Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for Lanterns S1E3, “OutKast” (written by Vanessa Baden Kelly and directed by Stephen Williams)
The third episode of Lanterns sure hit the trifecta of potential landmines for a television show, particularly one that is just beginning and trying to find its footing, albeit after a couple of (in my opinion) very successful episodes. In “OutKast,” we have a flashback, an origin story, and some serious time-jumping that is completely out of chronological order. That sets up the potential for a disastrous episode, but watching it once and then watching it a second time, trying to sort out the years that are portrayed, I think this episode really works.
It works for a couple of reasons. First, it takes us back to one of the more compelling scenes of the young season. In “Pilot,” we saw the first scene from 1996 when young John Stewart’s (Cairo Cash) father, Johnny (J. Alphonse Nicholson), shoots an apple off his son’s head after he is caught watching an interview with Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler). With no background or understanding of why that would happen, the desire to learn more permeated the first two episodes.
Second, it was framed around another major question the show has posed in its first few hours: Why would the Guardians, the protectors of the Cosmos, be interviewing John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) to be a new Green Lantern when: a) the ring normally chooses the next Lantern; and b) Hal Jordan is alive and well and makes it very clear at the end of the episode that he doesn’t want a sidekick, he doesn’t want a backup, and the only way John Stewart is getting the ring is over Hal’s dead body (all with much more colorful language befitting of an HBO show).
The structure of this episode allows us to answer both of those significant questions. How did John get to the point of being chosen for an interview to be Green Lantern, and why are they even interviewing him in the first place?
In early 2016, we are introduced to Lianna (Laura Linney), who is the Guardian tasked with interviewing John Stewart, and there is an immediate test when she asks John to take a seat, but she proceeds to leave for the night and not come back for the interview until the next morning. John, who we will learn later has no problem with long periods of silence, isolation, and uncomfortableness, patiently waits for Lianna to return, and when she asks if he wants to know, “Why me?” he tells her he knows exactly why he is there.
This opens the door for the episode to explore many parts of John’s life, from when he was a baby to the events right before his interview with Lianna. It might make more sense structurally to categorize these different timelines together, so I’ll do my best to make that happen.
Baby John Stewart
The first major revelation in this episode is that John wasn’t the first Stewart to get a shot at becoming a Green Lantern. Years earlier, when John was a baby, the ring found John’s father, Johnny Stewart. He is lifted into the air and confronted with the same question that apparently determines the Green Lantern. Is he afraid?
Johnny admits that he is. He later says he was afraid to leave his family and didn’t know what to think when he was lifted out of his bed late at night. The ring leaves him and eventually chooses Hal Jordan instead. Johnny absolutely falls apart over it. He watches a television report celebrating Green Lantern and, when the reporter talks about Hal’s fearlessness, Johnny shoots the TV in front of his children, showing some combination of regret and shame about his response when he was asked.
It’s a pretty brutal introduction to the idea that John’s entire life has been shaped by somebody else’s failure. Eventually, Lianna visits the Stewart family and confirms that Johnny wasn’t crazy. She even leaves behind a gigantic diamond as compensation for the emotional turmoil the Guardians have caused. More importantly, she tells Bernadette that John’s potential may have been passed down to their children. Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) takes that information and sees an opportunity to give John something Johnny had taken from him.
“How Do You Make a Green Lantern?”
Bernadette and Johnny begin debating a question that reads just as much like a theme of this entire show as it does a strategy for two parents to raise their child to be a superhero. “How do you make a Green Lantern?” Johnny asks Bernie.
She believes the Guardians rejected her husband because he was afraid, and she’s determined that her youngest son will never make the same mistake. The show also tries to bring a component of race into the discussion about why Johnny didn’t want to leave, why it’s harder for a Black man to face being rejected, and how it will be harder for John to achieve these goals. But it leaves this idea relatively underexplored, when there were seemingly opportunities to dig deeper later in the episode. I’m sure it’s something the show will return to later.
Regardless, Bernadette understands that John is going to have to navigate a world where simply being talented isn’t necessarily enough. If the Guardians are looking for someone fearless, she is going to make sure they have no excuse to overlook him, so John is going to be raised differently. The parents agree to raise him without fear, even if it means John eventually hates them for it. It’s a decision that will define virtually every moment he has with his parents and also how he will interact with everyone for years to come.
Five-Year-Old Birthday Party
Then we have the strangest five-year-old birthday party you will ever see.
John just wanted some new crayons because of how much he loves to draw, but he gets a Green Lantern uniform and a small rifle instead. His parents also decide this is the right time to tell him that he has a destiny. They tell him the Guardians want him to become a Green Lantern. He will be raised to be fearless and not back down from anything. They even tell him that birds are watching the family and reporting John’s progress to the Guardians. Heavy stuff for a kid who just turned five.
