Lanterns Episode 3, “OutKast,” shifts gears for the HBO series, turning its focus to the story behind John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and why the Guardians ultimately saw him as the ideal choice to succeed Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) as Green Lantern.
**Spoilers for Lanterns Episode 3 “OutKast,” now streaming on HBO Max**
At first, viewers may have read the show’s cold open as proof that John Stewart Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson) shaped his son’s unusual upbringing — the apple-shooting tests, the intense conditioning, the effort to raise a boy without fear so he might someday wear a Green Lantern ring. But Lanterns Episode 3 complicates that assumption. The episode reveals that John’s mother, Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), was the real force behind that path. After discovering that her husband once had the potential to become a Green Lantern, she makes an emotional plea to a visiting Guardian, who appears in the form of Laura Linney, asking that young John be given his own chance in the future. With that promise in hand, Bernadette sets out to raise young John (Cairo Cash Lee) into the steady, fearless figure seen across the 2016 and 2026 timelines.
That revelation raises one of the episode’s most intriguing questions: how much of John Stewart’s fearlessness is innate, and how much was carefully cultivated?
“I believe that John was born fearless and then his parents, arguably through very questionable methods, managed to keep that fearlessness instilled in him through his childhood, through his adolescence, and into his adulthood,” Lanterns star Aaron Pierre told DECIDER. “At which point he takes the reins and he continues keeping himself fearless.”
Pierre then changed the subject, calling attention to a key scene in this week’s Lanterns that he thinks fuels the “raging sea” churning inside of his adult version of the character.
“There’s a moment in Episode 3 that really breaks my heart every time I watch it,” Pierre said. “It’s where John’s mother tells John that essentially the Guardians are not impressed with his progress and that the birds have relayed that. And he says, ‘Well, the birds are lying.’”
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“It breaks my heart because this kid is maybe this high [mimes short height] and he believes that the birds are the narrators and the storytellers and the direct ear to the Guardians. And he feels betrayed by the birds. How could they lie and say that I am not giving everything that I possibly can? I’m having guns aimed at me routinely. An inch south and I’m out of here, I’m out of here! Like how can they say I’m not pouring myself into this?”
Pierre then said, “I think that is what is the beginning of this raging sea that stays with John all the way through his adulthood. And I believe has not — even when the series ends — [it] is still there and he’s still contending with it.”
“He has a very excellent way of outwardly making it seem that everything is smooth sailing, but he’s a raging sea internally, and he wrestles with that relentlessly.”
Lanterns Episode 3 “OutKast” underlines how John Stewart grew up to become a man without fear, but that only means he’s a man full of fury.
Lanterns will return on Sunday, September 6 at 9 PM ET on HBO and HBO Max.