[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Episode 1, “Pilot,” including the ending. For a spoiler-free analysis, read our full season review.]
“Shit, am I dead?”
The Hal-o-gram’s first words echo as the premiere’s closing question: Did “Lanterns” really kill off Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) in the first episode? Or do the mysterious events preceding the time jump hint at an alternate explanation?
In the last-minute flash-forward, HBO‘s space-cop drama jumps 10 years ahead to 2026, where a now-goateed John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) is called to examine the frozen corpse of his former mentor. Hal’s ring is gone. John isn’t wearing it (nor does his arrival by SUV suggest he chose to drive through a snowy Nebraska when he could’ve flown). There’s a bullet hole in Hal’s forehead, as well as a significant accumulation of snow on his already whitening hair.
Spotted by the groundskeeper (who we do not meet) and identified by Sheriff Kane (Kelly Macdonald), there’s no obvious reason to suspect anything more complicated than what the scene plainly suggests. But isn’t that what everyone except Hal said about the football field’s first crime scene? And didn’t Hal’s hunch help expose an alien that not only looked exactly like a human male, but also passed an X-ray without sending up any red flags? And then there’s the Hal-o-gram: Just how detailed is the “backup consciousness” of a guy who can manifest tangible materials at will? Could the Hal-o-gram be “dead” and the real Hal is still out there, probably pissing someone off?
The “Lanterns” premiere, co-written by co-creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, covers a lot of ground. There’s the case itself, revolving around four dead aliens on a high school football field in Nebraska circa 2016; there’s a town full of shady citizens, including William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), a rich rancher who’s worried about losing his land to alien colonizers and his wife, Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), who’s not worried enough about her hubby finding out she slept with John; there’s the superhero lore laying out what’s so special about a shiny emerald ring to begin with and, of course, there’s the introduction of our two primary Green Lanterns, involving a father’s terrifying recreation of William Tell’s apple trick and a pink alien bestowing the greatest power in the universe on a test pilot who falls asleep in his boots.
So, to break it down without devolving into chaos — what I like to call a “Looper” scenario, where we’re here all day, making diagrams out of straws — let’s go section by section, starting with the inciting incident:
The Case
“There’s hail in Rushville, Nebraska.”
With those words, Hal’s Hal-o-gram summons our duo to an all-too-common American atrocity: a mass shooting. This one took place at a high school football game, after a winning field goal resulted in fans rushing the field and four people getting shot. Given the rival teams and red state, John argues it’s reasonable to conclude that tempers flared, guns were drawn, and tragedy ensued. It’s harrowing but not “extraterrestrial,” which is what it needs to be for the case to fall under the Green Lanterns’ jurisdiction.
Hal, however, disagrees. For one, no one seems upset. “Seems kinda mellow for a mass shooting,” Hal says. “They’re in shock,” Sheriff Kane counters. “Or,” Hal says, “nobody knows the victims.” All four of the dead are wearing the same sweatshirt, and when they spot a fifth on the ground near a nervous nelly in a short-sleeved shirt (played by Chris Coy), they round him up. (Well, John does, via a sprint through the school.)
Later, at a local watering hole, Hal explains what really tipped him off: Turns out when Hal was first chosen to wear the ring, he was flown to a spot not 20 miles from Rushville where the previous owner, a pink alien named Abin Sur, was dying. Hal always assumed the crash that killed ol’ Binny was no accident, and he’s been using his Hal-o-gram to monitor the area ever since.
So when he walks into the interrogation room to sit down with “Waylon Sanders,” Hal peels away his cover story with a series of random questions every human would respond to, but an alien wouldn’t understand. (“That’s it?” Hal says when “Waylon” shrugs at the mention of the president. “As a rural Nebraskan, that’s the breadth of your opinion about Barack Hussein Obama?”) Waylon drops the act, and before he triggers a self-destruct bomb meant to take out as much of the town as possible, he confesses he’s on a mission related to a “war” that’s driven by “vengeance.”
That’s all we get before he detonates, leaving behind far more questions than answers: Who shot Waylon’s four alien buddies? How’d the shooters know they were aliens to begin with? What sort of war is going on in such a small town, that’s been peaceful for at least 30 years? And how does it connect to Abin Sur bestowing his ring upon Hal?
The Suspects
Common sense (and Hal’s own logic) dictates we start with the strangest player on the board: William Macon. “If it looks like a duck, shoots an AR-15 like a duck, blah blah blah — duck,” Hal says as they drive into the heavily fortified cattle ranch**. Well, Macon is one odd duck. Sure, on the surface, he plays a white-hatted cowboy: good-mannered (even buying tofu steaks for his vegan dinner guest), plain spoken, and ostensibly reasonable.
