HBO's 8-Part "Stephen King Meets X-Files" Detective Thriller Series Is a Perfect Weekend Binge

The first episode of Lanterns is now on HBO Max and it's unlike anything we’ve seen before in the superhero genre. While 2017’s Logan has Western elements just like Lanterns does, the HBO Max series is more of a rural detective story/crime thriller. This is entirely new and surprising, especially since most people associate Green Lantern with big, sweeping space adventures.

The show features the two most famous Green Lanterns from DC Comics, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), investigating a shooting in the middle of Nebraska. Jordan is convinced the incident has an alien connection, making it of interest to the Green Lantern Corps, the intergalactic planet-protecting force of which Jordan and Stewart are members.

Lanterns is being described as “True Detective with power rings,” which is how creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King envisioned the show as it was being developed. However, if you’ve never watched True Detective, or watched it so long ago that you can’t quite remember the details, that reference point may not mean a whole lot to you. Or perhaps you’ve heard of True Detective without ever taking the time to watch it.

Well, True Detective entirely lives up to the hype surrounding it and the show is perfect for a weekend binge in between episodes of Lanterns.

Image: HBO/Everett Collection

The 2014 series True Detective was created by Nic Pizzolatto (The Killing, Deadwood). It's an anthology series with four seasons, each with different characters and scenarios in every season. But the first season is so beloved that when most people say “True Detective” they really just mean season 1.

True Detective season 1 stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as a pair of detectives working for the Louisiana State Police. In 1995, the duo investigates the murder of a 28-year-old woman, whose body is adorned with seemingly Satanic elements. The case leads them to a missing child investigation from years earlier with similar imagery surrounding it.

Simultaneously, the show covers a parallel storyline in 2012, where a new murder has occurred resembling the 1995 case. McConaughey and Harrelson’s characters, who now hate each other, are brought in to consult on the new mystery, despite the fact that they’d seemingly solved their case back in 1995. The show also depicts events in 2002, which shows why the two parted ways.

Image: HBO/Everett Collection

The thing to understand about the first season of True Detective is that it really is firing on all cylinders. The detective story at the center of it all is interesting, full of unexpected twists, turns, and Satanic elements that make it genuinely scary. Also frightening are the suspects and persons of interest in the case, many of whom are bizarre, creepy country folk. The story is a real credit to Pizzolatto, who wrote all eight episodes of the first season, along with series director Cary Fukunaga.

True Detective is also quite moody. There’s a bleakness to the look and feel of the show that is consistent throughout. Yet thanks to clear directing and very different looks of the characters from differing time periods, there’s never any confusion as to which time period in the story you’re watching. There’s a lot to pay attention to in this complex detective show and it’s not a casual watch, but if you’re going to give it your full attention, you’re not going to be confused and the story unfolds spectacularly.

Image: HBO/Everett Collection

Perhaps the greatest part of True Detective though is that McConaughey and Harrelson play two deeply flawed, incredibly intriguing characters that are impossible to look away from. McConaughey is Rustin "Rust" Cohle, a cop still grieving over the death of his child and the dissolution of his marriage years earlier, and who just got off an extended undercover case that seems to have taken a psychological toll. Harrelson, on the other hand, plays Martin "Marty" Hart, a temperamental family man who cheats on his wife (Michelle Monaghan). Their policing styles are different as well. Cohle is obsessive, analytical, and by-the-book, while Hart is more of an old-school beat cop who would have no qualms roughing up a suspect.

In the 1995 setting, these characters are still just getting to know each other and bonding as new partners. But in the 2012 parts, they’re enemies. It is tremendously interesting and entertaining to see two masters of their craft like McConaughey and Harrelson play both sides of that relationship.

Image: HBO/Everett Collection

Just from the first episode, it’s already clear that Lanterns is going for a similar Odd Couple-type pairing: a world-weary, arrogant, old-school Hal Jordan as the elder Green Lantern, and John Stewart as his inexperienced, overly-serious younger partner. The Nebraska setting also has echoes of True Detective’s Louisiana story, with a certain bleak, rural, backwoods nature to the environment and some of the characters that populate it. The first episode even has a time jump in it too, just like True Detective, with a twist that is genuinely surprising. Hopefully Lanterns unfolds as intriguingly as the eight-episode detective series that inspired it.

True Detective and Lanterns are both streaming on HBO Max.