'Lanterns' Review
- Josh Davis
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Season One.
Aired On: HBO Max.
Release Date: 08/16/26.
Genre: Action. Adventure. Crime. Drama. Mystery.
The Verdict: A Must-See
Lanterns, the latest series in DC Studios' new slate overseen by James Gunn and Peter Safran, opens in front of a 1996 television. A young John Stewart watches Hal Jordan being interviewed after becoming Earth's first Green Lantern. Hal is charming, confident, maybe a little smarmy. He's asked about the Green Lantern Corps' entrance exam.
It's really just one question, Hal says. "Are you afraid?"
Cut to John's father, who proceeds to teach his son about courage by putting an apple on his head and giving William Tell a disturbing new twist with a pistol in the backyard.
We get just enough backstory to know this is another superhero story about grief and trauma.
Fast-forward to 2016. John (Aaron Pierre) is a Green Lantern trainee. Hal (Kyle Chandler) is … kind of a mess.
Driving down a dusty back road, Hal casually sets his power ring on the dashboard, climbs out of the moving car, and leaves John to either figure it out or die in a fiery crash.
That's his version of the test. Roll the opening credits. We're watching Lanterns.
This version of the Green Lantern Corps handles extraterrestrial events on Earth. John is gritty, disciplined, intensely competent.
Hal, meanwhile, is the washed-up veteran from every 1980s baseball movie. He's seen some shit. He's survived. Now he's mostly coasting on instinct, dry wit, and decades of experience. He calls John "Junior," uses his ring to counterfeit cash when it's convenient, and generally behaves like someone who's forgotten the rulebook because nobody can make him read it anymore.
The pairing mostly works. They're a classic odd couple: rookie and veteran, stoic and blowhard. The show mines that dynamic for laughs, though they're more like chuckles.
As advertised, Lanterns leans hard into True Detective. John and Hal head to rural Nebraska to investigate what appears to be a mass shooting tied to something more mysterious. The series is gorgeously photographed in a windswept Midwestern kind of way. There are ominous drone shots, brooding music, and long conversations in trucks.
It's handsome television. But where are the space cops?
For nearly the entire first episode, the Green Lantern mythology barely factors in. The power ring is used more like a bottle opener than one of the universe's most powerful weapons. For nearly 50 minutes, this feels less like Green Lantern than a B-level clone of something bigger, darker, and ultimately more compelling.
Kyle Chandler goes full Kyle Chandler. He’s charming. Wry. Reckless. Scruffy. An insufferable know-it-all. It mostly works.
Aaron Pierre has the tougher assignment. John initially comes across as almost painfully rigid, but that's clearly intentional. As the episode unfolds, he softens just enough to hint at the humanity buried beneath all that military precision.
The supporting cast helps. Kelly Macdonald brings quiet authority as Sheriff Kerry, balancing world-weary skepticism with just a pinch of sarcasm. We also get a whisper of Jason Ritter and the knowledge that he’s too famous for just a 2-minute cameo.
Then, about 47 minutes in, the show suddenly gets interesting – for three whole minutes.
There's another time jump. It's now 2026. John has a beard. Sheriff Kerry jokes that he’s barely aged. And, finally, the show delivers the hook that promises to connect this grounded detective story to something larger, and stranger.
It's a strong ending. Whether it's enough remains to be seen.
Lanterns is a slick, confident, sturdy riff on True Detective. But a line from Jurassic Park comes to mind: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
The mystery is compelling enough. The performances are strong enough. Everything looks great and moves at a steady clip.
The question is whether Lanterns can ultimately justify wrapping a story about space cops inside the skin of a prestige crime drama.
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