Pop Culture Happy Hour - Lanterns

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

HBO’s new DC superhero show Lanterns is not the show you think it is. It’s about a couple of space cops: Kyle Chandler plays Earth’s Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, a grizzled, impulsive old-timer reluctantly training up his backup, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). Yet the story avoids cosmic sweep and spectacle in favor of a character-driven mystery and a grounded setting. Does this series thread the needle to appeal to comics nerds and newcomers alike?If you need more superhero stories, check out these episodes: 'Supergirl' has a solid hero but could use a better villainMarvel’s ‘Wonder Man’ is a low-key, low-stakes buddy comedyConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

So before we get to the show, if pop culture happy hour has ever helped you hold court at Thanksgiving dinner or gut your way through this or that Marvel phase or defend a show you love from folks whose wrongness is visible from space, do us a favor and leave us a five-star review. Thank you very much. This is a lean, very effective show because I'm not comparing it to true detective. I'm comparing it to a lot of other superhero shows. Fair. I would say lesser superhero shows. I would say C.W. Fair.

Oh, Glenn. Lanterns is a new DC superhero show on HBO, but it's not the one you think it is. Yes, it's about a couple of space cops, but it deliberately avoids cosmic sweep and spectacle in favor of a story that's character-driven and literally down to Earth. Most of the action takes place in a tiny backwater in Rorolde Bresca. Kyle Chandler plays a grizzled, impulsive old-timer, who's training up his backup, played by Aaron Pierre. But can this show thread the needle? Can it find a way to work for both comics, nerds, and newcomer normals?

We'll talk about it. I'm Glenn Weldon, and joining me on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Vulture TV critic, Roxanna Haddadi. Hey, Roxanna. Hello, thank you for having me. Of course. Also, this is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast leaving the theater. Hey, Ronald. Hello, Glenn. I always love the way you put the extra seasoning on the name. It's perfect. I mean, theater isn't spelled R.E., but it should be. Every time. In Lanterns, Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan. He's a Green Lantern, a member of an intergalactic core of

Peacekeepers armed with a ring that can manifest anything he imagines. He's been at it for decades, and he's slowing down. Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart, a by-the-book Marine vet, who's devoted his life to becoming the next Green Lantern of Earth. Hal has reluctantly agreed to train John, but the two don't much care for each other. So we both know this is more than just a feeling. Do we? Yeah, we do.

Here's all you need to know. This is my job. As long as I'm alive, that ain't changing. I don't plan on dying any time soon, so why do you? don't you do yourself a big favor and take a nice long, deep breath, Jr.? They end up in Nebraska together because of a twisty plot set in both 2016 and the present day, which involves aliens and a militia and a very surprising dead body that turns up at the end of the first episode.

Lanterns is airing now on HBO and streaming on HBO Max. Roxanna Kick us off. What do you think? I am really, really mixed on this. I was so up and down in my opinions on this. And I think the problem for me comes down to, I think the show is asking some really pertinent, timely, social questions. Like, the show to me is about essentially having a boomer partner who won't quit when you're more qualified for the job. And there are all these questions of, like, race and to a certain degree class.

A lot of these things are catnip for me. I love them. But I think the show doesn't really understand or maybe can't quite commit to what it's actually saying about these things and how they trickle down to character decision making and to how the characters interact with each other. For me, what is really entertaining about this show are the performances. I mean, Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre together, I would watch them wash a car or put some siding on a house. It's like I don't. It doesn't, whatever. They're wonderful together. The chemistry is very good. And I think that a lot of the supporting performances, this is a dream cast in terms of character actors. But from episode to episode, I don't know if I understand what this show is about or the questions that it is trying to ask and answer. And I think probably the worst thing truly that they could have done in the marketing of this show is compare it. with true detective. Because you come in with a sense of,

oh, there's going to be a mystery, and these two are going to banter and bicker, and there's going to be some tension and some thematic stuff. That does not materialize. I'm just very unclear about what this show thinks it is or what it thinks it's doing with the Green Lantern lore. Love watching it, a real, like, beautiful gowns type of show.

