Lanterns arrives as a legitimate HBO drama that happens to involve intergalactic cops and goddamn power rings. The pilot creates an engrossing murder mystery, establishes a dusty neo-Western atmosphere, and immediately gives the series a combustible center through Hal Jordan and John Stewart. The talent and emotional potential are undeniable. Unfortunately, a frustrating final twist threatens the very relationship that makes the premiere work while establishing a potentially dangerous precedent for the still-young DCU.
Mild spoilers for the Lanterns pilot follow.
Two Lanterns Ready to Throw Hands
James Hawes directs the pilot like a mystery first. The rural setting carries history, secrets, and quiet hostility. Every conversation feels like an interrogation waiting to happen. It has the patience and character focus of an HBO drama without becoming embarrassed by its comic book mythology.
Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler make the approach work. Pierre plays John as straight edge to a fault. He is precise, controlled, principled, and carrying an internal rage that constantly threatens to break through that disciplined exterior. Chandler’s Hal is practically the opposite. He wears experience like a badge that places him above the law, including the laws enforced by the Green Lantern Corps.
Their clashing backgrounds, generations, cultures, temperaments, and approaches to authority push them damn near to blows. The hostility feels authentic to their earliest comic dynamic, where John refused to behave like Hal’s obedient replacement and immediately challenged how the legendary Lantern saw the world.
The series commits so thoroughly that the pairing almost feels controversial. Hal can be an arrogant asshole. John can be insufferably rigid. Their mutual irritation creates tremendous humor, tension, and reluctant fascination. Pierre and Chandler possess the kind of chemistry an entire series can be built upon.
Kelly Macdonald also cuts straight through Hal’s practiced charm, while Poorna Jagannathan and Garret Dillahunt add intriguing layers to the town’s suspicious power structure. Everyone understands the restrained, quietly dangerous tone.
Earthbound Should Not Mean Colorless
The grounded environment supports the True Detective-esque storytelling, but the visual palette feels unnecessarily bland. Rural Nebraska is presented through so much dust, brown, and faded yellow that it occasionally looks like someone placed a permanent sepia filter over the camera.
RELATED: Clayface Trailer Unmasks Gotham’s Horrifying New Face
I understand the intention. The filmmakers want the green constructs to feel extraordinary against a natural environment. However, earthbound does not need to mean chromatically dehydrated. This is still a story about people wielding one of the most imaginative weapons in comics. The ring’s impossible green should tear through a visually rich world, not provide its only memorable color.
That Lanterns Ending Creates a Terrible Precedent
Hal’s apparent death nearly turns the pilot into a bait and switch. Lanterns spends its premiere establishing an incredible central relationship, then immediately removes half of it.
If Hal remains dead, the series has discarded its most compelling dynamic just as it began. If he returns, the DCU has introduced comic book resurrection before establishing that death carries consequences. Either outcome creates a problem the show now must solve.
It recalls Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice killing Superman when everyone knew Justice League was coming. The death becomes less of a devastating event and more of a temporary scheduling conflict.
Green Lantern comics certainly provide ways around death. Nothing involving rings, emotional spectrums, cosmic entities, and comic book continuity must be permanent. That does not make importing the resurrection trope this early feel necessary. It feels cheap.
The Light Is Strong, but Trust Must Be Earned
As an HBO drama, Lanterns delivers a great start. The mystery works, the performances are excellent, and Hal and John generate enough animosity, humor, and buried affection to power the entire season. I am hooked.
As a foundational DCU series, however, that ending makes me nervous. The pilot has placed me firmly on the side of wanting to be proven wrong. If the series earns the twist, I will happily admit it. If it uses death as temporary shock value, it risks losing my respect despite the obvious talent and genuine emotion bringing everything to life. While I am hooked, I just have a lingering angst about a major character being used in promotion only to die in the pilot. I don’t give a damn if they show up in flashbacks throughout the whole series, it’s a whack way to tell stories, and it is way too damn early to be introducing resurrection. I could be wrong, and hope I am. But because of that lingering feeling I give Lanterns a
6/10
Lanterns airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, with episodes also available to stream on HBO Max.
Ready to put on the ring and enter HBO’s darker corner of the DCU with Lanterns? Will Hal and John’s combustible partnership pull you into the mystery? Can the series make its shocking ending feel earned instead of reversible? Share your thoughts in the comments or @me.
KEEP READING: Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review – A Spectacular New Swing That’s A Bit Heavy
Leave a Reply