Lanterns review: Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre power DC's best series since The Batman

Lanterns takes one of DC’s most cosmic superheroes and puts him in rural America to investigate a murder, and it’s the best thing they’ve done since The Batman. Green Lanterns can travel through space, construct weapons out of pure willpower and police an intergalactic sector. Lanterns instead gives them a dead body, a dusty Nebraska town and a mystery that looks suspiciously terrestrial. It sounds like a strange way to introduce one of DC’s biggest mythologies. It turns out to be exactly the right one.The HBO series follows veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), who is assigned to mentor rookie John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). Their first case takes them to rural America to investigate a mysterious murder, gradually opening into something far larger than either of them expected. Around them are a small-town sheriff, suspicious locals and a cast that includes Kelly Macdonald, Laura Linney, Poorna Jagannathan, Jason Ritter and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner. The murder mystery is the hook. Hal and John are the reason to stay.There is an immediate tension between the two that the series wisely refuses to smooth over. Hal is a veteran who knows the Green Lantern Corps inside out and carries the confidence—and baggage—of someone who has spent years being very good at his job. John is newer, younger and far less willing to accept Hal’s authority simply because it comes with experience.Kyle Chandler gets the balance exactly right. His Hal isn’t a wise old mentor handing down cosmic wisdom. He’s cocky, occasionally irritating and visibly worn down by years of carrying responsibility. Chandler gives him enough swagger to make Hal frustrating, but enough vulnerability to make him human. Aaron Pierre is an excellent counterpoint. John’s seriousness could easily have become one-note, but Pierre gives him an internal tension that keeps the character interesting. He isn’t simply the rookie waiting to inherit Hal’s mantle. He has his own reasons for being cautious, his own understanding of duty and, importantly, his own idea of what being a Lantern should mean.Their chemistry is terrific because neither actor is trying too hard to manufacture it. The humour comes from irritation, disagreements and two men who would probably be perfectly happy never having to share a car again. Yet beneath that friction is a growing respect, and the series lets it develop rather than announcing it. That relationship gives Lanterns its emotional centre.The crime investigation, meanwhile, is handled with a deliberate restraint. The series takes its time establishing the town, the people living in it and the circumstances surrounding the murder. It creates a world where everyone appears to know something they aren’t saying, while Hal and John remain outsiders trying to work out which secrets matter. There are obvious echoes of prestige crime television here, particularly True Detective, and the comparison is difficult to avoid. The dusty landscapes, troubled men, local corruption and slow-burning mystery are familiar territory. But Lanterns mostly avoids becoming a superhero version of someone else’s show because the Green Lantern mythology continues to shape the investigation rather than simply decorate it.The series doesn’t throw one into a parade of alien worlds and comic-book mythology from the beginning. Instead, it lets the extraordinary creep into the ordinary. The rings, the Corps and the larger cosmic implications feel more effective because the show first establishes what Hal and John are like without them.At times, however, that restraint becomes a little too cautious. There are moments where Lanterns feels so committed to its grounded crime-drama identity that the superhero element seems almost secondary. The show is clearly building towards something larger, but it occasionally asks us to wait a little too patiently for the mythology to open up.The supporting cast helps keep that grounded world compelling. Kelly Macdonald brings an appealingly sceptical energy as the local sheriff, while Laura Linney and the rest of the ensemble make the town feel populated by people with lives beyond the murder at its centre. Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, meanwhile, provides a welcome jolt of comic-book personality without hijacking the story. Lanterns exists within a larger DC universe without allowing those connections to overwhelm the story. The series does, however, occasionally take itself a little too seriously.Its measured pace works for the mystery, but some stretches could use more momentum. The emotional arcs are generally stronger than the plot mechanics, and viewers coming in expecting a flamboyant superhero spectacle may find themselves waiting for the Green Lantern mythology to take up more space.That isn’t necessarily a flaw. It depends on what you want from Lanterns. If you’re looking for a traditional superhero series packed with action, jokes and constant visual spectacle, this isn’t that show. If you’re willing to watch a detective story slowly reveal that its detectives happen to be intergalactic cops with magical rings, Lanterns becomes considerably more interesting.And perhaps that’s why it works as a new starting point for DC. After years of superhero stories competing to become bigger, louder and more interconnected, Lanterns finds confidence in being specific. It has a murder to solve, two men who don’t particularly trust each other and a mythology vast enough to take the story somewhere far beyond Nebraska.The best part is that it doesn’t need to choose between the two.Lanterns is a superhero story disguised as a crime drama, but it is also a character drama that happens to have aliens, power rings and intergalactic police officers. Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre give it the grounding it needs, while the mythology promises a much larger world waiting just beyond the horizon.It may occasionally feel too familiar in its noir influences, and the slow burn won’t work for everyone.But when Hal and John are on screen together, Lanterns has a spark of its own. For a show about Green Lanterns, that’s a pretty good place to start.Lanterns is available on Jio Hotstar in India.- EndsPublished By: shweta keshriPublished On: Aug 17, 2026 10:59 IST