Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for Lanterns S1E1, “Pilot” (written by Chris Mundy & Damon Lindelof & Tom King and directed by James Hawes)
Lanterns may not be the first film or television property released as part of James Gunn’s revamped DC Universe (DCU), but it seems to be the property that has the highest set of expectations, given the star power, the full-court press from HBO, and the critical comparisons to other strong buddy-cop, murder-mystery series. So, not wanting to get caught up in the hype, the question I kept asking myself before watching the first episode was, “What’s the bar for this show?”
What should we compare Lanterns to in order to determine if it is successful? The panned Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie from 2011? Hopefully not; that’s a very low bar. What about the now-defunct DCEU? That had mixed reviews, but produced some of the best DC content since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy ended. Should we compare it to the early entries of the DCU, such as Superman, Supergirl, Peacemaker, and Creature Commandos? Those have had a WIDE range of reviews and critiques, but are mostly negative.
I asked a fellow comic genre enthusiast this same question ahead of the premiere (shoutout to Parker), and he essentially told me, “The bar is super high. I expect this to be a 9 out of 10, and hope it’s similar to True Detective Season 1.” So True Detective Season 1 is the bar? That’s a tough ask as well.
But the more I think about it, the more I agree with him. Lanterns being a show that thinks and acts like True Detective is how it was sold to us. The powers that be behind HBO, Warner Bros., and the DCU have been pounding the table, saying how elite this show is. So why should we as viewers expect anything less? There is an all-star team running this show (Damon Lindelof, Chris Mundy, and Tom King), and the list of actors and actresses is excellent (Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, and Laura Linney, among others). Plus, HBO has given this show the Sunday 9:00 PM ET time slot. That’s Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and True Detective territory, people. This is not where you put your C-rated shows.
So I will be holding this show to a high standard not only because I am a fan of the genre and am desperate for strong comic-based television series, but also because those who made it and funded it seem to expect me to hold it to that high standard.
With that in mind, and with that long preamble behind me, I have my initial reactions to the first episode.
I could not be more freaking in than I am right now.
Give me seven more episodes of what we just saw, and then maybe add a second or third season on top of that, and we might have some competition for Watchmen, Netflix’s Daredevil Season 1, or Loki Season 1 as the best comic book television ever created.
Let’s recap the episode by looking at each of the three time periods introduced in this pilot. The episode jumps across different years—1996, 2016, and 2026—gradually filling in the history between the two main characters while making the relationship between them more important to the mystery unfolding in the present.
1996
The first time we meet John Stewart (young John Stewart is played by Cairo Cash Lee), he is a kid watching Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) on television.
By this point, Hal is already a legend. A former Air Force veteran and test pilot, he became Earth’s first Green Lantern after being selected by a power ring, and the world apparently found out about him in the most dramatic way possible; he stopped a meteor from crashing into Earth 10 years ago.
Hal describes the Green Lantern Corps in fairly simple terms. They’re basically “beat cops,” except each one gets a chunk of the galaxy to patrol. That’s actually a pretty good introduction to the Corps. In DC Comics (this version traces its origins back to 1959), the Green Lanterns are an intergalactic peacekeeping organization established by the Guardians of the Universe, an ancient race of immensely powerful beings who created the Corps to maintain order across the cosmos. In the comics, the Corps has thousands of members spread across thousands of sectors, with Earth belonging to Sector 2814.
For young John, though, Hal isn’t just some famous superhero. He’s the guy he wants to become someday. Hal’s father is also a pilot, but he died in a crash. That loss becomes an important part of Hal’s childhood, particularly because Hal is asked a question that turns out to be central to what being a Green Lantern means. “Are you afraid?”
Hal’s answer is essentially that once you’ve experienced the worst thing a child can imagine, losing a parent, there’s not much left to be afraid of.
John’s dad, John Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson), seems to know that John wants to be Green Lantern and knows he has to remove all his fear. His solution? He puts an apple on John’s head and shoots it off. Judging by the holes in the wall, this has happened a couple dozen times before.
