NOTE: This article contains spoilers for the first four episodes of the 2026 TV show, Lanterns.

For most people, before 2025’s Superman, the last time they saw Green Lantern was in 2012. Starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, the origin story movie was panned for an overuse of CGI elements. Since then, the character of Green Lantern has only appeared animated TV shows and movies, known more to comic fans than to the general public.

When Green Lantern showed up in Superman, I was surprised and excited, but I was even more surprised when Gunn chose Guy Gardner instead of Hal Jordan for this universes’ first Green Lantern. Played excellently by Nathan Fillion, Gardner is cocky, arrogant, and full of himself. But when it comes time to save the day, he shows up and proves that he is a hero, in his own Guy Gardner way.

In July 2025, the trailer for the Lanterns TV show was released to great excitement. Not only did Nathan Fillion reprise his role as Gardner in the trailer, prominent Lanterns, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) are the main protagonists. For a show about space cops, the initial premise is extremely grounded.

Hal Jordan is a Lantern legend training John Stewart on how to be a Green Lantern while investigating a murder mystery in the small town of Rushville, Nebraska. Four out of eight total episodes have been released so far, and as someone who followed the comics closely, these four episodes gave me the feeling of reading a comic book story. There were so many moments throughout the episodes that made me grin like a lunatic. To celebrate the phenomenal success of Lanterns, here is a brief discussion of each of the four episodes and what I love about them.

Episode One: Death of a Pilot

The title of Episode One, Pilot, is clever in two ways. One is the obvious one of this being the first and pilot episode, but the other is it ties back to Hal Jordan’s past as an air force pilot. Whether this double entendre is intentional or not is hard to say, but considering how smart this show is so far, I have a feeling that it was.

This first episode was wonderful as Hal and John’s relationship and displays of individual willpower alone carried scenes. This will not be the first time I praise the performances of Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre in this article as I can write an article alone on how perfect they are from their comic book counterparts, but I digress.

The mystery of Rushville—rooting out who the Manhunter is in a high-stakes game of Among Us—is set up as the two protagonists cooperate with Sherriff Kerry(Kelly Macdonald). They are set up with the prime suspects of Macon family members William (Garret Dillahunt) and his wife Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan, who John falls in love with). You would think that this question of who the Manhunter is would be the thing that the internet would be discussing at length; however, by the end of the episode, a different and very unexpected question was quickly asked when the last scene of the episode was John, ten years after solving the Rushville case, meets up with Kerry to find the corpse of Hal Jordan, missing his Green Lantern ring.

Who killed Hal Jordan?

To say the internet lost their minds was an understatement. Even though we heard that the show would take place in three different years, 1996, 2016, and 2026, nobody predicted Hal Jordan dying. Many theories and suspects arose, some suspected Sheriff Kerry, some Will Macon, even John Stewart was a suspect as he was tired of Hal’s insane training methods. Another theory of this not being Hal Jordan at all but actually a Manhunter in disguise was suggested during Episode two’s release, but there isn’t much evidence of that. And in four episodes, we have still not returned to the 2026 timeline and mystery.

I have mixed feelings about this scene. On one hand, I respect the audacity of the showrunners to kill off arguably the most popular and well known Green Lantern in Episode One. On the other hand, I love Kyle Chandler’s performance so much and I want to see him in this role again in the future. Let’s hope that Episode five finally gives us more concrete clues to solve this mystery.

Episode 2: Trust Fall into Fear

Episode 2, Trust Fall, lives up to its title as trust between multiple characters is tested. Kerry and Hal learn to trust each other more during the investigation, and John and Hal’s trust in each other begins to be thrown into question. First, Antann, a member of a group of aliens who were impacted by the Manhunters, asks John to find the Manhunter in 48 hours and to not tell Hal that they talked to him. John, someone who respects Hal Jordan, does tell him when they meet up again at the end of the episode.

This was a really good character moment because as much as Hal affected his life (we see this in episode three), he does respect him as a Lantern, and Episode four in particular shows why Hal Jordan is Green Lantern.

We end this episode with Sinestro (Ulrich Thomson) who not only looks great but also shows how he is truly a master of fear. It only took one question from him to rattle Hal, “Why don’t you tell me about John Stewart?”

This was the perfect introduction to Sinestro and another great way to question if John is more than he seems. How did John become Green Lantern and why is he so strong willed? Episode three gives us an answer: abusive parenting.

Episode 3: Outkasted by the Corps

Episode three, OutKast, is the most controversial episode of the bunch, and it is easy to see why. It follows John Stewart’s father, John Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson) failing the Green Lantern test by answering yes to the “are you afraid” question used to judge Green Lanterns. So, John Sr. and his wife Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) mold John into being the perfect candidate by training him to be fearless starting at five years old. He is isolated from his brothers, forced to walk home alone one night, endures apples being shot off his head, and when told to shoot the apple off his father’s head, John is afraid and his mother chastises him for it.

Before John’s parents start the Green Lantern training art, Guardian Lianna (Laura Linney), one of the heads of the Lantern Corps, speaks to Bernadette to compensate for giving John Sr. trauma. When they sit down at the coffee table, Bernadette lays into Lianna, saying that because John Sr. is a black man in America, he has much more of a reason to be afraid than Hal Jordan, a white man that has a lot more privileges. As such, the test of fear presented to John Sr. was unfair due to the Guardian’s lack of knowledge about human culture.

