Shows Like
Shows Like Lanterns: Slow-Burn Crime Meets Comic Book TV
By Jordan A. · · 5 min read
Lanterns opens with a dead body in rural Nebraska, and that tells you almost everything about what HBO made here. There's a power ring in it. There's an alien or two. But the first hour is two cops standing in a field, and showrunner Chris Mundy has said outright that it's as much a buddy cop show as a superhero show.
It premiered August 16 on HBO and HBO Max, eight episodes weekly, finishing October 4. Which means you're between episodes right now with nothing to do, and the recommendation you want is probably not "more DC."
A murder mystery first, a DC show second
Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan, back on Earth and not thrilled about it. Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart, the new guy. Kelly Macdonald is the local sheriff, Nathan Fillion turns up as Guy Gardner, and Ulrich Thomsen plays Sinestro. Laura Linney is one of the Guardians, which is exactly the kind of casting that tells you what register the show is in.
Mundy ran Ozark and wrote on True Detective. Damon Lindelof co-created this one with him and Tom King. If you're building a grounded, dread-heavy DC show, that's the group you'd want.
Consequence called it a very HBO take on DC, and IndieWire came away on the same page. It's a character show that happens to have space cops in it.
If you're here for the True Detective energy
True Detective season 1 is the obvious starting point and it holds up better than the internet's exhaustion with it suggests. Two men in a car in Louisiana, seventeen years, one case. Eight episodes. If Lanterns is aiming at anything, it's this.
Mare of Easttown is the tighter, sadder version. Seven episodes, Kate Winslet as a detective in a Pennsylvania town where everyone knows everyone, and a mystery that actually pays off. On HBO Max.
Sharp Objects is Amy Adams going home to a Missouri town to cover two murders and coming apart. Eight episodes, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, and the most oppressive summer heat ever put on television.
Top of the Lake season 1, Jane Campion's New Zealand mystery with Elisabeth Moss, is the underrated one in this group. Slow, strange, and it gets somewhere real.
If you're here for the Ozark DNA
Ozark itself, four seasons on Netflix, is Mundy's calling card. Jason Bateman and Laura Linney (there she is again) laundering money in the Missouri lake country. It's colder than Lanterns and meaner, but the interest in ordinary American places hiding awful things is the same. More on that in our Ozark follow-up guide.
Bloodline, also Mundy, also Netflix, is three seasons of a Florida Keys family destroying itself. Season 1 is excellent. Season 3 is not. Watch season 1 anyway.
Justified on Hulu is the fun one. Timothy Olyphant as a US Marshal sent back to eastern Kentucky, six seasons, and the best dialogue of any procedural in the last twenty years.
Grounded superhero TV that respects your time
Watchmen is Lindelof's other DC show and it's still the high-water mark for this approach. Nine episodes on HBO Max, set in Tulsa, and it uses the superhero furniture to tell a story about American history that no other comic book adaptation has attempted. If you've somehow skipped it, do this first.
Peacemaker is the tonal opposite, loud and profane, but it's the other DC show currently built around characters rather than events. Also HBO Max.
Legion took an X-Men character and made a psychological horror show out of him. Three seasons, wildly uneven, unforgettable when it works.
Jessica Jones season 1 is the noir version: a private investigator, a case, and a villain built entirely out of coercion. It's more detective story than superhero show, which is exactly the pitch Lanterns is making.
Small-town American noir
Five picks if the Nebraska of it all is what you're responding to. Fargo, particularly seasons 1 and 2, for Midwestern politeness sitting on top of violence. Under the Banner of Heaven, for a faith community and a detective who belongs to it. Longmire, for the pure modern-western procedural. The Outsider, for a Stephen King adaptation that stays grounded much longer than you expect. And Broadchurch season 1, which is British but invented half the grammar every show on this list uses.
Where these live
HBO Max is doing the heavy lifting: Lanterns, True Detective, Mare of Easttown, Sharp Objects, Watchmen, Peacemaker and The Outsider all sit there. Netflix has Ozark and Bloodline. Hulu has Justified and Fargo.
Our full rundown of what's worth watching on HBO Max in 2026 has more, and if the crime-mystery half is what you're actually after, shows like True Detective is the deeper list.
How to watch Lanterns week to week
New episodes land Sundays on HBO Max, eight in total, with the finale on October 4. It's a complete story rather than a setup for something else, which is a rarer thing in comic book television than it should be.
The weekly release is doing the show a favor, by the way. A mystery this deliberate would get chewed through in a weekend and lose most of its effect. Sit with it. Argue about it on Mondays.
And if you want a shortlist ready for the Sunday after the finale, the BingeNext iPhone app keeps one on your phone.
Seventeen shows is a good problem and a bad Tuesday night. Tell BingeNext you're watching Lanterns, add one more show you love, and it'll rank these by what actually fits you, pulled from the services you already have.
Topics covered: lanterns, hbo max, dc, crime drama, kyle chandler
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.