It’s an interesting moment that makes you wonder if the reason why John grows up thinking he can earn the ring is that his father doesn’t think Hal deserves it. I wonder if there is history there since John’s father is also in the military.
John’s fear is being removed as a child. That is especially appropriate for someone who wants to become a Green Lantern, because the rings aren’t simply magic jewelry that anyone can put on and suddenly start throwing punches. They are traditionally given to people with extraordinary strength of will.
John has apparently decided at a very young age that he wants one.
2016
In 2016, we learn that John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) is very close to achieving his goal because Hal Jordan is now training John. But things are… not going particularly well.
Hal picks John up somewhere in California, and the two clearly have some history together already. We learn John has been training for two months, although “training” might be a generous description considering how little he’s apparently learned. Hal has also disappeared for two weeks, because even intergalactic police officers can ghost their trainees (although he seems to have a very reasonable cosmic excuse).
There is something unusual about this arrangement from the beginning. In Green Lantern lore and tradition, the Green Lantern ring chooses its wearer. This is how Hal was chosen. That’s one of the most important pieces of Lantern mythology. When a Lantern dies, or a vacancy opens up, a ring searches for someone worthy based on their ability to overcome fear and their strength of will. Hal himself became a Lantern after the dying Abin Sur’s ring traveled to Earth looking for a successor.
John, however, is different. The Guardians chose him. We don’t know anything about that process yet, or if John went and applied at the local Green Lantern recruitment office, or whatever, but the distinction is important.
The Guardians are essentially the ancient bosses of the Green Lantern Corps and are powerful, extremely intelligent, and, judging by how they operate, not particularly interested in explaining themselves to humans. The fact that the Guardians specifically selected John is therefore an anomaly, as is the fact that Hal is training someone from his own sector. Hal tells John that Lanterns don’t normally train replacements this way. John is effectively the backup quarterback (according to someone we meet soon), waiting for something to happen to Hal.
On the road, Hal gives John a test with the ring, leaving him to escape a car that is careening off a mountain, while Hal goes and enjoys some tacos and selfies from adoring teenagers. But John runs into an old consciousness that says John needs to pass along the message to his mentor that “There’s hail in Rushville, Nebraska.”
The two take off for Nebraska (Hal by flying, John by flying… in a passenger plane). In Nebraska, they discover a mass shooting on a high school football field. Coach Eric Taylor, finally back on the field, finds four people are dead. Sorry, scratch that; it should be Hal Jordan who found the dead victims. All of them are wearing visitor sweatshirts, and Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) has no idea who they are. Hal suspects they’re aliens.
Kane’s response is basically, “This is my town, and you don’t have jurisdiction here.” That becomes the first big tension between the Green Lanterns and the local authorities. Hal sees a cosmic problem. Kane sees a murder investigation. John, meanwhile, is caught between them. He believes they should respect the chain of command and tell Kane about an unusual suspect rather than simply charging ahead.
The suspect runs, and John eventually catches him, but Kane won’t let Hal interrogate him in jail. Hal decides he needs to talk to the alien suspect, so he deliberately gets himself arrested by starting a bar fight. It’s an extremely Hal Jordan solution to a fairly straightforward problem. But he does give John some advice before being hauled off to the local jail.
“The ring is a dangerous weapon. When and how you use it is the whole ballgame, Junior.”
That is a pretty important distinction. A Green Lantern ring is arguably one of the most versatile weapons in the universe. It can create almost anything by the user’s imagination, generate force fields, allow flight, and provide other abilities that make a Lantern considerably more than a guy wearing a glowing ring. But having that power doesn’t mean you should use it every time you can.
When he’s being arraigned, Hal is bailed out by Billy Macon (Jason Ritter), who invites the duo over to his parents’ ranch for dinner as a way to repay the favor.
