"Lanterns" Review: HBO's Green Lantern Series Shines Bright

John Stewart — one of the most flawlessly built men to ever walk the planet, played with remarkable conviction by Aaron Pierre — just can't seem to get the respect he's earned. The guy is nearly six-foot-four, built like a linebacker, and runs like Tom Cruise. As a military-trained sniper he can nail a target from miles away. He's loyal, alert, and possesses superhuman patience.

In short, a complete package. Naturally, then, he's playing second fiddle to an old white man who refuses to retire.

When "Lanterns" begins, John is waiting by the roadside for the active Green Lantern to pick him up. Earth's first and only intergalactic law-enforcement officer, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), is supposed to be training John as his backup: the "emergency" superhero who steps in if anything happens to the man entrusted with the universe's most powerful weapon.

And there's reason to believe something will happen. After 20 years of shuttling around the galaxy, saving the planet from meteors and alien invasions, Hal is resting on his laurels. He no longer wears his uniform, because jeans "make it easier to go to the bathroom." He sports the chronic stubble of a man who can't conjure a razor out of thin air. His graying hair betrays an age his childish jokes try to deny; when he finally comes to pick John up, he's two weeks late and proudly hungover.

It's not quite right to say there's no affection between the master and the apprentice. But respect flows only one way, and despite a flawless résumé, John isn't the one receiving it. After two months of "training," he still hasn't even gone to space with him, let alone put on the ring. When he's not running errands that amount to little more than fetching his boss's coffee, he's waiting: waiting for Hal to finish posing for photos with his fans, to stop goofing around, to be chosen once more.

Hal says he'll die before he gives up the ring; and it's that sense of entitlement, that feeling of superiority, that devotion to the old ways — even as bright new opportunities stand right in front of you — that fuels the tension in HBO's anti-buddy-cop drama. The show is as invested in its uneasy police-procedural duo as it is in telling the story through the eyes of its systematically underestimated hero.

John is a young Black man, Hal an old white one. John does everything right; Hal thinks he does everything right. John spent his whole life working to be deemed worthy of the Green Lantern Corps; Hal simply found the ring in his lap after answering one yes-or-no question correctly. There are, of course, gray areas, but "Lanterns" is clear about who these two men are and what they culturally and generationally represent.

The case, meanwhile, is a real headache. After their belated training return, the pair are summoned to Rushville, a small Nebraska town where four strangers were killed in a shooting at a high school football game. Hal's gut says aliens are involved, which means the local sheriff's well-meaning warnings won't be enough to send them packing.

Sheriff Kerry Kane (a wonderful Kelly Macdonald) is sharp and doesn't take orders. She spots suspects faster than Hal can shoot down his own flirtations; she radiates honesty and trust... but it turns out she's married to Billy (Jason Ritter), son of the town's richest man, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), and Macon happens to be arming a private militia to the teeth, bracing for a war against something.

Macon says his resources come from a "mysterious benefactor" and that an NDA keeps him from talking. His wife Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) isn't any help either, and the rest of the town echoes their de facto leader: they don't want Hal and his apprentice around.

Everything feels a little suspect, and questions pile up fast in the early episodes. Keeping track of who's who, what happened when, and how the bearer of a green ring can will objects into existence can be exhausting for anyone without a doctorate in DC lore. There are clunky moments where characters speak in thesis statements, and the bigger picture can occasionally get lost among the individual dynamics.

But showrunner Chris Mundy, along with Tom King and Damon Lindelof, never lets you forget what matters; clean editing, emotional logic and charismatic performers carry the audience to the story's core.

At the top of that charisma list is Chandler; his good-old-boy charm has been cunningly weaponized to win you over. Hal is a cranky old-timer whose put-downs can pass for "tough love" as long as you believe he's one of the good guys. The way "Lanterns" both undermines and embraces that assumption is one of the show's finest tricks, and one of the best performances of the Emmy winner's career.

Pierre, meanwhile, brings plenty of wit, passion and mystery to John, a vegan who — in Hal's words — "doesn't believe in anything that feels good." In fact, "Lanterns" is his origin story, and Pierre's cool magnetism fits perfectly with the drip-fed information about his past.

While it doesn't overflow with ideas the way Lindelof's best work does, "Lanterns" is an exciting synthesis of its creators' strengths. Like "Watchmen," it's a procedural set in the American heartland that centers systemic racism; like "True Detective," it brings mismatched partners together for a single case.

Best of all: "Lanterns" lives the morality it examines. To become a Green Lantern, you must be deemed worthy, and in a moment of danger you must answer a single question: Are you afraid? "Lanterns" isn't — a riskier venture even than that unfortunate Ryan Reynolds movie it's stuck in the shadow of — but it has plenty to say about what the fears we carry actually mean.

It looks like "Lanterns" has assembled the perfect crew. Turn those lights on.

Note: "Lanterns" premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. on HBO; the eight-episode first season finale airs October 4.