Should’ve been, because Lanterns knows exactly what it’s doing here—even if, according to showrunner Chris Mundy, the football stadium was part of Lanterns before Chandler. Since Friday Night Lights ended in 2011, the actor has played the good son of a fucked-up Florida family, investigated the financial crimes of Jordan Belfort, and twice tangled with Godzilla. And yet, with apologies to diehard Early Edition fans, he’s still most closely associated with his Emmy-winning turn as Eric Taylor, head coach of FNL’s Dillion Panthers and East Dillion Lions. Hal is Chandler’s first TV role in 15 years that could potentially overshadow Coach Taylor, and Lanterns has some cutesy TV-writer fun with that theoretical.
It’s also toying with the viewer, dangling the memories and the milieu of one of the most beloved TV characters of the 21st century in front of us, and then yanking them away whenever Chandler lets loose with the crusty, cantankerous side of his Hal. Sure, Coach Taylor wasn’t perfect—he could be stubborn in his ways, and sometimes put the needs of the team above his own family. Lanterns’ Hal Jordan, however, is an unqualified sonuvabitch, and Chandler clearly relishes the opportunity to play a guy whose faults can’t be accompanied by a “but his heart’s in the right place” caveat.
A third of the way through the premiere, this all feels a little risky. Even taking the cheap thrill of nostalgia out of the equation: It’s never a good idea to invite comparisons between your still-embryonic series and one as cultishly adored as Friday Night Lights. Even if they’re in entirely separate genres, the outcome won’t be flattering. Drafting off FNL in particular feels like a bad idea because of the emotions that show expresses and inspires. The thrill of victory; the agony of defeat; the white-hot, restaurant-trashing rage of “How dare Peter Berg try to get between Coach and Tami Taylor?”—it can all be conjured by merely saying “clear eyes.”
You don’t want the full weight of those feelings crashing down on your show before we’ve even had a chance to really meet Kelly Macdonald’s character. Fortunately, Lanterns plays it pretty cool in those bleachers. But if it called just a little more attention with it, got just a fraction of a percent more clever, it would’ve been playing with fire.
Then comes the flash-forward at the end of the premiere. Same field, same bleachers, same Green Lantern—only this time he’s dead. And that’s where Lanterns really uses our affinity for Chandler and his former onscreen alter ego to its advantage. Killing off a main character in a premiere just isn’t the gut punch it once was—if it ever was in the first place. Take the shock of the maneuver away, and you have to admit: It’s hard to get too worked up about losing a made-up person you just met. But do it to a star of a cherished old show within a visual reminder of his past triumphs, and then you’ve got something. Because Lanterns isn’t just killing Hal Jordan with that setup—it’s killing the image of Eric Taylor, too. The DC fans will smart from the former, the Friday Night Lights fans from the latter. My deepest condolences if you happen to fall into both camps.
It’s blunt, certainly; with every snide remark and “ain’t I a stinker?” smirk, Chandler’s doing subtler work to put Coach Taylor out of our minds throughout the premiere, and continues to do so for the rest of season one. (We all saw the preview after the episode, so there’s no sense in pretending like we won’t be seeing Hal again next week—or that he won’t be returning to that very same football field.) But blunt and effective aren’t mutually exclusive properties.
Hal Jordan is dead, long live Hal Jordan. He takes a little bit of Coach Taylor down with him—and in doing so, allows Lanterns to step out from the shadow of Chandler’s past roles and into Sunday night lights of its very own.
Erik Adams is The A.V. Club’s senior TV editor.
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