Lanterns: Beware My Meh

Lanterns is the latest project released by James Gunn's DCU. It follows our main two leads, Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre as John Stewart. There is something fishy going on in the town of Rushville, Nebraska, and it's up to Hal and John to get to the bottom of it despite being at odds with each other the majority of the time. While I do believe there are plenty of things to like about this show, in my opinion it ultimately doesn't land in the end. There will be spoilers.

The good stuff first. The acting from everyone is stellar, especially between our two leads. Kelly Macdonald, the actress who plays the sheriff Kerry Kane, also did a really good job. I was never bored, it was all pretty engaging. While there wasn't much green lantern action, which we will get to later, when we did get it I thought it was pretty solid. All the characters had their own hangups and flaws, but it made them interesting characters. Humans are complicated, and I thought this show portrayed that well. I also like that despite Hal being abrasive and often reckless, his gut is still usually correct and he is competent. I also really enjoyed John's backstory. It does a good job of explaining who John is and why he's the way he is. While his parents are pretty messed up, the show does a good job at explaining why they do what they do and giving them nuance while also showing how messed up what they are doing and how it negatively impacts John, except for the last episode. They think they are doing what's best for John, but it just ends up with John not being able to think for himself for the first few episodes while also alienating their other chilren. While I dont' think every narrative decision the show makes works, I do appreciate that the showrunners tried something different and did take risks. Honestly, despite the ring not being used much, I don't have many complaints about the first five episodes. Episode 5 was the best. Despite not liking the ending for the season finale, I did like the ending for episode 5. It shows the consequences when people don't trust each other and their ambition takes precadent over doing what's right. Hal, despite being correct about the manhunter being dangerous and needing to be stopped, could have gone about it in a better way. He was so concerned with keeping his ring and looking good in front of the guardians that he didnt think everything through. John, while he finally gets Hal's ring, feels hollow and realizes that he only wanted to become a green lantern because that is what his parents wanted, and he needs to find out what he wants and learn how to think for himself. The ending for episode 5 felt more like a season finale than the actual season finale.

Now on to the negatives. The ring battery is extemely inconsistent. There are instances where the ring will run out of charge in just 10 minutes of using it and other time when the ring will only be at 5% charge and still be working the next day after constantly using it. I also don't understand why they don't take the lantern that charges the ring everywhere they go so whenever the ring does run out of juice, they can immediately recharge it. There are a lot of plot conviences that need to happen in order to push the story forward. In addition, the ring isn't used nearly enough. After episode 5, there isn't a single construct that is created by the ring. John only uses the ring to talk to a hologram version of Hal and fly in the very last shot of the show. However, all that I would be able to forgive if the two main characters' arcs wrapped up in a satisfying way.

First, let's start off with Hal. The way that he got axed off was so stupid. This is his first appearance in the DCU, and just killin him off in the first season was ill advised from the get go. When it was revealed that Hal died in episode 1, I was hoping that it was a fakeout or they would have at least earned it, but that ended up not being the case. The way he died just broke my suspension of disbelief. I know that people can act rashly in the heat of the moment, but i just don't buy that Kerry would accidentally load up her gun and shoot Hal square in the head. It would be one thing if she was already holding a gun or she pushed him and he fell. It was a stupid story decision only made more stupid by the execution. It not only does Hal's character dirty but it does Kerry's character dirty as well, which sucks because I liked Kerry. It also bothers me that Hal is really the only one who gets crapped on and faces repercussions and condemnation. Sure, he wasn't a saint, but no one in this show was. He was the most competent out of everyone. It could be argued that his negative actions were the least egregious out of any of the characters, yet he is the only one that faces any condemnation from the other characters. I get that kind of stuff happens in real life, but it's just bad storytelling, especially from a superhero show. At least Hal dind't kill himself. I still don't know how to feel about Hal's father killing himself and basically telling Hal that it is going to happen to him one day. In addition, so much about Hal is told and not shown. You don't see him become a green lantern, you don't see his relationship with Sinestro or him defeating Sinestro, many of his most iconic moments are just brushed over. I already wasn't the biggest fan of the series starting off with an aged Hal and primarily focusing on John from the get go, but there could have least been flashbacks of His career as a green lantern as well as his relationships with the other lanters and Sinestro, more than just that one flashback of him with his father as a kid in episode 7. There definitely needed to be more episodes to flesh everthing out more. I'm also curious as to what they're going to do with Sinestro going forward, because he is more of a Hal villain than John's.

Now on to John. He doesn't earn the ring. He was right to refuse the ring at the end of episode 5 because he realized that is what his parents wanted but ultimately not what he truly wanted. However, he does nothing in the next three episodes to convince me that he truly deserves the ring. He isn't granted a ring but takes it off a dead guy. It also doesn't help that the lantern he is now using was made by Sinestro using fear which should come back to bite him later. All he does is find out that Kerry is the one who killed Hal and then lets her go. I know a lot of people hated that scene. I myself am mixed. The previous scene shows John taking a chance on Kerry's son Noah, who is part manhunter, hoping he can overcome his nature and not become like his grandmother. He most likely realizes that taking his mother away from him would accomplish the opposite of that. I also do believe John when he says that Hal wouldn't want Kerry to go to prison. Still, that's not the best message to convey in a superhero show, especially when it's only Hal who faces any consequences. I also don't like how he craps on Guy all the time either. Sure, he's cocky and a jerk, but the Superman movie in 2025 established that he was competent and took his job seriously. Lastly, I hated how in the final episode the show just glossed over the abuse John's parents put him through. The show did a good job at showing where John's parents were coming from while also showing how messed up their actions were. However, John saying that his mother was holding her breath whenever she dropped him off in the middle of nowhere was simply moronic. Hollywood over the past few years has had a problem of glossing over parents' despicable actions and having their kids forgive them way too easily, and most of the time the parents don't even apologize. I'm not against John reconciling with his family and forgiving them, but it has to be earned, and this show didn't. Granted I have seen more egregious examples of this, but that doesn't mean it was handled correctly either.

The ending of the show makes me think the premise was flawed from the beginning. I was already raising my eyebrows when it was said that Lanterns would be a detective show. Still, I gave them a shot and unfortunantely they weren't able to chamge my mind. Green lantern is supposed to be big and bombastic. It's about space cops being able to create anything they want with their minds. They shouldn't be confined to Nebraska for the majority of the show. You're a superhero show first, embrace it. It feels like a show about green lanterns is the wrong show to primarily be a detective story. I am paraphrasing here, but a youtuber named Sean Chandler basically said that it felt like the show was trying to deconstruct green lantern before constructing it first. The only other live action representation we have of green lantern as the primary focus was the movie in 2011, and we all saw how that went. I'm not saying green lantern can't have any compicated themes, there are plenty in the comics, However, you have to be able to take full advantage of the concept and follow through with your themes. I don't hate this show. There are plenty of good things in it. However, it's hard to defend it from the people who do hate it.

Final Rating: 5/10