By way of explaining the elephant in the room — his massive, heavily guarded ranch, owned by an unknown benefactor who restricts the Macon family’s speech via ironclad NDAs — William says he’s not interested in a “wackadoo war with the feds.” He sees himself as “a student of history. Colonization is ugly from any angle, but I tell you it’s particularly bleak if you’re the one getting colonized. This all? Call it an ounce of prevention.”
OK… sure… but why, exactly, is he so freaked out about aliens showing up to take over a few hundred acres in the middle-of-nowhere Nebraska? Was he really willing to spot Hal $200,000 in bail money just so he could talk about outer space invaders with the only person who also sees them as an imminent threat? Who is he “caretaking for,” and how did this person know Waylon was an alien? And why does William seem so cool with John sleeping with his wife, Zoe?
“He’s not a man you want to owe,” Sheriff Kane warns Hal. But Hal isn’t afraid of anybody, let alone a guy intent on separating himself from the xenophobic “isolationist crackpots” he so clearly evokes, but who still can’t accept an idea so simple John shares it without so much as a reply: “We’re all aliens. Just depends which planet you’re standing on.”
If it looks like a white nationalist duck, talks like a white nationalist duck, blah blah blah — duck.
**Remember the last time a Damon Lindelof show started on a cattle ranch? Spoiler: It did not end well for the cattle.
The Co(r)ps
You may not have noticed because it’s such a subtly drawn dynamic, but John and Hal do not get along. The disparity starts early and recurs often: Hal, in his “60 Minutes” interview, says “Every kid’s worst fear is losing a parent,” by way of explaining why he could honestly tell the glowing green light he has “nothing to fear anymore.” But John’s story contradicts that theory, since his worst fear appears to stem from his parent. He and his brothers are deathly afraid of their dad coming home and catching them watching the Green Lantern on TV — perhaps because John knows it will end with him being the target in daddy’s target practice.
Both fathers seem to be the source of trauma for our heroes, just in different ways: Hal’s father died in a plane crash. John’s father is still alive, but he nearly killed him every time John proved his fearlessness by playing “shoot the apple.” Surely, we’ll find out more about these relationships in future episodes, but “Lanterns” wastes no time illustrating the distinct upbringings of its two heroes — and the vastly different men they grew up to be.
Still, one thing they appear to have in common is also an immediate point of contention. In the “60 Minutes” interview, Hal says he was given the ring after asserting his fearlessness. Outside the interview room, John says he admires that trait in Hal, and it’s evident he’s done his best to live without fear himself. (Courtesy of surviving all those apple shots.)
But Sheriff Kane calls bullshit on fearlessness as a heroic attribute. “If you care about people — you know, husband, wife, parent, kid — then you’re scared of losing them,” she says. “First time he strutted up to me, I could tell: Jordan doesn’t care about anybody. And nobody cares about him. He’s not fearless. He’s lonely.”
The framing paints his death, 10 years later, in an extra tragic light. Here lies Hal Jordan: all alone in the cold, in the dark, in his hour of need. Did he die because he isolated himself? Because he was too arrogant to ask for help? Because he was scared? Or is there still time for Hal to connect, perhaps with the person thrust upon him, who he can’t seem to get along with and yet still shows up when help is needed.
Grade: B+
“Lanterns” releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
“Good Luck or Oh Fuck” (Points of Clarity)
• The first sound heard in Episode 1 is a ticking clock, courtesy of the “60 Minutes” broadcast little John is watching on TV. But that same sound played a significant role in another HBO series from Damon Lindelof: “Watchmen.” Interesting.
• “They’re allowed to have tantrums, we’re not. So breathe in, button down, and bottle up” John Stewart Sr. doesn’t know how much his son has taken that advice to heart over the years, bottling it all up, again and again.
• Don’t expect to see Hal Jordan in full Green Lantern regalia very often this season. Not only is the character over dressing for the job he wants, but “Lanterns” is running in the opposite direction of the “Green Lantern” movie, which flopped commercially and critically. Part of the reproach stemmed from an over-reliance on cartoonish CGI effects, including a suit with pulsing green veins and an awkward digital mask. The suit may be canon in the comic books, but “Lanterns” needs to distinguish itself from its most recent onscreen iteration, and ditching the costume for traditional human duds is part of the brand makeover.
• Kyle Chandler under the lights of a high school football stadium… how DARE they turn such a joyful image into something so devastating?! Tami Taylor will have her revenge.
• Could’ve done without “Harry Potter” shout-outs, which just sound like one Sunday night HBO show promoting the next.
