The Review: Lanterns

Lanterns 10/10

Spoilers. I had absolutely no interest in watching the series. I am not a big Green Lantern fan and one of the stars of this has a face that bothered me but now I am used to him. This is the story of how Jordan training John Stewart on becoming a Green Lantern. Green Lanterns normally do not have trainees and Hal knows that at some point this guy is supposed to replace him and does not want that to happen. He barely even trains him and when he does it's dangerous. Like jumping out of a moving vehicle and leaving John the ring to figure out how to survive type of dangerous.

The crazy thing about this show is that by the end of the first episode we see that Hal Jordan is already dead and we don't know what happened. Hal Jordan has been a Green Lantern for years at this point. In the past we see that John Stewart was trained since he was a baby to become a Green Lantern by the Guardians who are the ones who pick and choose who the next Green Lantern is going to be. They had actually attempted to pick John Stewart's father and just floated above his bed asking “Are you afraid?” Of course this man was afraid! His wife even had to explain to a Guardian the concept of race and how asking a Black man if he is afraid is a dumb question. As a Black man I agree. So he goes about his life with his wife thinking that he's just crazy and it's never happened until one day how Jordan shows up on the TV screen flying and shit. The Guardians aren't huge fans of Hal Jordan because he kind of does whatever he feels like.

This series jumps between time so we're in a town called Rushville where we see in the future it looks dilapidated but in the past 10 years ago it looked just fine. We find out what had happened and it is insane. I really enjoyed this show quite a lot. I fully expected to watch the pilot episode and then be done with it but I was completely invested in these characters. Even though they're all new to me it felt very lived in and as if these people had actually experienced these things. I guess you could say that is just great acting, directing, and writing. 

They didn't even have to use the ring every episode showing some fantastic thing that could be created with it to keep me interested. I just wanted to see what was going to happen next. I truly do miss having TV shows to watch every single week. I know that folks love squeezing in an entire series in one day or a weekend and then asking when the next season is going to be. That is fun with crappy Netflix shows but for other series I like the anticipation of waiting. I hate that this coming Sunday I'm not going to have a new episode of Green Lantern to watch. That is truly a mark of a great show.

Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern

Aaron Pierre as John Stewart

Kelly Macdonald as Kerry Kane

Garret Dillahunt as William "Will" Macon

Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe Macon

Ulrich Thomsen as Thaal Sinestro

Jason Ritter as Billy Macon

J. Alphonse Nicholson as John Stewart Sr.

Laura Linney as Lianna

Jasmine Cephas Jones as Bernadette Stewart

Click here for previous The Review.