The first episode of "Green Lantern" opens with the question that defines the ending: did the series really kill Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) in the first chapter? Or do the mysterious events preceding the time jump suggest an alternative explanation? In a last-minute flash-forward, HBO's science-fiction drama jumps 10 years ahead to 2026, where John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), now sporting a beard, is called to examine the frozen corpse of his former mentor. Hal's ring has disappeared. John is not wearing it, and his arrival in an SUV suggests he chose to drive through Nebraska snow when he could have flown. There is a bullet hole in Hal's forehead, plus a significant accumulation of snow in his hair that is already turning grey.
The first episode, co-written by co-creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, covers a lot of ground. There is the case itself, involving four alien corpses on a football field in a Nebraska town around 2016; there is a town full of suspicious citizens, including William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), a wealthy rancher concerned about losing his land to alien settlers, and his wife Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), who is not sufficiently concerned that her husband might discover she slept with John. There is also the superhero mythology that explains what makes a gleaming emerald ring so special, and of course, the introduction of the two main Green Lanterns.
Hal's holo-gram summons the pair to a very common atrocity in the United States: a mass shooting. This occurred at a high school football game after a winning goal caused fans to flood the field and four people were shot. John argues it is reasonable to conclude that tempers flared, weapons were drawn and tragedy occurred. But Hal disagrees. For one thing, nobody seems upset. "Seems pretty calm for a mass shooting," Hal says. All four dead are wearing the same hoodie, and when they spot a fifth on the ground near a nervous man in a short-sleeved shirt, they arrest him.
Later, in a local bar, Hal explains what really alerted him. It turns out that when Hal was first chosen to wear the ring, he was taken to a place no more than 20 miles from Rushville where the previous owner, a pink alien named Abin Sur, was dying. Hal always assumed the crash that killed Abin Sur was no accident, and has been using his holo-gram to monitor the area ever since.
When he enters the interrogation room to speak with "Waylon Sanders", Hal exposes him with a series of random questions that any human would answer, but an alien would not understand. Waylon abandons his cover act, and before detonating a self-destruct bomb meant to take out much of the town, confesses that he is on a mission related to a "war" driven by "revenge". Programme officials have offered no further details before the detonation, leaving many unanswered questions about who shot Waylon's alien companions and how the shooters knew they were aliens.