But I don't know if there's much there there. All right. Okay. Now, Ronald, a little. green manifested bird tells me that maybe you're a little bit more down on this show. Talk to me. You know, after the first episode, I liked it and I thought that I was going to get more of what I saw there, which was you did have me convinced with the true detective comparison. Let's be honest, we're talking true detective season one in which this is not a slight, a real slight to the other seasons. But I feel like when we use true detective as a shorthand, we're really talking about season one in most cases.

That's a very good point. But if you talk about season. Reason one specifically, what makes that show so great is that there's this opposition of these two forces that breaks apart and then it has to be forced back together in order to overcome an obstacle, which is beautiful and it really works. The reason why I think it's tougher to do in this show is because there's so many other elements that are introduced into the plot that yes, we're interesting and yes, we're good threads. but ultimately, to me, were either poorly executed or did not come completely to bear. Now, we've all only seen up through seven episodes. I do not know how this is going to end. Something could happen in the last episode that makes it all worthwhile and makes me change my opinion so far. But through seven episodes, I'm not confident that they had a fully coherent and cohesive idea for this season of television.

Oh, this is all interesting because my reaction to the show was I like it. I'm realizing now that my reaction is the note I kept writing in my notebook was clever, which is an intellectual response. It's not an emotional response, right? And I thought, this is a lean, very effective show because I'm not comparing it to true detective. I'm comparing it to a lot of other superhero shows. Fair. I would say lesser superhero shows.

I would say CW. Fair. Oh, Glenn. It dispenses with a lot of tropes that those shows wallow in. Like, I think it hits the story beats, but it kind of sneaks up on them. It surprised me with a lot of them. It did not waste a lot of time explaining things when it could imply them. There's also a really nice weirdness here, which I'm looking for in a superhero show.

A lot of it comes in the form of Garrett Dillahunt's character who plays the small town's patriarch. There are thousands of planets out there with intelligent life. And here we sit, low-hanging fruit of the galaxy, just waiting to get gobbled up. We don't get enough of him, but you never get enough of Garrett Dill Hunt. That's a rule of Hollywood. I think also, I thought the flashback episode, no matter what you thought was in it, I thought it was used well, because we learn something that colors what we've seen before and what comes after. We learn new information. It is not inessential information. It's not the Lost model where on Lost, we'd have a Kate flashback episode and we'd learn that, well, she had a really complicated relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, you're thinking, what do the numbers mean, right? I don't care. I don't care about a relationship to her mother. Here, this flashback episode we're talking about, it's episode three,

we learn something we've been wondering about for the first two episodes, which is there's something going on between how John feels about how that we haven't gotten to yet. We get to it there. And it's also where I think, you know, everybody talks about the show,

talks about the show by telling us what it isn't. I tried to avoid the G word. I tried to avoid the word grounded in the intro because grounded, gritty. That's not my speed when it comes to superheroes because I spent, you know, the 80s and 90s wallowing in grim and gritty

deconstructions of superheroes so I am full up on that but what I like about this show is it happens a few minutes into the pilot Hal treats John like utter crap John calls his dad and complains

and his dad says they're allowed to have tantrums we're not so breathe in button down and bottle up you need to be cool can you be cool son yes sir I can be cool good he doesn't say

he can throw tantrums you can't he says they we. That's where I think the show is, it either works for you, it doesn't, man, because it's about training up a new space cop, yeah, but it's also about being a black man in America. And it's not a metaphor, right? It's not figurative. It is taking this very high concept, superhero wish fulfillment, childhood wish fulfillment mythology, and banging it against our reality and letting them kind of resonate, or maybe in your case not. And what it's not doing is saying, yeah, but if superhero was real, they would be fascist,

corporate stooges, right? So it's not the boys. Yeah. I hate the boys. Understood. Because I think that's really boring. And I've seen it a million times. Here it's saying, let's play this out.

