HBO's 'Lanterns' Dug Up Hal Jordan's Grave. Then Nathan Fillion Appeared.

"Bad Optics," the sixth of eight episodes, sent "lanterns episode 6" to the top of California's Google Trends board.

Searches for "lanterns episode 6" topped California's Google Trends board on Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. The board logged more than 500 searches for that query, read at 13:21 UTC. Treat it as a floor rather than a precise tally, because Google buckets the small numbers.

If you were saving Sunday night's episode for the drive in, the spoiler window shut while you slept. The sixth episode of the DC series "Lanterns," titled "Bad Optics," ends with Hal Jordan's grave dug open and Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner arriving. The trades had both beats in print within hours of the broadcast.

IndieWire's Ben Travers posted a spoiler review of the episode at 10 p.m. Sunday, with images credited to HBO Max. Two hours earlier, TheWrap published an interview with Fillion about playing Guy Gardner. It runs under an episode 6 spoiler warning.

What happened, and when the next one lands

1. Episode 6 aired Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. HBO's posted listings show #06/106, "Bad Optics," per the Futon Critic listings grid. The slot is 9 p.m. ET on Sundays.
2. The grave is the cliffhanger. IndieWire's review, published the night it aired, treats the revival of Hal Jordan as the episode's central spoiler.
3. Fillion is the other half of the hook. TheWrap's Sunday interview has him discussing Guy Gardner as the character appears in that episode.
4. Episode 7 is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 27. The Futon Critic grid lists #07/107 in the 9 p.m. ET hour, with the title still TBA.
5. The run ends Oct. 4. The same grid lists episode 8 on 10/4/26. It puts the season at eight episodes, Sundays in the 9 p.m. hour.
6. These dates come from HBO's linear schedule. The show's own pages at hbomax.com and hbo.com returned 404 errors, so the streaming calendar isn't the source here. The trades cover the Sunday broadcast and the HBO Max drop as one event.

My problem with the number is what people will do with it: this is a one-day reading against a query nobody was typing a week ago, and it isn't a ratings figure. What it measures is how fast a cliffhanger travels. This one traveled overnight.

Episode 7 arrives Sunday, Sept. 27. HBO's grid puts it at 9 p.m. ET, and the title hasn't been posted.

Source: imdb.com.