The Unknown Critic Reviews HBO Max’s Lanterns
WARNING: SPOILERS THROUGH EPISODE 5. Also contains dangerous levels of sarcasm, several complaints about lighting, and one deeply concerned Green Lantern fan.
I owe Hollywood an apology.
For years, I’ve complained that superhero movies have become predictable.
Hero gets powers. Hero learns powers. Villain appears. City explodes. Giant laser shoots into sky. Hero discovers the real superpower was believing in himself all along.
I wanted something different.
Well.
HBO Max gave us Lanterns.
A Green Lantern television series in which two men possessing magical alien rings capable of creating literally anything their imaginations can conceive spend an extraordinary amount of time driving around rural America looking concerned.
Touché, Hollywood.
Touché.
TRUE DETECTIVE: SPACE COP EDITION
For anyone who hasn’t watched Lanterns, the premise sounds fantastic.
John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre, is a prospective new Green Lantern partnered with veteran Lantern Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler. Together they investigate a mysterious murder in the American heartland that gradually reveals much larger extraterrestrial implications.
Basically:
True Detective + Green Lantern.
Which sounds amazing.
And sometimes it is.
But somebody at HBO apparently heard “Green Lantern” and said:
“Great. But what if we remove approximately 87% of the green?”
This is the most aggressively earthbound story imaginable about an organization whose jurisdiction includes THE UNIVERSE.
The Green Lantern Corps patrols approximately three trillion planets.
Naturally, we’re in Nebraska.
Or, as the Guardians of the Universe apparently call it:
Sector 2814: Corn Division.
KYLE CHANDLER’S HAL JORDAN NEEDS A NAP
Let’s discuss Hal Jordan.
Kyle Chandler’s Hal doesn’t enter a room so much as arrive there already disappointed in whoever is inside it.
This is not the cocky test-pilot Hal Jordan many fans probably imagined.
This Hal looks like he’s spent 25 years fighting intergalactic evil and another 30 minutes trying to cancel SiriusXM.
And you know what?
I kind of love him.
Chandler plays Jordan as a man who has clearly seen some things.
Space things.
Bad things.
Things apparently serious enough to turn one of DC Comics’ great swashbuckling adventurers into your divorced uncle who arrives at Thanksgiving, sits in the recliner and says:
“So. What’s going on with you?”
Then doesn’t listen to the answer.
Hal has the most powerful weapon in the universe attached to his finger and somehow still projects the energy of a man whose check-engine light just came on.
That’s talent.
JOHN STEWART: THE ONLY PERSON HERE ASKING REASONABLE QUESTIONS
Then there’s Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart.
John spends much of Lanterns looking at Hal the way an employee looks at a manager who just explained a company policy that is obviously illegal.
And rightly so.
Hal’s mentoring strategy appears to consist of:
Step 1: Withhold important information.
Step 2: Behave suspiciously.
Step 3: Become irritated when John notices.
Step 4: Drive somewhere.
Step 5: Repeat.
John understandably begins wondering whether joining the Green Lantern Corps was such a great career move.
By Episode 5, he finally gets Hal’s ring—the thing he’s supposedly wanted.
And what does he do?
He gives it back.
Imagine spending your entire life wanting a Ferrari, finally getting the keys and discovering the previous owner left three unpaid parking tickets, a suspicious stain on the passenger seat and Sinestro in the glove compartment.
“No thanks.”
That’s basically John Stewart’s character arc.
AND THEN THERE’S ZOE
Ah, Zoe.
Poorna Jagannathan spends several episodes being mysterious enough that anyone who’s watched television since approximately 1987 immediately knows something is wrong.
Eventually we discover she’s a Manhunter.
An extremely dangerous synthetic being.
Which makes John’s romantic involvement with her slightly complicated.
There are bad dating decisions.
There are really bad dating decisions.
And then there’s:
“I accidentally slept with the ancient robotic enemy of the Green Lantern Corps.”
Try explaining THAT on Hinge.
“So what happened with your last relationship?”
“Well, she was emotionally unavailable.”
“Oh.”
“And a killer android.”
“Oh.”
“And I eventually shot her.”
“CHECK, PLEASE.”
Episode 5 takes the entire relationship to its spectacularly dysfunctional conclusion when John kills Zoe after using Hal as bait.
Dating in 2026, everybody.
THE SHOW’S SECRET SUPERPOWER: EVERYONE IS TERRIBLE AT COMMUNICATING
Here’s what fascinates me most about Lanterns.
