Lanterns Episode 1 Review and Ratings
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Nathan Fillion, Kelly Macdonald, Jason Ritter, Garret Dillahunt, Nicole Ari Parker, Ulrich Thomsen, Poorna Jagannathan
Director: James Hawes
Streaming Platform: HBO
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
After Supergirl’s thrashing, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU desperately needed a win, and Lanterns took it home by a surprising margin. The series, which debuted on HBO Max on Monday, August 17, and was created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, is in fact the second project in this new DC universe not to be written, nor directed by Gunn himself, and from the first episode it demonstrates that – despite the film dedicated to Kara Zor-El, he can walk on his own two feet. The writer of these lines has been eagerly awaiting Lanterns for well over a year, so much so that he has ranked her first among Spin-Off’s 2026 positive bets. The reason is simple to state: behind the new DC Studios series is a creative trio that, at least on paper, should make anyone who loves a certain television series salivate profusely.
Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King were already announced in 2024 to develop the first season’s eight episodes. Mundy arrives from Ozark; Lindelof has Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen, and Mrs behind him. Davis, while Tom King is one of the most recognizable authors of contemporary American comics. In short, low expectations were practically impossible to have. And the problem with very high expectations is that it takes very little to turn them into disappointment. “Pilot”, on the other hand, does exactly the opposite: it confirms almost everything that made Lanterns one of the most interesting television projects of the year, building a dense, self-confident first episode capable of giving the feeling that what was shown is only the surface of something enormously more complex.
Lanterns Episode 1 Review: The Story Plot
Lanterns introduces us from its first episode to a very familiar dynamic, with Hal Jordan -embodied by Kyle Chandler– as a kind of police officer in the last years of his career who must protect his new partner, the newcomer to the force, John Stewart -interpreted by Aaron Pierre. Together they begin to investigate a murder that has occurred in the heart of the United States, in the remote city of Rushville, located in Nebraska. And for this, they use the help of Kerry, the local sheriff played by Kelly Macdonald.
If it weren’t for the fact that Hal Jordan is actually a Green Lantern, it would be a very conventional police series. But of course, being a force for intergalactic good complicates the plot a little and causes it to expand beyond the borders of our world. Of course, the superheroic component that ends up shaping the production becomes one more element to configure this series of police officers that is, in reality, very mundane in almost all its sections. It is not by chance that it has Chris Mundy as showrunner, the person responsible for series such as Ozark, True Detective, or Criminal Minds, which has permeated the DC series with his good work in the field of police thrillers.
This makes the production feel very earthy and adapts to the rhythms of the genre, with different degrees of success. To begin with, the series is quite dark both in its palette and in its plot, taking itself very seriously, and limiting the humor to that which is born from the very jokes that the characters may have with each other. Unlike some police series, in which an episode is the equivalent of a new case, Lanterns addresses a single mystery that is unraveled as its chapters progress. They intermingle a couple of key main timelines in the plot, along with some episodes or fragments of them that, like flashbacks, allow us to delve into the origin story of their protagonists.
The story moves through multiple time periods, starting in 1996, when Hal Jordan (Chandler) is already the first Earthman chosen to join the Green Lantern Corps. Twenty years later, Hal is very different from the traditional image of the hero. He is tired, cynical, impatient, and decidedly uninterested in acting like a mentor. At his side is John Stewart (Pierre), a former Marine potentially destined to replace him. The problem is precisely that “replacing”. Hal is supposed to prepare John to become a Green Lantern, but the boy’s presence continually reminds him that his time may be almost over. Their relationship changes when they are called to Rushville, Nebraska, where a shooting has elements that suggest extraterrestrial involvement. Here they meet Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald), while the investigation leads to the powerful William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), owner of a huge ranch and a figure linked to a local militia.
Science fiction therefore remains present, but often on the fringes. Lanterns prefers cars, dusty roads, and interrogations to battles in space. It is especially in the relationship between Hal and John that this setting works. Chandler builds a Hal Jordan away from crystal-clear heroism. His old cowboy charm hides bitterness, fear of irrelevance, and a certain self-destruction. The man who had been chosen because he declared he was not afraid now seems terrified of something much more ordinary: becoming superfluous. Pierre pits him against a controlled, physically imposing, and much more disciplined John Stewart. If Hal received his role almost by accident, John was educated and trained to deserve it. It is from this asymmetry that the best part of the series is born. Hal improvises, John plans.