If the guardians who dole out these power rings that the Green Lanterns have, the guardians are aliens, they don't have the very human concept of race. So they would have this huge blind spot. So they're don't only out these rings among humans. They don't see what John sees. And the other thing the show is saying is that even Hal doesn't see it because of who Hal is. Hal got his ring by happenstance, but John feels like, because it's true, that he has to work for it and train for it. He's got to work harder. He's got to have the kind of discipline and drive that he sees Howe squandering.

What's that going to do to this relationship? The power like that, you have to work for it. Excel, prove yourself instead of just getting randomly selected. You know, props to the show, but that's all straight from the comic. I mean, it was not handled with the same nuance, I guess, that I see. here that maybe you all don't see here. But if you go back and read those issues now, you're just like, oh, bless your heart, right? There's no nuance. But you don't look to superhero comics of the 70s for like Edith Wharton layers of characterization. But I got some of that here, but I'm gathering you guys didn't. Talk to me about it. I think that is there, and I think that it is especially there in the third episode that we're discussing broadly, because we don't want to spoil anything for listeners. I think that the third episode is the best episode by far of the season.

I think it is the one that is actually saying something that you are alluding to Glenn, which is this question of, like, being non-white in a white country, which is what America essentially, you know, claims it is at this current moment in time. So I think that there is that element and that's really interestingly handled in three. I think there are thoughtful things being done here in terms of what is good quote unquote representation and what would be the realities of being someone in this country trying to measure up to like a white ideal. How infuriating is that? I think that's in three. I really like it. I think that it sort of disappears from the show after that.

I think it just becomes a few stray lines of dialogue, and we don't get further engagement with it. And the thing that I would say, Glenn, about your clever reaction is I have to quote Tyler Durden from Fight Club when he asks, how's that working out for you being clever? And that's sort of my thought on the show. A lot of things are very clever in terms of how they're. revealed or like a bait and switch of narrative plot points. But sometimes that cleverness is not necessarily what I am looking for in a show past a certain point. Yes. I think these ideas are deployed.

And I think to your point, Glenn, it's doing exactly what you said it's doing in terms of how does John Stewart show up as Green Lantern? Well, there's going to have to be some historical context here that exists simply because he is a black man who is a superhero. and ostensibly what we are thinking is to be a time and a place that is similar to ours, minus the existence of superheroes. So I'm assuming that Martin Luther King Jr. And civil rights and all that exists in this world. So if it does, then yes, I imagine the same struggles as black folks exist here, minorities, any other marginalized group.

I think what I struggled here with is when they make these introductions, these ideas, because they don't necessarily have enough of an impact, beyond the personal narrative between him and how. I remembered watching it and thinking, well, I have some issues with the execution. They're saying that, you know, black folks have to work twice as hard to get half as much, something that a lot of folks know. Sure. But then the way that it's executed amongst these black folks,

and I'm trying to be as broad as possible so that I don't create spoilers, to me it felt like it flattened the black experience in a way that we always say often that black folks are not a monolith, but there's a flattening here that I'm saying, like, you said enough for me to say, yes, that's true,

but how would that actually play out here to give you another example of something in the Watchman series that Damon Lindelof, who is one of the co-creators of this show, he did the season of the Watchman. He has some race stuff in there as well with the characters,

Hooded Justice, and Dr. Manhattan. And I found that those parts of them being black in those shows, huge portions of the actual plot of the watchmen are derived from the fact that these people are black. Whereas in this, for me, it didn't quite fit, even though I appreciated them trying. But that wasn't even really my biggest issue. I kind of felt like continuing with the rest of the story.

I don't feel like was as sharp or as clear by the time we get to reveals and knowing who the bad guys are. Then by the time we get to where we are with John Stewart, I'm just curious. curious, I guess for a minute there, I felt empty. And I feel like because the world is so nor, I felt even more kind of dismal and dark inside. It just, it was hard on me, y'all. I'm not even being articulate now. It was just hard on me to get through to seven. I'm just like, I'm so sad. Everything's gray. Everybody's mean to each other. Come on, man. Everybody's mean to each other is a wonderful critique. I'm not trying to watch this show anymore.