Nearly every catastrophic event could potentially have been avoided if these people simply sat down at an IHOP and had an honest conversation.
Hal doesn’t trust John.
John doesn’t trust Hal.
The Guardians don’t trust Hal.
Hal doesn’t trust the Guardians.
Zoe can’t be trusted.
Sinestro DEFINITELY can’t be trusted.
And somewhere Guy Gardner is presumably polishing his bowl cut and wondering why nobody invited him.
The Green Lantern oath begins:
“In brightest day, in blackest night…”
Apparently the next line is:
“Whatever happens, don’t communicate properly with your coworkers.”
The Guardians of the Universe have existed for billions of years and still appear to have the management skills of a regional mattress chain.
No wonder Sinestro quit.
THE WEENIE
I need to mention that Episode 4 is actually titled:
“The Weenie.”
A multimillion-dollar prestige HBO superhero drama.
The Weenie.
Somewhere an HBO executive had to say:
“We’re extremely excited about next week’s episode, The Weenie.”
And another adult nodded.
This happened.
There were meetings.
Calendars.
Legal clearances.
Probably a PowerPoint.
Nobody stopped it.
I respect this tremendously.
BUT HERE’S THE ANNOYING PART…
Lanterns is actually pretty damn good.
I know.
I’m irritated too.
I wrote an entire book called From Comic Book Ink to Box Office Stink about superhero adaptations going horribly wrong.
I arrived prepared.
I sharpened the knives.
I put fresh eyeholes in the paper bag.
I stretched.
And then HBO inconveniently delivered something that actually has ideas.
Aaron Pierre is excellent.
Kyle Chandler is fascinating.
Their relationship is the show.
Not the rings.
Not the mythology.
Not the CGI.
Not whatever enormous cosmic catastrophe is inevitably waiting around the corner.
Two deeply flawed men are trying to decide what being a hero actually means.
And Lanterns keeps asking a surprisingly interesting question:
What happens when the person wearing the superhero costume isn’t sure he deserves it anymore?
That’s much more interesting than another 45-minute CGI sky battle.
Although…
Guys?
You DO have magic space rings.
Feel free to use them occasionally.
I’m just saying.
FIVE PAPER BAGS OF JUSTICE
So where does Lanterns rank after five episodes?
STORY
🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️½
Genuinely compelling, although occasionally so committed to being a prestige detective drama that I expect Matthew McConaughey to emerge from a cornfield explaining that time is a flat power ring.
CAST
🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️
Pierre and Chandler are terrific together.
I would watch these two investigate a stolen lawn mower.
Which, given this show’s pace and setting, may actually be Episode 6.
GREEN LANTERN-NESS
🛍️🛍️½
We have rings.
We have Guardians.
We have Sinestro.
We have Manhunters.
What we don’t have nearly enough of is Green Lanterns doing completely ridiculous Green Lantern things.
MAKE A GIANT GREEN BOXING GLOVE, YOU COWARDS.
DEPRESSING HBO LIGHTING
🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️
Outstanding.
At several points I could almost identify the actors.
THE UNKNOWN CRITIC’S VERDICT
★★★★☆
4 out of 5 Paper Bags
Lanterns shouldn’t work.
It takes one of DC’s most colorful cosmic properties and turns it into a moody rural murder mystery starring two emotionally constipated space cops.
And somehow…
it works.
Mostly.
It’s weird.
It’s slow.
It’s occasionally frustrating.
It’s far more interested in damaged people than superhero spectacle.
And after five episodes, I’m genuinely curious where this bizarre little Green Lantern noir experiment is headed.
So congratulations, HBO.
You made a superhero show that doesn’t feel like every other superhero show.
Just one request.
Before the season ends…
Could somebody please use the most powerful weapon in the universe to make something stupid?
A giant hammer.
A locomotive.
A 40-foot green squirrel.
Anything.
Hal Jordan currently possesses a device limited only by human imagination.
So far his imagination appears to be:
Nebraska.
THE CRITIC HAS SPOKEN.
The Unknown Critic is the mysterious paper-bag-wearing pop-culture obsessive behind From Comic Book Ink to Box Office Stink, a celebration—or possibly crime-scene investigation—of 100 superhero movies that didn’t exactly save the day.
If you enjoy watching Hollywood spend hundreds of millions of dollars learning lessons it could have learned by asking literally any comic-book fan, you’ll probably enjoy the book.
Until next time, I’ll be under the bag.