HBO’s Next Must-See TV Event Is a Superhero ‘True Detective’

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/HBO Max After a rocky start, the DC Universe finally gets a bona fide win with Lanterns —largely because the eight-episode HBO series seems divorced from the fictional comic book-y world in which it exists.

Part True Detective mystery, part Lethal Weapon buddy comedy, and part superhero origin story, Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King’s Lanterns (August 4) features little of the cartoonishness of its big-screen predecessors Superman and Supergirl , instead taking a somber and realistic approach to its tale of a “space cop” known as a Green Lantern, his protégé, and the strange occurrences that threaten to bring destruction to a small Nebraska town.

Structural unevenness aside, it’s grounded even when its superpowered main characters take flight, thanks primarily to stellar lead performances from Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, which lend this fantastical material its down-to-Earth soul.

The DCU’s first promising step since its 2024 reboot—and the studio’s best small-screen effort since Peacemaker ’s maiden run— Lanterns jumps between time periods but for much of its initial season is set in 2016, where John Stewart (Pierre) is picked up by a running-late Hal Jordan (Chandler).

The latter is Earth’s sole Green Lantern, an intergalactic peacekeeper who—following a career as a test pilot—was chosen for the position after answering “no” to a simple question: “Are you afraid?” Once selected, he was awarded a magic ring (and matching suit) that, when powered by a lantern, grants him the ability to create anything he can imagine.

Courtesy of his decades of derring-do, he’s now a national celebrity.

John, however, is far from starstruck, viewing Hal (rightly, it turns out) as a peerlessly arrogant smartass.

The tension between them is off the charts at the beginning of Lanterns , and over the ensuing episodes, it grows tauter.

Chandler and Pierre are a perfectly mismatched duo, with the Friday Night Lights alum a disheveled, cocky badass who’s none too pleased about having to prepare his “trainee” to eventually take his place (considering that Earth gets a single Green Lantern), and the Rebel Ridge breakout quietly fuming over Hal’s egotistical condescension and his own inferior position in this partnership.

Hal and John are two alphas tasked with working together even as they vie for the same ring, and Lanterns thrums with hostility as it sends its protagonists to the small town of Rushville, Nebraska, where four strangers have been murdered in the high school football stadium.

Hal knows this locale well and quickly deduces that the victims are aliens.