Allow me to say this right now: as a black woman, I understand where Bernadette is coming from. Throughout our history, black people have been denied and blacklisted from opportunities simply because of the color of our skin. A lot of people made sacrifices to give me the chance to live a better life than they did. So when this opportunity to get her family something better is torn away because of prejudice, of course she’s going to be upset. As she says in the episode, “even in space, you don’t care about us”. So, John’s parents pushing so hard to give him a chance makes sense. However, as a rational human being with common sense, what they did to John was still abuse.

Making John “fearless” isolated him from his family and prevented John from making any friends. In their drive to give John a successful life, his parents gave him an unhappy one. Even though Bernadette finally acknowledged his passion by signing him up for art school, she also said it was, “a break until you go get the real job”. Most importantly, John is someone who does not question authority at all because questioning them could ruin everything he worked for. That quality is something Hal takes issue with because he does not trust the Guardians at all and does things his own way to get the job done. He is a better Lantern because he disobeys and trusts his gut, something that we see in spades in the fourth and most recent episode.

Episode 4: The Lantern Weenie

The meaning of the fourth episode’s title, The Weenie, comes from Walt Disney explaining to his employees how to design Disneyland. He described how his dog would follow him around while he was holding a sausage weiner because the dog knew that she would eat it. Weenie was then coined as a term for a visual design element that could be used to draw people into and around a space. Weenies are large enough to be seen from a distance and interesting enough for you to want to take a closer look. This is explained in the episode by Stewart, but I bring it up because of its meaning to the series as a whole: Hal Jordan and John Stewart’s weenies are each other.

The previous episode established John’s reasoning: he was built up his entire life to replace Hal Jordan. He follows orders and is by the book, but in this episode, when Lianna antagonizes him to take Hal’s ring from him. When he’s given the perfect opportunity to do so, he doesn’t. Instead of utilizing the ring, he creates clever constructs such as a drill to dig into the Macon’s base and a weight to try and trick a pressure alarm. John wants to earn his ring, not steal it or take it, and by these actions, John has shown why he can earn a Lantern ring.

But Hal shows off why he does have one at all.

He knows when people are bluffing, his gut instincts are right a lot of the time, he knows when to use his ring and when not to, and, as seen in the very last scene of them driving, Hal is very good at finding the truth of the matter, and this episode gives us the truth:

Zoe Macon is the Manhunter and this reveal is cut short by her being blasted by a satellite by someone claiming to be Hector Atlas (Jason Manuel Olazábal), owner of Atlas Inc., who runs high tech slaughterhouses. Not only does Hal call him out as fake, when he bluffs about shooting John’s parents in their home, John shows an emotional outburst for the first time ever, and this one moment makes all the dominoes fall for Hal.

On the ride home, Hal Jordan makes the following conclusions based on everything shown: Zoe Macon is the Manhunter, Zoe Macon survived the blast, and John knew about Zoe’s true identity for a decent amount of time. John loved Zoe, and the reaction of the threat of his parents dying was real and raw, in comparison to Zoe’s death where he just moves on to find Hector without pause. John later confirms this, which then leads to Hal jumping out of the rental car, crashing into a pole without leaving John the ring, ending the episode.

This entire ending segment is my favorite part of the show because it reveals so much with so little. John does have the capacity to lie, John is still in some ways afraid, and Hal is the farthest thing from washed. He is sharper than John in a lot of ways and fights against the trope of the prodigy being better than the mentor. It goes to show that Hal and John’s relationship is the core of this show because more people are talking about why Hal jumped out of the car and left John than Zoe being the Manhunter. We won’t have long to find out.

Conclusion

The teaser trailer of the fifth episode has the look of a season finale with everything spiraling out of control, and it has been built up so well with these first four episodes. The performances of the actors are amazing, the CGI is stunning, and the writing is tight and entertaining. Lanterns has been an incredible show so far, and I want other shows, not just superhero shows, to look at this as an example. Where this show will go from here is very hard to say, but there is one thing for certain:

I am more excited than afraid.

What do you think about the Lanterns so far? Join the conversation on the Boss Rush Network Facebook and Discord Server

Chandler Flowers is a writer for Boss Rush Network. Her favorite video games are Honkai:Star Rail, Metaphor: Refantazio, and Persona 5 Royal. You can find her on Reddit to talk all things RPG, superheroes, and creative writing.

Boss Rush Gamescast – A Gameplay Deep Dive Discussion Podcast & Part of Boss Rush Podcast Plus

Boss Rush Gamescast is the gameplay deep dive discussion podcast from Boss Rush Network. Every other week, a panel of hosts and friends from across the internet take a deeper dive into the games they’ve been playing, featuring light spoilers, fun segments, and great conversations. New episodes drop every other week as part of Boss Rush Podcast Plus, with Patreon members getting early access one week in advance.

Listen to Boss Rush Podcast Plus on Podcast Services
Apple Podcasts + Spotify + Amazon + More Links

Follow and Connect with Boss Rush Network
X/Twitter + Bluesky + Instagram + Threads + YouTube

Thank you for ⁠watching the Boss Rush Gamescast⁠ as part of Boss Rush Podcast Plus ⁠on The Boss Rush Network⁠. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to the YouTube channel and leave a thumbs up on the video. Consider leaving the show a rating and a nice review on your favorite podcast service if you prefer to listen to us there. Your listenership and support means more than you know. New episodes post every other week. ⁠Patreon supporters⁠ and ⁠YouTube subscribers⁠ get each episode one week early access. Thanks for watching and listening and we will see you next time.

Featured Image: HBO Max

Source: DC Studios