Hal provokes, John holds back. One possesses the ring that the other could inherit. And beneath the amusing buddy cop spat, a more complex question gradually emerges: who decides who is worthy of exercising power? The question also allows Lanterns to recover a fundamental component of the publishing history of John Stewart, created by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams in the early 1970s. John is a black man forced to move around a predominantly white town while simultaneously serving as an outsider and an aspiring representative of authority.
The series works openly on contradiction. Hal says he was chosen after simply answering “no” to the question Are you scared?. For John, being fearless means something entirely different: discipline, control, and the need to continually prove one’s worth. Not all these reflections are integrated with the same naturalness. In some passages, Lanterns tends to make his themes too explicit, where Watchmen managed to bring them out with greater complexity. But the ambition is evident.
Lanterns Episode 1 Review And Analysis
Unfortunately for those looking for a little more action, the fantastic dressing is too contained, and visual pyrotechnics have no place when the story you are trying to tell is in such an everyday setting. Except for an episode in which we can see a more extreme situation, the epic takes too long to arrive. Furthermore, there are hardly any confrontations, and the alien creatures on screen are relegated to being glimpsed briefly or partially hidden. In the end, everything is presented through a rather slow development, very focused on research and dialogue, although it suffers from a very common vice in television series: it is repetitive, repeating conversations or overexplaining obvious aspects.
Something that I cannot complain about, having seen the series in its original version without subtitles, while it opens to a very niche mythology, but that perhaps demonstrates its aspirations to be enjoyed by anyone independently of their relationship with DC. A section from which it cannot be separated, well after all the Lanterns, it is still one more piece in the framework of the new DC Universe created by James Gunn and Peter Safran, who has a tiresome obligation, just as he does with UCM, that absolutely all productions are connected in some way. The result ends up being a mix with potential, but it does not break the mold in the thriller, and that falls short when the time comes to show why Hal and John are not just any police couple.
Directed by James Hawes from a screenplay by Mundy, Lindelof, and King themselves, the premiere opens in a far from predictable way: no cosmic theme song, no opening battle, but a 1990s-style interview that introduces the world to Hal Jordan, the first human to wield the Green Lantern ring. In front of the TV, glued to the screen, there is a very young John Stewart, with a rather strict father who already cultivates the same ambitions for him. Twenty years later, that child has become the apprentice of an aging Hal, tired, cynical, and with no intention of giving up his job: promotion to Lantern effectively only involves the retirement or death of the owner, and Hal is in no rush to give either one or the other to John. The problem is precisely that potential turnover: Hal should prepare John to succeed him, but the mere presence of the boy constantly reminds him that his time may be almost over. And it’s something that no one with the character of a former test pilot can accept…
Aside from the plot surrounding the Rushville (Nebraska) shooting, what really keeps this first episode going, and hopefully the entire season, is the relationship between the two protagonists that we mentioned at the beginning. Chandler builds a Hal Jordan away from crystal-clear heroism: his old cowboy charm hides bitterness, loneliness, and a certain propensity for self-destruction. The man who was chosen because he claimed he was not afraid now seems terrified of something. Pierre pits him against a controlled, physically imposing, and much more disciplined John Stewart. If Hal received his role almost by chance, John was raised and trained to deserve it, and it is precisely from this asymmetry that the best part of the series is born: Hal improvises, John plans; Hal provokes, John holds back; one owns the ring, the other doesn’t… but he could inherit it.
The Green Lanterns, with all their flamboyant costumes and glittering rings, remain essentially a space police force, a sort of interstellar Marine Corps, and this key to understanding the series respects it to the fullest: Hal welcomes John with the same cordiality with which a drill sergeant would welcome the recruit he suspects is about to steal his place, and the result is a professional relationship that to call toxic is almost an understatement, but which works great on screen precisely for this reason. Around Hal and John move a group of supporting actors written with an attention rarely found in productions of this type. Kelly Macdonald literally steals the show every time she appears, domineering without losing vulnerability and ambiguous enough to keep doubts alive about her true intentions as Sheriff Kerry Kane.
