REVIEW: Lanterns Season 1 Is An Innovative Take On Green Lantern

“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power—Green Lantern’s light!” The iconic oath, first penned by writer Alfred Bester, has been taken by The Green Lantern since 1943. The oath, uniform, and names remain the same, but Lanterns Season 1 offers a fresh look at one of DC’s oldest superheroes.

Creator and showrunner Chris Mundy brings Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) to life in a way that’s never truly been attempted before. Most Green Lantern fans have seen the animated versions and struggle to forget the Ryan Reynolds-led feature film. Lanterns Season 1, by contrast, is a much darker, grittier adaptation not unlike Marvel’s Jessica Jones or Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films.

While a lot of what DC has done in live-action has failed at tackling a darker tone with little justification, Lanterns Season 1 gives its tone a reason for being there. Stories are being told that require a serious look at the franchise.

Lanterns Season 1 is dark and gritty with a purpose.

Set in multiple decades, the bulk of Lanterns Season 1 is split between 2016 and 2026. In 2016, Hal Jordan and his new trainee, John Stewart, investigate the death of aliens in Rushville, Nebraska, and inadvertently uncover a much bigger threat when they find a manhunter hiding in plain sight.

In 2026, John Stewart learns that his former mentor, Hal Jordan, has been killed in Rushville, Nebraska. He’ll use every resource at his disposal to find out why and by whom. The deeper his investigation goes, the more secrets he’ll uncover about Hal and the town he had begun to call home.

Lanterns Season 1 initially sets these two mysteries up in the premiere episode. It feels like they’re going to run concurrently, so both stories start and wrap up together. Instead, after the premiere, Lanterns Season 1 returns to the 2016 storyline involving the death of aliens and the existence of a manhunter and doesn’t return to 2026 until Episode 6.

Two mysteries told across decades create a compelling enough lure for viewers.

Lanterns Episode 5 effectively serves as a finale of the 2016 mystery. Unfortunately, that story is infinitely more interesting than the murder investigation in 2026. Starting with Episode 6, Lanterns Season 1 slows down to an alarmingly snail-like pace, especially considering the speed at which the first five episodes operated.

More aggravating is the huge plot hole in Lanterns Episode 6. All the way back in the premiere, Lanterns Season 1 heavily implies that the big reveal at the end of the first episode is that someone killed Hal Jordan and his ring is missing. By the time Lanterns Season 1 returns to 2026, Hal hasn’t been the Green Lantern in 10 years, and there would be no reason for John to check for his ring after finding his body.

Mix that with some very shaky logic concerning both the rules of the ring and the seemingly endless 5% of battery that’s been sitting in it for 10 years, and Lanterns Season 1 ends up jumping the shark more than once and wearing quite a hefty piece of plot armor to justify its actions.

Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler have great chemistry together, and it shows.

Still, Lanterns Season 1 isn’t bad. It has some truly effective emotional story beats for nearly every character. John Stewart is given a backstory for the first time. Each character has their own motivations for every action they take. Lanterns Season 1 refuses to put any one character in a box, actively showcasing the irony that everyone is capable of so much more than people expect.

Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre provide some of the best casting DC has ever committed to. The two men play off each other incredibly well, mostly in an adversarial relationship, but a few times they share powerful, impactful emotional scenes.

Aside from their shared chemistry, both Chandler and Pierre portray their characters with remarkable precision. Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan does triple duty. First, as Hal Jordan in 2026, Chandler has to convey the emotions of a man filled with guilt and remorse. While those scenes are fewer than in other iterations, Chandler still plays them incredibly well.

How Lanterns Season 1 tackles Hal Jordan and John Stewart is refreshing.

In 2026,  Kyle Chandler also has to play the Halogram, which is a memory of Hal Jordan from 2006. That version of Hal Jordan is a lot more emotionally available but still carries sarcasm and wit in his toolbox. Chandler’s handling of this version of Hal, which acts as a prequel to his 2016 self, is also done with great care.

Most of Kyle Chandler’s performance centers on the version of Hal Jordan we see in 2016. That version of Hal Jordan is cynical, short-sighted, and downright mean. His decisions are almost always self-serving, even when he’s saving others. Chandler effortlessly moves into the grumpy old man Hal as well as he did any other version of the Green Lantern.

Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart, by contrast, is fairly straightforward. He doesn’t change much between 2016 and 2026. Still, Pierre’s take on John is wonderfully unique. He plays John with intensity and drama. In interviews, Pierre has a subtle but very noticeable British accent that he makes disappear entirely when he becomes John Stewart.

While not perfect, Lanterns Season 1 never fails to entertain.

Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe Macon brings real gravitas to the role. She’s larger than life and chews on every scene she appears in. Jagannathan is another wonderful example of a casting director who fully understood what the role of Zoe needed. The biggest breakout performance by far, though, is Shea Pritchard as Noah Macon. Pritchard plays Noah in 2026, having grown up in the wake of a manhunter being discovered in his town. Pritchard delivers the performance of a lifetime, showing how absolutely versatile he is as an actor.

Lanterns Season 1 is written with complete confidence. While the major mysteries set up at the premiere are answered, the door is opened on new stories to be told. Further, the series earned its confidence. If no additional episodes were ever added for Lanterns, it wouldn’t hurt the ending of Season 1 in any meaningful way. Still, enough new story beats are added to the end of Lanterns Season 1 that the series, which is likely to come back, will have plenty of new material to work with.

Lanterns Season 1 is some of the most entertaining storytelling DC has given live-action superhero fans in a very long time. With that said, it’s certainly not perfect, and some of the issues are glaring plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Still, anyone willing to look past its imperfections will find a live-action adaptation of the Green Lantern actually worth sitting through.

Lanterns Season 1 is streaming now on HBO Max.