HBO‘s new Sunday night tentpole Lanterns is maybe the first truly serious attempt to adapt the Green Lantern comics for live action. Sure, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardiner has been adding a dash of fun to Superman and Peacemaker, but he’s mostly around for laughs — and the less said about Ryan Reynolds’ 2011 Green Lantern flick, the better. So did HBO and DC Studios pull it off? Does Lanterns finally do Green Lantern justice?
LANTERNS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: It’s 1996 and a female journalist’s voice announces, over the trademark ticking clock effect, that tonight, in a 60 Minutes exclusive, we’re getting the first ever sit down with Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) — and little John Stewart (Cairo Cash Lee) doesn’t care if it’ll make his dad mad, he has to watch!
The Gist: After a cold open that establishes that Hal Jordan became the first human Green Lantern in 1986 and that John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) has been groomed from childhood to take his place, we arrive in 2016. Hal is supposed to be training John to be his backup, but is putting the least effort possible into the task. When word reaches Hal that there’s “hail in Rushville,” he immediate takes off for the small Nebraska town and John, who does not yet have a Green Lantern ring imbuing him with the gift of flight, has to fly coach and rent a car to catch up.
When John arrives in Rushville, he discovers that there’s been a shooting at a high school football game. Local sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) bristles at the Lanterns’ involvement, but Hal is convinced that the victims (and potentially the perpetrator) are alien. That means it’s his jurisdiction. The mystery deepens when Hal and John meet Kerry’s father-in-law, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), who lives on a ranch/compound that looks outfitted with enough paramilitary goods to fight said aliens.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Visually, and thematically, Lanterns owes a lot to another massive HBO hit, True Detective. It’s two dudes solving a murder mystery in rural America.
Our Take: In my official review for Lanterns, I noted that it’s really hard to delve into why this show works without spoiling it: “Lanterns works best not when it’s hewing close to tried and true tropes, but when it subverts our expectations of what a superhero-led story can be.”
“While Lanterns comes with plenty of nods to the comics, you don’t need to do homework to keep up with what’s going on. It’s a beautifully crafted drama for adults. The performances are gloriously mature and the characters’ relationships are realistically complex. You’ll get to see Hal and John use the Green Lantern ring to create all sorts of neat constructs to save the day, but the ring’s greatest power is its emotional weight. It’s Hal’s identity and it’s John’s purpose. One man thinks he’ll be nothing without while the other believes he solely exists to inherit it.”
For more information, check out Decider’s official review, which tackles the first seven episodes of the HBO series (spoiler-free!).
Performance Worth Watching: Poorna Jagannathan is an absolute delight as a seductive Rushville citizen who’s got her eye on John Stewart.
Sex And Skin: There’s a very fun hookup in a pickup truck.
Parting Shot: The final shot of the first episode of Lanterns is such a juicy spoiler, you’re going to have to watch the full episode yourself to fully enjoy it!
Our Call: STREAM IT! HBO Sunday nights continue to be destination TV and Lanterns is a really fun, yet really grownup, take on the superhero show.
Meghan O’Keefe is Senior Critic at Decider.