Garret Dillahunt builds an antagonist we would call amicably threatening, or perhaps ominously friendly, perfectly exploiting that vaguely disturbing friendliness that belongs to him. Poorna Jagannathan, on the other hand, gives Zoe a depth capable of making each of her scenes with John something more than a simple romantic sketch. That said, it’s worth clarifying one thing before diving right in: Rushville’s alien mystery, while well-packaged, isn’t the real reason to watch the series at this stage yet. It works well as a narrative engine, keeping Hal and John in the same place long enough for them to collide properly, but it remains fairly contained in its scope compared to what one might expect from a threat of extraterrestrial origin. Those expecting a constant display of special effects would do well to scale back their expectations now: the costumes are used little, the rings even less than expected, and the large CGI sequences are centered.
Yet the authors have understood the essence of the characters well, and even if everything is far too terrestrial, one has the constant feeling of being faced with a level superhero series, strongly rooted in one’s own mythology, despite appearances. And this is precisely where the confidence with which we leave this first episode behind comes from: the confirmation that James Gunn’s DCU can work even when other hands write and shoot it, and that entrusting the keys to this series to Mundy, Lindelof, and King did not mean repeating the mistake made with Supergirl.
Don’t expect the cosmic space opera of dreams: here the mythology of the Green Lanterns remains in the background, a pretext, rather than a goal, and those who arrive at this series chasing great interstellar wars risk leaving with some disappointment. But if what you’re looking for is a cleverly written drama, capable of getting two excellent actors to fight without ever getting bored, then Lanterns has already won its toughest bet. It’s certainly no coincidence that we see the ring lighting a cigarette, creating a bottle opener or a banknote: the series wants to be –at least for now– strongly rooted on Earth and the protagonists must be more human than ever.
When the series gives space to spectacular action, it also doesn’t always manage to make it memorable. It’s paradoxical: the protagonists possess one of the most imaginative weapons in the DC Universe, but Lanterns appears decidedly safer when he puts them in a car to argue. The problem is that this subtraction does not automatically produce originality. The shadow of True Detective remains enormous, from the American landscape to the incompatible detective duo, while some dynamics are openly reminiscent of Reac here, the Western. At times it almost feels like Lanterns needs to move away from Green Lantern to become the HBO series it wants to be. Fortunately, the cast also supports the less successful moments.
Kelly Macdonald is remarkable as Sheriff Kerry Kane, authoritarian without losing vulnerability and ambiguous enough to keep doubts alive about her true intentions. Poorna Jagannathan instead gives Zoe depth, while Garret Dillahunt makes perfect use of the vaguely menacing friendliness that belongs to him. Ulrich Thomsen appears as Sinestro, Hal’s disgraced former mentor, while Nathan Fillion briefly returns as Guy Gardner, directly linking the series to James Gunn’s Superman. They are important presences, but Lanterns never loses sight of its center. It is also its most obvious limitation. Those looking for a great cosmic adventure might find Lanterns surprisingly restrained.
The galactic stakes are of less interest than the personal friction between Hal and John, while some bursts of spectacle almost seem like obligations imposed by gender. But perhaps this is precisely the most interesting experiment in the series. After Watchmen, Peacemaker, and The Penguin, HBO proves once again that DC material can work better when contaminated with different languages. Lanterns does not yet possess the conceptual strength of Watchmen or the compactness of The Penguin, and its debts to other crime dramas remain too visible. However, it has two protagonists that are worth following. Chandler makes Hal irritating, melancholic, and surprisingly human; Pierre turns John into the ideal counterpoint, making his discipline both a force and a prison. Eventually, the light ring becomes almost secondary. Lanterns works when he stops wondering how powerful Green Lanterns can be and starts wondering what kind of men should have the right to be.
Lanterns Episode 1 Review: The Last Words
In short, Lanterns has become a new triumph for him Dc Universe, and perhaps the most necessary after the premiere of Superman in theaters last year. The saga shows that he has not lost his muscle despite the setback of Supergirl. The title confirms that the promises were not empty. It is a very different story, which uses itself to engage and transcend. It seeks out its adult audience and offers them a stimulating and intense police thriller. It is not perfect; its narrative structure sometimes loses itself. But it has characters complex enough to want to accompany them in this intrigue. Without a doubt, a great success.
