The mark of a successful show isn’t how many people watch the first episode; it’s how many watch the last. Roping people in for a season premiere is easy. Keeping them around is hard. And so, it’s the brightest day indeed for HBO’s Lanterns, which recorded its highest viewership of the season for the season one finale.
While the first episode pulled in 9.3 million viewers during its first three days on HBO and HBO Max, 6.6 million of which were in the U.S., the finale brought that global number up to 10.5 million, with 7.2 million in the U.S. That means in the U.S. alone, over half a million more people watched the Lanterns finale than the pilot, which is a huge win.
A win that should set Lanterns up for a second season. And, according to Deadline, that announcement is “pending.”
As we covered in our recap of the finale, titled “Dirt and Stars,” the episode wrapped up most of the big questions fans have had all throughout the season and very cleanly set up multiple storylines for a potential season two. However, before that can happen, John Stewart has a part to play in James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow. So whatever happens in that will layer on top of everything else.
But, as was made clear in the finale, John is Earth’s Green Lantern. He wants to deal with things on Earth. Which means that Lanterns can continue to be a more grounded show than the traditional Green Lantern stories. And yet, isn’t it almost a disservice to the legacy of the Green Lantern comic books to continue the story only on Earth when there’s literally a galaxy full of stories and characters to be used?
Whatever the case, audiences showed up for the Lanterns finale and would almost certainly show up for more. We’ll let you know when that happens.
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