Kyle Chandler’s Green Lanterns turn in Lanterns lands with a harsh verdict. reviewed the new DC Comics series and judged it a bust, even with Aaron Pierre beside him as John Stewart.
The show splits its story across 2016 and 2026, with Chandler playing Earth’s current Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, and Pierre playing his trainee. That setup gives Lanterns a more methodical shape than a straight origin story, but the review says the pieces never add up to more than a shrug.
Hal Jordan in 2016
In 2016, Hal is weary and lazy when it comes to teaching John to be his backup. That leaves John carrying the more disciplined energy in the pairing, which the review ties to his background as one of DC’s first African American superheroes, a character who made his debut in 1971.
John is described as a well-disciplined son of a marine who keeps his poise and respects the chain of command. In practical terms, that makes him the steadier figure in a series that seems to need one; the review’s complaint is not that the leads lack presence, but that their material does not give that presence anywhere solid to land.
Nebraska and Rushville
In 2026, Hal sends a hologram-Hal to himself with a mysterious message and flies off to Nebraska. John follows by car and plane, arriving at Rushville’s football stadium to find four people dead in a shooting.
That opener gives Lanterns a procedural engine: one set piece per episode, with the story moving from message to destination to aftermath. It also puts the show in a familiar television lane, where each reveal has to do the work of both character setup and case advancement.
Kerry Cane versus Hal
Four dead people at the stadium are described by Hal as visiting fans, but Rushville’s sheriff, Kerry Cane, says they were not aliens and wants him to leave. That contradiction is the sharpest thing in the review’s summary, because it turns the mystery into a fight over who gets to define the evidence.
Kerry is played by Kelly Macdonald, while William Macon, played by Garret Dillahunt, is a local big man and ranch owner working for an even bigger but anonymous man. Billy, William’s weaselly lawyer son, is played by Jason Ritter, adding a second layer of pressure around the same power structure.
Lanterns and the bust
The opener also has Hal interviewing a suspected alien from the stadium, with questions involving Harry Potter’s school and Barack Obama’s name. That kind of crosswise, joke-through-exposition scene can keep a superhero show moving, but the review’s bottom line is blunt: Lanterns is the sort of reboot that hands out atmosphere without payoff.
For viewers deciding whether to start it, the useful takeaway is simple. Lanterns offers a two-timeline setup, Chandler and Pierre in the center, and a conflict over whether the bodies in Rushville were even aliens at all; the review says the result still plays as a bust.
