Lanterns Review: HBO’s Unpredictable DC Universe Drama Defies Expectations

It’s kind of surprising that we’re getting a new project about Green Lantern a mere 15 years after the debut of Green Lantern, a big screen adaptation of the DC Comics character so ill-received that even its star, Ryan Reynolds, allowed it be used as a punchline in a Deadpool movie. There’s no need to relitigate what the film did wrong, but Lanterns, a new TV series drawing from the same material, does offer a stark contrast by essentially doing the opposite of the film. Where Green Lantern served as an origin story and fast-paced primer on the complicated Green Lantern mythos — which includes power rings, faraway cosmic bosses called Guardians, and a host of alien Green Lantern Corps members from across the galaxy — Lanterns begins in the middle of the action, bringing in each element a little bit at a time (a luxury television offers that movies can’t). But, most strikingly, Lanterns essentially belongs to a different dramatic world than Green Lantern. Rather than attempt a grand, effects-filled space opera, it explores the Green Lantern world via a grounded mismatched buddy cop story — at least at first. Lanterns is a tough show to fit into any genre.

It’s also a deeply compelling, unpredictable series regardless of what you want to call it. Created by Chris Mundy (Ozark, True Detective), Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen), and Tom King (best known for comic book work like Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and The Vision), the show’s first episode mostly concerns Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), the long-serving Green Lantern of Earth, and his backup-in-training, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), spending time in Rushville, a small town in a remote corner of Nebraska. Surprisingly for a story about characters usually seen bouncing from star to star in comics, the series stays there for most of this first season.

Or maybe that’s not so surprising given they’re drawn there by a small-town mystery with, Jordan suspects, a cosmic element: a mass shooting at a high school football game where nobody seems to know any of the victims. Enter Jordan and Stewart, who sign on to the case with the somewhat reluctant approval of Kerry (Kelly Macdonald), Rushville’s sheriff. The town, for reasons that will be slowly revealed over the course of the season, likes to handle its own affairs and doesn’t look kindly on interfering outsiders, even celebrity superheroes like Jordan. But the visitors’ investigation quickly puts them on a path that suggests the threat is ongoing, and worse than Rushville can handle on its own. It’s also, as the first episode’s final scenes reveal, not the only mystery the season will explore.

8.8

Lanterns

Like

• The fully realized characters and unpredictable story

Dislike

• Anyone showing up for traditional superhero action will be disappointed

The series’ scope expands beyond its central mystery in other ways as well. Set across several timelines, subsequent episodes explore both Jordan’s and Stewart’s pasts, the nature of their partnership, and why they genuinely don’t seem to like one another. Chandler plays Jordan as a hotshot whose charm can’t quite hide his resentment at the sidekick he never wanted in the first place. He’s a man used to following his gut, and not having that gut questioned, particularly by someone who would seem to be his complete opposite. Jordan is reactive, emotional, and fast with a quip. Stewart, an architect and artist, is patient and contemplative and chooses his words carefully. They might be ill-matched by any practical measure, but the fractious, sometimes truly hostile working relationship keeps the series lively.

So do performances that reveal the characters’ hidden depths as the season progresses, a virtue that extends beyond Chandler’s and Pierre’s excellent work. Macdonald plays Kerry as a lively foil intent on holding her own against the big-time outsiders but whose commitment to containing the investigation has reasons that extend beyond civic pride. The impressive supporting cast includes Jason Ritter, Poorna Jagannathan, and Garret Dillahunt as Rushville residents with their own reasons to monitor the Lanterns’ investigation closely.

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If all that sounds vague, that’s because it’s tough to talk about Lanterns without spoiling the plot — and it’s a plot best left unspoiled. Suffice it to say that one of its most notable achievements is serving as a mystery told in a (decidedly TV-MA) premium cable mode (Mundy’s True Detective experience can be felt) while still working as a Green Lantern story, complete with rhyming oaths, visits from Guardians, and some familiar villains. Like Lindelof’s Watchmen sequel, it folds the fantastic into a recognizably real world, touching on some real-world issues in the process. (Stewart’s race, for instance, is central to his character’s story.) And then, just when it seems like Lanterns has firmly established what sort of series it wants to be, it changes direction again. The Green Lanterns’ rings allow them to give form to whatever they can imagine, however unlikely. That often seems to be Lanterns‘ guiding principle as well.

Premieres: Sunday, Aug. 16 at 9/8c on HBO and HBO Max
Who’s in it: Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald
Who’s behind it: Chris Mundy, Damen Lindelof, Tom King (creators)
For fans of: Unconventional superhero stories and gritty mysteries
How many episodes we watched: 7 of 8