The investigation gets deeper when Hal and John encounter the Macon family. John already has a complicated personal connection to the family, learning that the woman he slept with at the bar is matriarch Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan), who is married to William Macon (Garrett Dillahunt). Their son, Billy, turns out to be married to Sheriff Kane. Hal and John have somehow managed to turn a routine alien murder investigation into an extremely awkward family reunion.
At the Macon ranch, there are armed guards everywhere, and the place appears to be preparing for some kind of militia-style uprising or defensive operation. William Macon claims he is simply a caretaker of the place, but an NDA prevents him from saying exactly who he’s taking care of it for.
William believes there are aliens on Earth. More importantly, he believes they may be preparing to colonize the planet. He thinks the alien suspect in jail could be an advance man for an alien race preparing to invade. It’s a wild theory on its face, but Hal’s presence makes it considerably less ridiculous.
The next morning, Hal is permitted to talk to the suspect: a truck driver named Waylon Sanders (Chris Coy).
Hal explains to Kane that there are 14 alien species with the technology to pass as humans. That’s where the Lantern mythology becomes particularly useful to the mystery. The Green Lanterns aren’t simply superheroes who occasionally fight aliens. Their entire job is to monitor an enormous portion of the universe, which means Hal has seen enough extraterrestrial life to know exactly how bizarre the possibilities can get.
Waylon looks human. His X-rays look human. He knows Nebraska football. In fact, he knows a lot about Nebraska football. Hal starts questioning him about other things besides Nebraska football, trying to get him to reveal something that doesn’t quite fit. Eventually, Waylon’s personality begins to shift, and the interrogation becomes something much more dramatic.
Waylon suggests that Hal has violated his Green Lantern oath. And suddenly, one of the most famous pieces of Lantern lore becomes incredibly relevant. Every Green Lantern charges their ring by reciting the Corps’ oath:
“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 oath isn’t just a catchphrase. It’s an obligation. It’s a guiding principle of all Lanterns. Breaking it would mean giving up the ring. As we might imagine, this starts to send Hal Jordan into a spiral. Waylon finally reveals that he and his people are there for vengeance, and attempts to blow himself up.
Hal reacts instantly, using his ring to contain the explosion and save everyone inside the police station and much of the surrounding town. Hal was proven right about the suspect being an alien, and now he, John, and Sheriff Kane know they have a much bigger problem on their hands. This isn’t just a mass shooting between rivals at a football game. It’s an alien conspiracy, and the only one who knew any of the details just blew himself up.
But the cliffhangers don’t stop there, because we then flash forward 10 years.
2026
John Stewart arrives in snowy Nebraska again and drives by the Macon ranch. Whatever happened there over the last 10 years, it wasn’t good. The place is destroyed.
Sheriff Kerry Kane meets John at the Rushville football stadium, bringing us back to the same location where the entire mystery began. It’s there, sitting in the snow on the bleachers, that we see Hal Jordan covered in snow with a bullet hole in his head. John checks, and he is not wearing the ring. We also see that John is not wearing the ring.
Hal is dead, and John has to figure out why. But there’s more. Who has the ring if neither of them does? Someone else, or has it fallen into evil hands?
Lanterns doesn’t introduce John Stewart by immediately handing him a ring and sending him into space. Instead, it gives us three versions of him. First, the frightened kid who wants to become a hero, then the frustrated trainee who can’t seem to get through to his mentor, and now an unknown role who arrives in Nebraska to find his (former?) mentor murdered.
The Green Lantern mythology is obviously going to be a major part of the story, as will the mystery to be solved in 2016 about the alien colonization. There are rings that choose their wielders, ancient Guardians overseeing the Corps, cosmic sectors to patrol, alien species hiding among humanity, and an oath that literally powers the weapon. We will certainly get more of that in the future, but the first episode wisely keeps those things balanced and in the background to the more compelling drama being set up in the timelines of the series.
For now, Lanterns is a murder mystery spanning multiple timelines. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.
