Spoilers for Lanterns finale. Loved the show and the ending but a little confused as to what’s next for John Stewart because for all intents and purposes he’s not really a green lantern. He doesn’t answer to the corps and he has created his own oath. Is he even gonna wear a costume? I would only see John wearing one as a uniform but now that he’s not really a GL why wear the uniform? I’m really interested to see where this goes in either a future film or season 2.

I’m now 3/3 for DCU projects bringing me to tears.
Peacemaker, Superman, and now Lanterns. OR, some asshole keeps cutting onions around me while I’m watching them.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to drop my thoughts on the show. My background with Green Lantern is pretty light. I mostly knew John Stewart from the DCAU's Justice League and Hal Jordan from the DCAMU and other DC animated projects. I'm not big into the comics, but I'm aware of the stuff from Geoff Johns' run.

First, I really did enjoy the show. The performances, music, and writing were all great. Kyle Chandler was so good that I even watched all 5 seasons of Friday Night Lights in the last 8 weeks in between episodes, lol.

From the very first announcement, we were told it was a True Detective-inspired story. I haven't seen True Detective, but I do get the vibe that the comparison was true.

That said, I really wanted to see some of the fantastical stuff I know from Green Lantern lore. I had no idea how far the show would go into it, and I figured it might be saving some of that for the second half of the season. That wasn't the case.

I do question the reasoning behind making a Green Lantern show with so few constructs or actual aliens. The only true-form aliens we see are a Guardian from behind and Sinestro (who is just a red human). I was holding out hope that we'd at least see a Manhunter's true form, which we know is a robotic android, but every alien besides Sinestro stays 100% disguised as a human for all 8 episodes.

By the time John was in the car with Noah in the finale, it was clear the writers wanted a character-driven, grounded story, and I knew there would be no big CGI fight. Peacemaker S2 ended kind of similarly. These projects take so long to make and are ultimately for old and new DC fans, so I think two series in a row skipping the "big fight" finale is a mistake. I don't know if it was budgetary constraints or an intentional writing decision, but it felt a little unsatisfying.

I also thought the confrontation with Guy Gardner at the end was a little off. From what we saw in Superman, he was ready to go toe-to-toe with Supes, but he buckles really easily here. It felt like he would've just fought John right then and there instead of running back to Oa to tell the Guardians about John asserting himself as the Green Lantern of Earth.

I also didn't think they explained the Hal-ogram disappearing very well. Sinestro just asserts that the new Lantern charging the ring will erase it, with no reason given as to why. My headcanon is that the Hal-ogram was connected to Hal's Lantern, which was connected to the central power battery on Oa, and that John's Lantern is connected to whatever's on the planet Sinestro made it on. That's just my own guess, though, and I feel they should've explained it.

It doesn't feel good saying goodbye to either version of Hal Jordan. I also wish they'd explained why he became so jaded by the time John meets him in both 2016 and 2026, since it seemed like something they were going to address. We can assume it was the battle with Sinestro, but again, that's just a guess. I hope we see him again in some way, whether it's Sinestro's plan, Spectre into Rebirth, whatever. It's comic books, something can work.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed the writing and John's character development, and I don't mind him being his own Lantern with his own oath. I just wish we'd seen more Green Lantern-ing. If you wanted to tell a grounded story about shapeshifters, I feel like it would have worked a bit better for Martian Manhunter. It still worked here, with room for more action and spectacle in a season 2, but the wait between these projects is a real drag. We waited years for this series after it was announced in January 2023, and waiting patiently for a season 2 in the hopes of it becoming more cosmic and fantastical just doesn't feel good.

Pretty much my main gripe is that the show shied away from its core as a superhero project and felt more like general grounded sci-fi. I would've loved a tease of John's eventual suit, or at least to see the true form of any alien besides Sinestro.

I really did like the show despite all of this stuff missing, I would give it an 8/10 (I really liked it), but these elements were sorely missed for me regardless.

I can say with all due respect that Supergirl disappointed me less than Lanterns.

So after the watching the finale I just have a question why is the show so invested in humanizing the Manhunters like they aren't genuine robo terrorists who have been known to kill entire sectors which are like multiple solar systems btw it just seems strange why the Show is so insistent on downplaying the gravity of their actions

I understand sinestros role, why hes there, and what he wants. What i don't get is why did he want john to power the ring? The scene is played out like if john says the oath into the new yellowish lantern , sinestro will get what he wants. Which is what exactly? Especially considering john does it at the end anyway. Was the plan there john powers the ring and then sinestro manipulates him??????

Sherman Augustus and Nicole Ari Parker were originally cast as the older versions of John Stewart's parents in Lanterns, but they did not end up appearing in the show, and instead John's parents were played by J. Alphonse Nicholson and Jasmine Cephas Jones (who were originally only cast as the younger versions) in all time periods. I even remember Sherman Augustus being interviewed for the show so it wasn't a false rumor, so I wonder what happened.