Well, we've got more to talk about. We'll be right back after this break. And we're back. All right. I totally agree that where Watchman explored race, this kind of chimes against it. What it's trying to do, I think, is trying to take race and particularize it in the relationship between these two characters. Yes. And the difference between these two characters, again, is clever.

They can both use the ring because it's based on willpower. Hal is impulsive and willful, but John is a creature of drive, devotion, rigor, training, willpower. It's different. And it's trying to widen out from there. And I don't necessarily think it does. I just keep coming back to the construction. Again, that little thing, willpower versus, you know, willful, that's head. That's like me figuring something out, I think.

It's not about how the show makes me feel. I love the twisty plot. Can I just say one thing, Glenn? Sure. you fix something for me just now, there's something to be said about the differences of the way that they use the ring. If that connection is back to saying, I have to think about some things all the time that are constantly running in the back of my mind. And maybe that's why I have a different command of the ring than you do. Now, that's cool.

Like, you might have clicked something in the place that I wasn't picking up from the show. That's cool if that is what they're doing intentionally. I mean, they're trying to do it because that's in the comics, right? Like different people who use the ring, used it in very different ways. and John is an architect. He's also a military guy. He's much more, I guess, technical. In how he uses the ring, he's got his head on a swivel all the time. Hal doesn't. How does things in the comics. He makes a big fist and he punches us. And so I think that's, they're reaching for that here. But again and again, I was struck by how everything on screen felt, you know, we have a lot of first draft television now. And this didn't feel like first draft television. Everything seemed to me like it had been worked over. Everything's considered. I think the audience. reactions and presumptions are taken to account compensated for. They're factored in because I figured out certain aspects of this mystery alongside the characters, not two episodes before.

I love when that happens. It happens rarely. Like, Hal and John keep things from each other for character reasons, not plot reasons. Like, they don't get information from somebody and then hold on to it for six episodes. They let it go and they tell each other things because that's what humans do. It's not used to create tension artificially in a kind of ridiculous. this TV writing way. I think there are some seeds planted in the first episode to come back later in a I'm going to use this word again, a clever way. Like the thing with the bird is setting something up

that comes back. It's very, very cool. You know, I didn't tire the dynamic between these two leads because they both show us that in Hal's case, the bravado is hiding loneliness. And in John's case, the rigor, the staunchness, the severity he has, it's also hiding loneliness. Yes. You know, I would rather compare it to Watchmen, but if I had to compare it to True Detective, it would be like, well, what if True Detective, season one, had not been written by the most insurperally pretentious guy in your creator writing class? Like, imagine that. Yeah. That's kind of what we're getting here. Yeah, I think for me, what's different is that I did sort of clock where this was going by the end of episode one. And I didn't love that. And I think that, again, when we say these things, it's because we are watching. and unnatural and unhealthy amount of television. So we have like a sense of, you know, how casting and certain story decisions are probably going to pay off down the line.

So I don't say that to be like, I figured it out, Glenn. But just to say that I do think that for certain viewers who are coming in with a certain perspective, some of these reveals might not be that shocking. But again, even saying that, what is working for me is that the cast is a real, delight to watch together. I do think, like, I have to sort of keep defending the show on those

terms, even if a lot of the narrative and the plotting is not working for me, I do think seeing someone like Pornah Jagannatha getting this type of, like, really meaty, fascinating, prickly role as the wife of this militia leader played by Garrett Delhunt. That's really fun. Paul Ben Victor from True Detective Season 1 and from The Wire is also here doing like a character actor thing. So I just, I think what really, you know, what is working for me, when all of the Green Lantern lore stuff is not working for me is just seeing actors who feel very confident in their characters getting the opportunity to play off of each other. And Glenn, like you were talking about like the CW shows and some of these other.

other shows in this genre, that really is not always the case with a lot of these shows. You don't get a cast who, it seems like, is really comfortable with their characters and with really taking them to strange, wacky places. And I have to give the show credit for that. I mean, even if there's a lot about the plotting that I'm sort of rolling my eyes at, the character performances are really incredible and what you would hope for from like an HBO Sunday Night Show. I was trying to avoid the term prestige or elevated.

