart) and Kyle Chandler (Hal Jordan)-starring Lanterns, so consider the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" on moving forward – you've been warned! Just when we thought we had more than enough to process before this weekend's second episode, the HBO and DC Studios series still had a major card left to play after the "2026" title card hit our screens. Late at night, John and Rushville Sheriff Kerry (Kelly MacDonald) reunite outside the town's football stadium. Serious and somber, the two head into the stadium and discover a very dead Hal sitting in the bleachers in the middle of a very brutal winter: bullet wound to the head… and his Green Lantern ring MIA. Based on reactions on social media, the series premiere clearly understood the assignment: keep viewers guessing and speculating until this Sunday.

"Whether it's the right cliffhanger or not is basically in the hands of the audience now," Lindelof shared during a post-premiere interview, discussing why choosing Hal helped drive home the point that the show's murder mystery has clear DCU implications. "But one of the very first things that was part of the premise was that this is a murder mystery with Green Lantern solving it, and then you sort of start at, 'Well, who gets murdered and why are we supposed to care about them?' The more that we talked about it, the more that it kept coming back to the idea of, 'What if it was one of them?'"

But Mundy revealed that the writers' room tossed around the idea of having Sheriff Kerry be on the receiving end of a bullet to the brain, but it was dismissed as coming across too much like "fridging." Back in 1999, the amazing Gail Simone coined the phrase "women in refrigerators" to define the literary trope when female characters are abused, traumatized, and/or killed as a motivational device for the male hero. The expression was inspired by 1994's Green Lantern vol. 3 #54, where writer Ron Marz's story saw Kyle Rayner discovering that villain Major Force had killed Rayner's girlfriend and stuffed her into a refrigerator.

"You felt that it's been done and it was gonna be a disservice to her," Mundy explained about the decision. "I think just Damon [Lindelof] basically said the most meaningful thing that could happen would be if Hal had died. What else do we care about more than that? And then it instantly felt like that would be incredible to get to try to write to, if the powers that be were willing to let us write to it." Clearly, "The Powers That Be" were okay with the call – and it's definitely having its intended impact.

The series spotlights new recruit John Stewart (Pierre) and legendary Lantern Hal Jordan (Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland. Along with Pierre and Chandler, the DC Studios series stars Garret Dillahunt (Fear The Walking Dead), Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire, In the Line of Duty), Poorna Jagannathan (Never Have I Ever, Deli Boys), Ulrich Thomsen (Counterpart, The Blacklist), Nicole Ari Parker (And Just Like That), Jason Ritter (Matlock), J. Alphonse Nicholson (P-Valley), Sherman Augustus (Stranger Things), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Blindspotting), Chris Coy (Bass Reeves), Paul Ben-Victor (Nobody Wants This), Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives), and Laura Linney (Ozark). In addition, Nathan Fillion will be reprising his Superman role as Green Lantern Guy Gardner for the series. Helming the series are directors James Hawes, Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov. Based on the DC Comics Green Lantern, the series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, Gunn, Safran, King, Hawes, and Ron Schmidt.

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