It’s one of those moments where the scene is equal parts funny and moving, and there is also something deeply sad about it. His parents aren’t really allowing him to be a kid, and certainly aren’t going to treat him like his two older brothers. They have decided what John is going to become before he is old enough to understand what that means.
John Stewart’s Later Childhood
Later on in John’s childhood—perhaps somewhere around 1996, when we see the initial scene with John and his father—his training becomes more and more intense. It turns out the whole shoot-the-apple-on-John’s-head training was actually John’s idea. John is trying to meet his parents’ expectations, which seem to become more complex and irrational with each passing year.
A short time later, while John and his brothers are bonding over some OutKast music (and it doesn’t take too much to make the connection that John is the outcast of the family), Johnny and Bernadette stop the car, make John get out in a dangerous part of town, and just drive away. John has to find his own way home.
When John is a little older, Bernadette pushes him through another test involving the apple and the rifle. This time, however, she wants John to shoot it off his father’s head. John can’t pull the trigger, and Bernadette initially reacts with disappointment before finally explaining something that may be the most important lesson she ever gives him. It’s natural not to want to hurt someone you love. Love, she says, is the most important thing they have.
I had a hard time with this because of how brutal she seemed to be to John in other parts of the episode, and she certainly gave him no agency in who he wanted to be growing up. I guess this is just Johnny and Bernie’s version of “love.”
She also admits that the birds were a lie and that they aren’t sending messages back to the Guardians. Again, we’re sure Bernadette is the best person to describe what love is? The Guardians weren’t sending birds to monitor John. Bernadette had invented that story to keep him focused.
John isn’t happy, but he does decide he is ready to try the test again. However, this time his mother has to be the one with the apple on her head. John takes the shot and hits the target.
Marines + Sniper Mission
This training and practice with a rifle leads John to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Marines, where he eventually becomes a sniper. Sometime, likely in 2015, John is sent deep into Russian enemy territory on a mission to assassinate a target known as Gray Wolf. John spends months watching the target’s house, waiting for the perfect opportunity. But it never comes.
Eventually, when John finally has a clean shot, Green Lantern arrives. A green bubble protects Gray Wolf just as an explosion destroys the house. It’s Hal Jordan, of course. Hal has apparently gone rogue and taken Gray Wolf himself, acting without U.S. military authorization. The military now has a massive diplomatic problem, particularly because of the international implications of the operation. Somebody has to take the blame.
John’s military contact asks him to take the blame so the U.S. can save face. He is dishonorably discharged and essentially loses the military career he had spent his entire life preparing for. Hal Jordan, the man who took the ring from John’s father, has now accidentally taken John’s military future from him, too.
2016: The Interview and Hal Meets the Family
After leaving the Marines, John returns home dejected, rudderless, and confused. His mother encourages him not to give up on the Green Lantern dream, even though she has spent most of his life preparing him for it in some pretty horrifying ways. In some weird way of trying to make up for all of that childhood trauma, she applied to art school on his behalf? What can I say, mothers do weird things sometimes.
During his art school interview, John is asked to draw objects from memory. After John sketches the building they’re in, the “professor” gives him a Green Lantern ring and asks him to manifest his father’s watch, which John is able to do despite never using the ring before. That demonstration gets him sent directly to the Guardian interview we saw at the beginning. But this time the conversation turns to Hal Jordan and why John surely must resent him.
Lianna asks whether Hal has complicated his family life over and over, and John says yes. But John insists he doesn’t hate Hal. The Guardians, however, aren’t nearly as forgiving. They’ve repeatedly warned Hal about using his powers to interfere in Earth’s international disputes. And now they appear ready to replace him. This interview is less about being a sidekick, and more about whether, if asked, John would be comfortable taking Hal’s place. If the Guardians give him an order, he’ll follow it. A military man, after all.
Back at John’s house, he can’t wait to tell his parents the news following the interview. But Hal is already there sharing a meal with them. At first, he’s charming and polite. He knows the family and jokes about them being the “Midwest Huxtables.” He tells them John is going to be trained, and he plans to call him “Junior.”
But once he’s outside with John, the friendly act disappears.
Hal makes his position very clear: John is not getting his ring willingly. He doesn’t want a sidekick. He doesn’t want a backup. If John is going to get the ring, Hal says, it will be over his dead body.
This was a strong episode in helping us understand three things. First, what John’s background is with Hal and why he should harbor such resentment towards him. I guess John thinks the best way to get back at Hal is to get trained to be his replacement as quickly as possible. Second, we get a sense of why Hal has become almost persona non grata with the Guardians. He is acting outside his authority, and they think he is still too close with Sinestro, who was his mentor and father figure before Hal imprisoned him.
Lastly, as was brought up in last week’s “Trust Fall,” it appears these two will always have their guard up around each other, and any trust that they build in the weeks and months ahead is going to be very hard to come by. For a show that orbits around the relationship between its two central characters, where that can go is what keeps me hooked every week.
