HBO's Lanterns Premieres With a Time-Jump Twist That Kills Hal Jordan
HBO's new DC series Lanterns opened on Sunday night with a premiere that flips the script on its two leads — and leaves one of them dead.
The series begins in 2016, with veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) taking newcomer John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) under his wing as a trainee. Their plans are interrupted by a murder in Rushville, Nebraska, that Hal suspects has something to do with aliens. So far, so straightforward. Then the final minutes jump forward a full decade to 2026, revealing that Hal is dead, that John is ostensibly not the Green Lantern, and that the pair have barely spoken in ten years. Deadline
That flash-forward sets up two murder mysteries running in parallel throughout the series, with the events of 2016 influencing what is still to come. The show reveals more about each character's backstory over its run, according to Gizmodo — but the premiere makes clear that the audience is working backward from a death and forward from its cause at the same time.
Kyle Chandler, speaking to Deadline, called the twist one that "opens up the whole mystery of the show." He added: "The whole search is to find out what happened to him." Chandler described the storytelling as non-linear and layered, likening it to "three-dimensional chess." Deadline
The series comes from co-creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King — a team whose names carry weight in television. Mundy was showrunner on Ozark; Lindelof created The Leftovers and co-created Watchmen; King is an acclaimed comic-book writer whose Mister Miracle and Vision runs are widely regarded as high-water marks in the medium. The combination signals a series built for slow-burn mystery rather than capes-and-punches spectacle.
For viewers, the appeal is simple: a detective story wearing a superhero's ring. New episodes air Sunday nights at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET on HBO, and are available at the same time on HBO Max. Deadline
The premiere's structure means the audience already knows the destination — Hal dead, John estranged — and the question is how they got there. Two timelines, two murders, one ring. The search begins.
