Six names dropped this week. Five writers and a showrunner. One room, for a second season of Lanterns.
And the first thing everybody did was look for the name that isn’t there. Tom King.
“I love the theory crafting and the way you engage with the community. I think we are probably past the writers at this point, but I’m holding out hope!” @Joseph-um6wz
Over 470 of you liked that, top of my last Files. We’re past the writers.
Joseph, you might be. HBO isn’t. HBO has six people staffed to write a season it hasn’t ordered yet.
That’s not a rumor. That’s a hiring decision. And a hiring decision is the most honest thing a studio ever tells you.
I hired a writers room once. And Lanterns just showed me its plan. The finale is Sunday, and Season 2’s room is already working.
The Nation asked what the Lanterns writers room means, and what it means that Tom King isn’t in it. So let’s open the file.
First, a Correction I Owe You
“Might want to rewatch that last scene again, The Halogram says great arm kid after he pops back in after the punch. I cant wait for the finale, this show has been something special.” @joshkupka
Over 1,700 of you. Top of Monday’s comments.
You’re right. It’s the Halogram. John punches Sinestro, Hal flickers back in, and Hal says it. Great arm, kid.
I live with ADHD. When I’m fired up, facts jumble, and I watched that episode twice and the wrong name still stuck, all the way to camera. That’s not an excuse. That’s how it happens. I got it wrong.
Last Friday 1,300 of you told me I was wrong about the bubble and I didn’t move an inch. This week you’re right, so I’m moving.
Here’s the thing. Your version is better than mine.
Martin Jordan says great arm, kid to Hal, at the airfield, a couple of months before he’s gone. And then Hal, the version of Hal that can’t lie, says the same words to John.
The father’s line, handed down. Martin to Hal. Hal to John. The son Hal never had hears it from Hal.
That means Sunday isn’t Sinestro recruiting John with a dead man’s words. Sinestro doesn’t get the line. Hal kept it for John.
Josh, Allan, Nina, Modigady, Stellar Hyme, and the rest of you: thank you. Keep doing that.
What Was Actually Announced
So let’s be exact, because this week the internet wasn’t.
Here’s the room, under showrunner Chris Mundy: Christopher Cantwell, Zack Whedon, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, Nakkiah Lui, and Vanessa Baden Kelly. Five writers, one showrunner. Six chairs.
Now here’s the part that got lost in the shuffle. Season 2 is not ordered.
HBO has not renewed this show. What exists is a room, writing scripts and pages so that the day HBO says yes, nobody’s starting from zero.
James Gunn got asked online if Sunday is the season finale and he said season finale, correct. A lot of people heard a renewal. That’s a man confirming a word. A last season has a season finale too.
And the other side of the internet heard an HBO executive say nothing else at DC is in active development, and decided Season 2 is dead. He didn’t say a word about a second season of Lanterns.
Here’s how you actually read it, from the chair. You don’t pay writers for a season you’ve decided against. A staffed room with no order is a studio buying itself an option. It tells you HBO wants a yes ready to go.
It does not tell you HBO said yes.
Where Tom King Stands
Here is everything that’s actually on the record.
King is a co-creator of this show, with Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy. He’s an executive producer. He was in the Season 1 room, and he co-wrote the pilot.
And he’s not in the Season 2 room.
That’s been reported more than once since August, and the reason given is Mister Miracle. He’s running that show for DC Studios, and by his own account he’s writing every episode. One of those reports carries three words nobody repeated this week: he remains involved.
Nobody has reported he was fired. Nobody has reported he quit. And he didn’t walk away from DC. I looked for a source on every one of those claims. Not one.
And here’s the one I want you sitting with on Sunday. The finale, “Dirt and Stars,” is written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King. Sunday night is King’s last word on this season. Whatever this show is when the credits roll, he signed it.
Lindelof’s out too. By the reports he signed on for one season, he’s on another HBO show, and he’s said Season 1 was built as a complete story.
So two of the three people who built this show from scratch aren’t in the room that builds the next one. Why do we care? Because those two are not interchangeable writers. Each one brought a specific thing.
“Did Tom King arrive at suicide because he was writing Hal Jordan? Or did Hal Jordan arrive at suicide because Tom King was writing him?” @verse2304
That’s the right question, and it’s the question this room answers by leaving it.
Tom King writes men who are broken in a very specific way. You can trace it across his books. Lindelof builds boxes you can’t stop opening. Put those two together and you get exactly the season we just watched: a mystery about a dead man, and the dead man is the most damaged person in the show.
Take both of them out, and the box and the wound walk out with them.
So what did they hire instead?
The Room of Six I Hired
I’ve done this. Years ago I made a pilot for a comedy series, and I hired a writers room for it. Six people.
Here’s what nobody tells you about a room. Nobody in it is there because they’re a good writer. Everybody’s a good writer. That’s the floor.
Every chair is a job.
You hire one person because they’ve run a show. One because they’re funny when the room isn’t. One because they know the lead better than you do. One because they can build the world past the edge of your budget.
You build the room for the show you want to make. Not the one you made. So the room is the plan. You just have to read the chairs.
And here’s a detail I love. Go by the credits, and Season 1 was six chairs too: the three creators, plus three writers. Mundy, Lindelof, King, Vanessa Baden Kelly, Breannah Gibson, Justin Britt-Gibson.
Two of those chairs come back: Mundy and Baden Kelly. Four are new. Let’s read them.
Reading the Chairs
Chris Mundy. Showrunner, again. That chair is continuity. The man who held the tone of Season 1 holds the wheel. Whatever changes, the voice of the show doesn’t get thrown out.
Christopher Cantwell. This is the King chair, function for function. Cantwell co-created and ran Halt and Catch Fire. And he writes comics. For Marvel he wrote Doctor Doom, and that book got an Eisner nomination. For DC he wrote Challengers of the Unknown and Plastic Man No More!
So you lose a comics writer who can sit in a TV room, and you hire a comics writer who can run one.
And look at that Doom book. It’s a villain’s book. It’s told from inside the man everybody else calls the bad guy. If I wanted Sinestro to be a lead in Season 2, not a twist, a lead, Cantwell is the first call I make.
Zack Whedon. He worked with Cantwell on Halt and Catch Fire, as a writer and producer. When you’re running a room, you bring the person whose instincts you already trust. And look at the rest of his card. Fringe, which is a mythology show hiding inside a case of the week. Serenity, in comics, which is space. And he co-wrote Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which is a villain you root for.
That’s the space and mythology chair. That’s the person who builds the universe past Rushville.
Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. He ran The Source. He created and ran Washington Black, which is a young Black boy’s journey across the world with a mentor at his side. He wrote for Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone. And he was a consulting producer on a DC anthology called Strange Adventures, years back, that never got made.
That’s a showrunner sitting in a staff chair. You don’t hire that person for a few jokes. That’s the John Stewart chair. His family, his father, his legacy. The inside of John.
Nakkiah Lui. She created and starred in Kiki and Kitty, and co-created and starred in Preppers. She was a consulting producer on The Great, which is a show that’s funny while it’s being cruel. And she wrote on Total Control, which is politics.
That’s the tone chair. And if I’m reading it right, that’s the chair that gets the Guardians. Funny, political, and nobody in charge is a good guy.
Vanessa Baden Kelly. The only Season 1 writer coming back besides Mundy. She wrote “OutKast,” John’s origin, the episode that set a new series high for the show when it aired. And she co-wrote “Trust Fall” with Mundy. You keep the person who wrote your lead’s origin. She’s the keeper of John’s voice.
Now add it up. Nobody in this room was hired for Hal Jordan.
Five Predictions for Season 2
Here’s my read on what this room is built to make, and I want it on the record, because next Friday we open the autopsy and I’ll have to answer for every one of these.
One. It’s John’s show.
“I think this show is John’s origin story and he is the main character” @Joseph-um6wz
Same Joseph. He said it Monday. And the chairs agree with him. The Hinds chair and the Baden Kelly chair are both John chairs. Season 1 was a mystery about Hal. Season 2 is built to be about John.
Two. The universe gets bigger.
“Since the show is a hit, maybe a higher budget for season 2 and we get more space stuff.” @RsZ789
That’s the Whedon chair. You don’t hire the Fringe and Serenity guy to keep it in Nebraska.
Three. Sinestro gets a point of view.
“Is it to crazy to call that I think the show is setting up a Sinestro Corps for season two?” @luisbarboza8003
Not crazy. That’s the Cantwell chair. A man who wrote Doctor Doom from the inside, in the room that inherits Sinestro on a planet where fear is the weather.
Four. Somebody in charge isn’t clean. That’s the Lui chair. The Guardians have been in the corners of this whole season. A room with a political satirist in it is a room that’s going to sit them down and look at them.
Five. Hal doesn’t stay gone the way you think.
“And who’s to say they’re bringing the older Hal back to life? What if, instead, they give life to HoloHal? He is a copy of Hal’s consciousness, after all.” @wpmartin526
Over 300 of you. And after this week, I’m with you more than I was. The Hal who stays with John is the Hal who can’t lie, the one who just handed down his father’s line. Nobody in this room was hired for the old Hal. That’s a room that could keep the copy.
And here’s the honest part. None of this happens unless HBO says yes. The room is a pitch. A really good one, with six very specific people in it.
What the Room Really Means
You asked what the room means, and what it means that Tom King isn’t in it. Here’s the file.
King didn’t get pushed out, and he didn’t leave. He’s running another DC show, he’s still involved, and Sunday’s finale has his name on it.
What left the room is the box and the wound: the mystery, and the broken man at the center of it.
What came in is a villain writer, a world builder, a John Stewart writer, a satirist, and the woman who wrote John’s origin, all under the man who held the tone.
That’s not a room for the show we just watched. That’s a room for the show after it.
A studio can tell you anything in a press release. Who it hires is the only thing it can’t fake.
After Sunday’s finale I’m going live to talk about it, the full review lands Monday, and next Friday we open the autopsy with every one of these five reads on the record. VisionQuest coverage starts with the October 14 premiere on Disney+, and next week I’m at New York Comic Con as credentialed press.
Your turn. One sentence: pick the chair. Which writer in that room are you most excited about, and what’s the one thing you want them to write in Season 2? Not the theory. The chair, and the scene. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
