I'm convinced the empty hospital in Rushville is a major clue tied to the broader Manhunter mystery in DC Studios' Lanterns. The latest episode of the DCU series, "Trust Fall," showed Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) being shot by one of William Macon's snipers and found himself in Rushville's hospital. Sheriff Kerry Kane (who is confirmed to have ties to Gotham) was there to accompany him. Following their temporary truce, Hal noticed the hospital was empty, with no other patients. The sign-out sheet was blank, and the equipment still had plastic wrapping, seemingly unused. Kerry unusually shrugged it off, only telling Hal, "It’s a small town, not exactly a big patient pool."
The hospital being empty in Lanterns Episode 2 is an important clue that not everything is as it seems in Rushville, Nebraska, suggesting that the injury-free residents may not be human at all and, in fact, they might be all manhunters.
As Antaan explains in the same episode, Manhunters are "synthetic" beings created by the Guardians before the Green Lantern Corps. They can build new bodies, meaning that "they could take the form of any species" and embed themselves within society. The Manhunters' ability to build allowed them to invent unique technologies far beyond local capability. Aside from being an advanced species, Antaan described Manhunters as "brutal" and "deceptive," making them dangerous infiltrators.
Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan believed that one of them was hiding in Rushville after surviving what was supposed to be its execution. He believed that Abin Sur accidentally brought the Manhunter to Earth before being killed by it.
While the prevailing theory held that only a single Manhunter was hiding in Rushville, the empty hospital strongly suggested that the town itself might already have been compromised and that its citizens might have been converted into synthetic beings.
It's worth noting that synthetic life does not get sick the way humans do. It does not break bones that require casting, cause infections, or lead to chronic ailments. The fact that Rushville also has older people in its population is quite odd, and they don't get sick. A hospital full of unused equipment and zero patients makes sense if the people walking the streets are self-repairing synthetics wearing human faces. If anything, it seems that the medical gear acts as a simulation for normalcy to hide the Manhunters' secret in the town.
If the town is full of aliens, William Macon's public anti-alien sentiment could actually be a big misdirection. Based on what has been revealed in Lanterns, the Macons run a heavily armed compound with technology that even Hal has never seen before, and the fact that they have a mysterious benefactor and their willingness to shoot a well-respected Green Lantern to protect their secrets makes it even sketchier.
These red flags, including the metal alien detectors, Rushville's isolation, and the Macons' readiness to eliminate anyone, seem to act as a control mechanism to keep outsiders like Hal Jordan and John Stewart off-balance, forcing them to look the other way and leave them alone. The murder mystery tied to the football field shooting, where four aliens died, could be tied to the Manhunters' plan of removing a competing alien faction to preserve their secret in Rushville.
Still, not everyone in Rushville is a Manhunter. Sheriff Kane is a clear candidate as perhaps the lone human resident, given her Gotham roots. Hal Jordan appears to trust her, mainly because she carries an outsider's wariness of the town's undercurrents. The flash-forward to the 2026 timeline (the night Hal died) revealed that Kerry is still in Rushville, but she had already earned John Stewart's respect, meaning she was part of the resistance that subdued the alien threat in the past.
It's also possible that other residents are still humans, such as outsiders who married into the community, temporary workers, or tourists visiting the town during the Manhunters' ongoing invasion.
Lanterns' Manhunter Twist In Rushville Changes Everything
If the townsfolk in Rushville are aliens, Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart have a lot on their plate because they are not only investigating a single hidden monster; instead, they are standing inside a potential hive of a dangerous threat.
Antaan's arrival in Lanterns Episode 2 and his 48-hour mandate to John make the situation even more dangerous, potentially leading to a clash between two forces that might be hard to contain.
In addition, Sinestro's cryptic warning that a surviving Manhunter would be only the second-greatest threat Hal currently faces takes on an entirely new meaning if the first is not about John Stewart but rather about the town itself waking up.
The empty hospital might be the first major clue Hal should take into account, suggesting that the absence of patients could directly imply a lack of humanity. At this point, Hal and John need to stop their bickering and start working together as a team to stave off an invasion hiding in plain sight.
