There was always going to be something slightly strange about trying to make Green Lantern grounded.
This is, after all, a corner of DC built around intergalactic peacekeepers who use glowing rings powered by will to create virtually anything they can imagine. “Small-town murder mystery” isn’t necessarily the first genre that comes to mind.
And yet that’s precisely why HBO’s Lanterns works.
Rather than racing toward cosmic spectacle, the series premiere introduces Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart as two very different men who happen to carry some extraordinary hardware. The Green Lantern mythology is there, but Lanterns isn’t particularly interested in using it as a substitute for character.
That’s a gamble. After one episode, it looks like the right one.
LANTERNS Isn’t Trying to Be a Traditional Superhero Show
The easiest comparison is True Detective, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
Lanterns deliberately trades the usual superhero-city backdrop for the American heartland, where Hal Jordan and new Green Lantern recruit John Stewart become involved in an investigation with much larger implications.
HBO describes them as “two intergalactic cops” drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery while investigating a murder. The eight-episode series comes from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Television, with Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King co-creating the series and Mundy serving as showrunner.
But the premiere’s greatest strength is that the detective framework doesn’t feel like someone simply dropped two superheroes into an HBO crime show.
It gives Hal and John a reason to be together.
And that relationship is the show.
Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan Is Already Fascinating
Casting Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan was one of those decisions that became more interesting the longer we thought about it.
This isn’t a young Hal discovering what the ring can do.
Chandler plays him as a man carrying years of experience, mistakes and exhaustion. There’s confidence there, certainly, but also the unmistakable feeling of someone who has been doing this long enough to understand that being good at the job doesn’t necessarily mean the job has been good for him.
It’s an excellent use of what Chandler does best.
There are flashes of the reassuring authority audiences know from Friday Night Lights, but Lanterns keeps complicating that image. Hal can be funny, frustrating, guarded and occasionally difficult to read.
Most importantly, he feels lived-in.
The Green Lantern Corps existed before we arrived. Hal has history we haven’t seen. Relationships have formed and fractured. Decisions have consequences that aren’t going to be explained through ten minutes of exposition.
That makes the world immediately feel larger than the premiere.
Aaron Pierre Makes John Stewart More Than the New Guy
If Chandler gets to play the veteran carrying the weight of everything that’s already happened, Aaron Pierre gets the harder assignment.
John Stewart has to be our way into this world without feeling like a character who exists solely so everyone else can explain Green Lantern mythology to the audience.
Pierre avoids that almost immediately.
His John isn’t simply wide-eyed about becoming a Lantern. He’s observant, disciplined and willing to challenge the man who’s supposed to be teaching him.
That creates friction between John and Hal, but more importantly, it creates mutual curiosity.
Hal is trying to determine what kind of Lantern John might become.
John is quietly determining whether Hal is the kind of Lantern he should want to become.
That’s a much more interesting relationship than veteran hero reluctantly trains rookie.
Pierre’s arrival as John is also significant beyond this particular series: this is the character’s first live-action screen incarnation after decades as one of DC’s most prominent Green Lanterns, including his hugely influential animated appearances.
Fortunately, Lanterns doesn’t treat that significance as something Pierre has to perform.
He simply gets to play John Stewart.
And he’s very good at it.
Chandler and Pierre Are the Reason It Clicks
Put the two performances together and you understand why Lanterns can afford to move at the pace it does.
Chandler and Pierre have chemistry.
Not manufactured buddy-cop banter. Not two characters who instantly become best friends because the screenplay requires it.
There’s resistance.
John doesn’t automatically accept Hal’s worldview because Hal has been doing the job longer. Hal doesn’t immediately welcome having someone questioning how he does it.
You can already feel the series constructing a relationship in which each man may eventually discover something uncomfortable about himself through the other.
That’s fertile territory for eight episodes.
And it’s why the premiere doesn’t need a massive CGI battle every fifteen minutes to remind us we’re watching Green Lantern.
The Grounded Approach Mostly Works
There will undoubtedly be viewers who want Lanterns to go bigger faster.
That’s understandable.
Green Lantern offers practically unlimited visual possibilities, and anyone arriving specifically for cosmic DC mythology may initially wonder why so much time is being spent on Earth investigating a murder.
But restraint is arguably the smartest decision the series makes in its opening hour.
We’ve seen superhero projects introduce universes by throwing terminology, mythology, cameos and future-franchise setup at the audience.
Lanterns largely does the opposite.
It asks us to care about Hal and John first.
Then it starts opening the door.
That doesn’t mean the premiere completely escapes the gravitational pull of its influences. At times, you can practically see the True Detective mood board sitting beside the camera. Variety similarly noted that the show’s True Detective and Watchmen influences can become conspicuous even while praising Chandler and Pierre’s chemistry.
But I’d much rather see DC borrow the language of a good character-driven crime drama than fall back into another generic superhero template.
The important question isn’t whether we recognize the influences.
It’s whether Lanterns eventually becomes recognizably Lanterns.
After the premiere, there’s every reason to think it can.
This Still Feels Like the DC Universe
Perhaps the biggest concern going into Lanterns was whether grounding Green Lantern this aggressively would strip away what makes Green Lantern special.
The premiere understands that grounded doesn’t have to mean embarrassed by the source material.
These are still Green Lanterns.
The rings matter. The Corps matters. The larger universe exists.
And Lanterns is explicitly part of the DCU being constructed by James Gunn and Peter Safran, with Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Guy Gardner and the series positioned inside the broader interconnected universe.
But connectivity isn’t treated as the primary attraction.
That’s important.
The premiere doesn’t feel like homework for the next DC movie. It feels like the beginning of this story.
If something eventually connects outward, great.
First, make Lanterns worth watching.
LANTERNS Has the Luxury of Being an HBO Drama
This may ultimately be the show’s secret weapon.
Lanterns doesn’t have to behave like a two-hour superhero blockbuster.
It has eight episodes to investigate these men, this mystery and what being a Green Lantern has done—or might do—to both of them. The season airs weekly through October 4, which should also give its central mystery room to breathe between episodes rather than disappearing into a binge weekend.
That format suits what the premiere is building.
There are questions we want answered, but I’m more interested in spending another hour with Hal and John than I am in immediately getting those answers.
For a series premiere, that’s arguably the better accomplishment.
Final Verdict
Lanterns takes one of DC’s biggest cosmic concepts and begins by making it surprisingly intimate.
Kyle Chandler gives Hal Jordan history without needing to explain all of it, while Aaron Pierre makes John Stewart immediately feel like much more than the rookie standing beside him. Together, they give HBO a pairing strong enough to carry the deliberate pace and grounded mystery surrounding them.
The True Detective comparisons aren’t going away, and the series still has to prove that its Earthbound crime story and enormous Green Lantern mythology can ultimately become one cohesive thing.
But the premiere gets the most important piece right:
We want to follow these two men wherever the investigation takes them.
For a new DC series carrying this much expectation, that’s one hell of a start.
Tune In / Where to Watch
Lanterns premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and streams on HBO Max. Season 1 consists of eight episodes, released weekly.
Editor-in-Chief | Seat42F, a leading source of entertainment news, information, television and movie resources.
