It was known from its inception that Lanterns was meant to be a grounded take on the usually space-bound superhero group, attempting to craft a show in the vein of True Detective . Well, it did that, and some fans appreciated it while others didn’t. And those that didn’t may want to buckle up for season 2, which the showrunner says will be similar.

As ever, we are talking about Lanterns season 2 like it’s already been greenlit, which it hasn’t, but everyone involved is taking it for granted and the writers’ room has been in operation for a while already. Here, Lanterns showrunner Chris Mundy talks about the plan for season 2, and how it isn’t changing its vibe and location:

“It’s like we’ve tossed out a lot of different things,” Mundy said on The Ringer-verse podcast . “I mean, again, we want to treat it all—you know, we won’t be back in Rushville most likely unless something crazy happens in Rushville, you know, every 10 years. But you’re going to—it’s going to be an Earth-based story that we continue most likely.”

“We’ve shown that you can leave the planet, so that’s good, right? But because of that, we want to make whoever’s here as sort of grounded and real as possible. Our idea was just to ground everything and then layer on the other layers. But it’s just like, okay, are you with us? Great. Now we can expand. And it’s the same thing with introducing all the other Lanterns and stuff.”

So, while the show will introduce more Lanterns than just John, Guy and Hal, it seems (all indications point to Hal’s return in some form), the door is open for others, which could include the likes of Kyle Raynor and Jessica Cruz perhaps. Hopefully Mogo, the planet. Or the squirrel one.

However, yes. earthbound and grounded. It’s not like that didn’t work for most of the season, and it did step onto two other planets at one point, briefly, but at a certain point, many fans are hoping for the kind of blockbuster Green Lantern construct action we got a taste of with Guy in Superman. We just got a bunch of different types of shields and a tornado in Lanterns, mainly.

I understand not wanting to totally abandon the genre, but I do wonder how much of this could be budget constraints, as grounding the show on Earth without huge CGI fights is a lot cheaper than the alternative.

I did like Lanterns, but I do think it goes a little too far with the grounded aspect. Even in the finale, we get no suit, no real constructs and John flying as the only reasonably cool use of powers. Nor do I think what was actually the big action episode of the season was all that memorable either. Fortunately, the writing, the acting, carried the season, and I really did like it overall. But the show being fully grounded forever? It feels like we have to save true GL cosmic action for movie cameos, at best, and I don’t love that.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .