Most people have to deal with social media updates or mutual friends when an ex moves on. For small-town lawyer Billy in HBO’s Lanterns, moving on means watching his ex-wife couple up with Hal Jordan, turning a standard divorce into a localized superhero drama.
Jason Ritter Reveals Billy’s Agony of Being Replaced by a Superhero in Lanterns
Breaking down Episode 7 alongside co-star Kelly Macdonald with Collider, Jason Ritter opened up about the lingering fallout across the series’ two timelines, spanning from 2016 to 2026. Over that decade, the town of Rushville endured immense death and trauma, but Billy also faced a uniquely surreal personal indignity as he watched his ex-wife Carrie move on with none other than Hal Jordan.
“There’s been a lot of death in the town,” Ritter explained regarding Billy‘s visible transformation into a bitter, disillusioned man. “And then also, you know, it’s, I think even though they’ve gotten divorced, it’s always tough when your ex-partner starts dating a superhero. So I’ve heard.”
That romantic dynamic, combined with the catastrophic destruction brought to Rushville, stripped away Billy’s former happy-go-lucky confidence and replaced it with sheer frustration.
“Like a lot of sort of happy-go-lucky people, your life and your outlook is one thing when things are pretty much going your way,” Ritter noted. “And I think sometimes those people have further to fall when they encounter disappointment or trauma or devastation in their life.
“So I think yeah, Billy has a lot of anger and sort of feelings of powerlessness. 2026 is a very different time for Billy, and also a time of maybe some misplaced confidence in terms of his ability to start fights and finish them.”
Despite that simmering hostility toward the Green Lanterns, Billy and Carrie manage to maintain a functional co-parenting truce for their son, even if Billy can’t entirely resist sizing up his intergalactic replacement.
“They’ve been able to be humble enough to put their own differences to the side and focus on their kid,” Ritter said. “Although I’m sure Billy has asked, you know, if Noah’s hung out with Hal Jordan and all that kind of stuff: ‘What’s he like? Is he really funny?’“
Ultimately, while Billy and Carrie manage to keep the peace for their kid, it’s hard to blame a guy for wanting to know if an intergalactic space hero is actually funny.
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