John Stewart — one of the most physically flawless humans to ever walk the planet Earth (and played quite credibly by Aaron Pierre) — can’t get no respect. The man is 6 feet, woah inches tall. He’s built like a defensive end, and he runs like Tom Cruise (palms flat, eyes fixed, barely controlled bursts of desperation the only threat to his perfect form). As a military-trained sniper, he can hit a bullseye from two miles out. He’s loyal, vigilant, and supernaturally patient.
He is, in simpler terms, the complete package. So naturally, he’s second fiddle to an old white guy who refuses to retire.
When “Lanterns” begins, John is waiting on the side of the road for the current Green Lantern to pick him up. Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), Earth’s first and only intergalactic law enforcement officer, is supposed to be training John as his backup — a “pull in case of emergency” superhero who could step in if, God forbid, anything happens to the man entrusted with the most powerful weapon in the universe.
And there’s good reason to think something will. After 20 years zipping across the galaxy, saving the planet from falling meteors and alien invaders, Hal is resting on his laurels. He doesn’t don his uniform anymore, since jeans make it easier to “take a piss.” He’s got the perpetual stubble of a guy who can’t manifest an electric razor out of thin air. His gray streaks betray an age that his boyish quips aim to negate, and when he finally shows up to get John, he’s two weeks late and proudly hungover.
To say there’s no love lost between mentor and mentee wouldn’t be entirely accurate. But respect only runs one way, and — despite an impeccable résumé and unrivaled skillset — John isn’t on the receiving end. After two months of “lessons,” he hasn’t even worn the ring, let alone used it to fly into space. When he’s not running random errands that amount to little more than getting the boss a cup of coffee, he’s waiting: waiting for Hal to finish taking pictures with awestruck fans, waiting for Hal to stop spouting bullshit, waiting to be chosen, one more time, after a lifetime of making sure he has been.
Hal says he’ll die before giving up the ring, and that entitlement, that sense of superiority, that deference to the old way of doing things — when exciting new opportunities are staring you dead in the face — drive the tension in HBO‘s anti-buddy-cop drama; a superhero series as indebted to odd-couple police procedurals as it is determined to see them through the eyes of its systemically slighted protagonist, rather than the long-established perspective of the powerful.
John is a young Black man. Hal is an old white guy. John does everything right, and Hal thinks he does everything right. John has been working his whole life to be deemed a worthy member of the Green Lantern corps, and Hal was literally handed the ring after answering a single yes-or-no question correctly. There are shades of gray, as befits any honest characterization, but “Lanterns” is aptly clear about who these men are, as well as what they represent culturally, generationally, and beyond. Can they come to an understanding before it’s too late to crack the case? Before it’s too late to save each other? Before it’s too late to save the world?
Can humanity?
The case, a unifying objective, is the source of those fears as well as their only hope, and “Lanterns” pivots around a doozy. Soon after Hal and John’s long-delayed return to training, they’re summoned to Rushville, Nebraska, a small town where four strangers are dead after a shooting at a high school football game. Hal’s gut tells him aliens are involved, which means he and his trainee won’t be shooed away by the local sheriff, no matter how well-intentioned her urgings may be.
Sheriff Kerry Kane (an excellent Kelly Macdonald) is whipsmart and no-nonsense. She clocks suspects as quickly as she dismisses Hal’s flirtations, and she exudes honesty and trustworthiness… despite being married to Billy (Jason Ritter), the son of the richest man in town, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), who just so happens to employ a private militia that’s armed to the teeth for a war against… something.
Macon claims his funding and supplies are courtesy of a “mysterious benefactor” who he’s prohibited from discussing (per an NDA). His wife, Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), is no help either, despite befriending John early on, and the rest of the town echoes their de facto leader: They do not want Hal and his protégé to be there.
It’s all a bit fishy, and between the case, the characters, and the larger Green Lantern mythology, questions stack up quickly across the first few episodes. Keeping track of who’s who, what happened when, and how a glowing green ring manifests objects with the power of its wearer’s will can be overwhelming for anyone without a doctorate in DC Comics (and, frankly, even for those of us who grew up reciting the oath). There are clunky moments where characters speak in thesis statements, and the larger stakes can get lost amid the individual dynamics.
But co-creators Chris Mundy (the showrunner and a former writer on “True Detective: Night Country”), as well as Tom King and Damon Lindelof (who, after ambitious and elaborate series like “Watchmen” and “Mrs. Davis,” knows how to turn exposition into entertainment) don’t let you lose track of what matters, relying on clean structuring, emotional logic, and charismatic performers to carry viewers into the core of a scintillating story.
Topping the charisma charts is Chandler, whose good-ol’-boy charms are shrewdly weaponized to win you over (as is the actor’s beloved screen presence; it can’t be a coincidence that the premiere episode finds the once and always Coach Taylor prowling the sidelines of a high school football field). Hal is the irascible old-timer whose belittlement can be interpreted as tough love, so long as you believe he’s one of the good guys. How “Lanterns” bucks and embraces that assumption at once, while savoring Chandler’s wily persona, is one of its finest feats (as well as some of the Emmy-winning actor’s finest work).
Pierre, as a vegan who “doesn’t believe in anything that causes enjoyment,” (Hal’s words) still infuses John with ample wit, passion, and mystique. In effect, “Lanterns” is his origin story (albeit one that’s purposefully at war with Hal’s third act), and Pierre’s cool magnetism optimally aligns with the steady trickle of information provided about his past. He’s in complete command of the character, just as “Lanterns” is confident in the genre-mashing mystery it carefully unfolds.
While not as bursting with ideas as Lindelof’s best work or as visually stunning as “True Detective’s” most memorable scenes, “Lanterns” is an exciting synthesis of its creators’ strengths. Like “Watchmen,” it’s a cop show set in America’s heartland that centers systemic racial discrimination (with a refreshing flourish of comic book sci-fi). Like “True Detective,” its partners are mismatched and unaligned, except when it comes to the case they’re determined to crack (and the top-notch actors working in tandem to bring them to life). Through seven of the first season’s eight episodes (and “Lanterns” is intended to run for multiple seasons), the series is a bright addition to HBO’s expanding mandate, rather than an empty capitulation to corporate demand for more name-brand franchises (although “Harry Potter” is name-checked more than once).
Best of all, “Lanterns” embodies the ethos it so closely studies. To become a Green Lantern, you must be deemed worthy and then answer a single question, posed under perilous circumstances: Are you afraid? “Lanterns” is not — it’s a bold endeavor, even riskier than the ill-fated Ryan Reynolds movie it contradicts at every turn (including very little use of the suit) — but it is keenly invested in the fears we carry, what they mean to the world, and how they define our humanity. Our fears are neither purely good or evil; they’re not meant to define us, but they’re not erasable either; they deserve our respect, like John, not our compliance, which Hal happily withholds.
Sounds like “Lanterns” has the perfect team. Light ’em up.
Grade: A-
“Lanterns” premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale (Episode 8) on October 4.