I think if I just say HBO Sunday Night Show, that kind of covers it. HBO Sunday Night Show. It's not TV. It's HBO. Like, we got to bring that back. We got to bring that back. I will say that I think I might watch it alongside the audience week to week and see if my experience with it changes. But I remember thinking, I don't know if this is hitting the same because I am watching it all in a row, as opposed to what I feel differently about this, if I had a week to digest between each episode.

because I do know that by the time I get to episode seven, I do feel like I got there mighty quickly in a way that maybe would have been different if they had been fed to me week by week because if I'm looking at the reaction of folks who have just seen one episode and I see how excited they are about the one episode, I was thinking, yeah, I was very excited

after the end of the first episode. And then I just kept going and that excitement started to wane as I went. But I don't know if that will happen if you're part of the conversation, if we're talking about it, all that. It's in this HBO Sunday night's, that might change its performance.

And I will say also these characters, I still like that they're a part of the DCU. For this to be John Stewart, for that to be Hal Jordan, for them to be a part of the greater DCU, I'm excited about what that brings, even though I wasn't as enthusiastic about this particular series.

Well, let me come back to that question I asked in the intro. The difference between how this hits nerds versus normals, I'm a guy with hundreds of issues of Green Lantern in, I'm an old school Greenlandrette fan. There are dozens of us. Like all these Easter eggs, Mogo doesn't socialize. What about the squirrel? All these jokes, all these little Easter eggs are hitting me and I'm liking them. But I don't sense me that they're overwhelming or they're distracting or they're like just they're annoying the normals. I'm talking to two normals. How did you guys feel about this show in that aspect of it? I think it's fine. It wasn't distracting in any way. I think what I am missing out on is. some of the additional context that you were speaking to, Glenn, about things like how they use the ring and how it picks up on what their personalities or skill sets are. I think that is in the show.

I think it could be perhaps better contextualized, but it does not feel like a show that is, like, badgering you with that detail of lore. So I wasn't distracted necessarily by it. I just think I sort of felt like there probably is more here that I am not grasping. Yes, went over my head, Glenn. I think there was, as a matter of fact, it went so far over my head. When I watch other stuff that has a lot of referential slash Easter egg humor, I can always say, oh, that's a thing. I just don't know what it is.

That never happened during this. Even you just said a couple of things, and I thought just now, oh, that was a thing? It was perfectly easy to watch in that regard. You don't feel behind. If you're just a HBO Sunday night show person, You're probably going to at least enjoy somewhat this ride along the way. I mean, if you were sitting on a couch with me, you'd notice each and every one because I would tell you about that. You pausing to be like, you know what squirrel they're talking about.

I would point you to the issue. That's 100% what Glenn is going to do. Each episode is going to turn into three hours. This is the thing. I watched this through twice, once for me and once four, because I knew that my husband, who's not a comic book guy, not a superhero guy, would like it from the HBO Sunday night perspective. And he does. He did, but his experience was considerably longer than most people's because we paused a lot. I would just pause every time Kyle Chandler does something so I could be like, in the masterpiece game night, this is very similar to what Kyle Chandler does in that film.

And Kyle Chandler is here doing like when he has to do wounded face, when he has to, like, he's so reactive compared to Aaron Pierre, who is not, but is still. I mean, it's a two different kinds of performances. I think they resonate against each other really well. We have arranged ourselves, as we sometimes do, on a spectrum when it comes to the show. A color spectrum. How appropriate. That brings us to the end of our show. Roxanna Haddadi, Ronald Young Jr.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Thank you. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Hapsifotham, and Mike Katz. Have been edited by our executive producer Barton Gerdwood. Our showrunner is Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.