As HBO’s Lanterns floats along, it has had a slew of interesting twists and turns. To call them divisive would be a massive understatement, especially with the drama revolving around ethnicity that has emerged post-Episode 3, “OutKast.” For context, the plot isn’t as the crow flies, to use flight parlance. It jumps from the past (1996) to the “present” (2016), taking detours to illustrate, not just the immature jerk Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) was and the grump he became, but to magnify the backstory of John Stewart Jr. (Aaron Pierre), and how he was selected as his protégé.
Or, as we’re learning in the wake of a grueling Hal appraisal, Hal’s ideal replacement. Call it what you want – a company man, a Yes man – whatever. John’s assessment is as candor-packed as the Guardians, namely Lianna (Laura Linney), who claims to be their representative. He doesn’t see merit in Hal wearing this green ring, the same way his parents didn’t.
In this third chapter, “OutKast,” we discover the Corps actually wanted John Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson) to stand trial in the green dreamy bubble and answer if he felt fear. The petrified soldier unfortunately failed, so the Corps moved on and chose a fearless Hal.
This revelation pushed John’s disenchanted mother, Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), to concoct a merciless scheme to brainwash and gaslight Junior for years to come. They’d make their own Green Lantern, so that Lianna could run her test years later and anoint John Jr. the chosen one. The strategy is every bit as cruel and negligent as it sounds. Honestly, it’s not even borderline child abuse as they plot his destiny from age five (sorry for yucking that Birthday party yum) and let him know he’s going to be trained with a military regimen like his father. They’ll physically mold a soldier unafraid of anything, while Bernadette indicates they’ll mentally fashion a warrior, too. Even if he grows up isolated from his brothers and harboring hatred.
As a person of color who has written in the past why characters like Black Panther mean so much to us, to marginalized communities, and to the concept of “the other,” this is where Lanterns loses the plot. It has a nice idea, but the execution of this creative approach is left lacking.
HBO’s Lanterns Adopts Colonizer Loyalty At the Worst Possible Time
Now, the concept of painting Hal as entitled and privileged works. Let’s not knock what writer, Vanessa Baden Kelly (a Black woman), as well as what showrunners, Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, and other executive producers — James Gunn, Peter Safran, James Hawes and Ron Schmidt (note: all white men) — aim for.
They want to dictate how Hal doesn’t understand fear as a Black person in America would in 1996, from the current racism doled out, to the generational trauma of decades prior where African Americans were stripped of civil rights. Dogs weren’t set on his forefathers. His kind wasn’t hosed down, so reflecting this aspect of history tracks.
Oppression breeds fright, after all, which lives on in family trees, legacies and dynasties, such that they have to remind their children to step in line, work around systematic and institutionalized racism, and carve their own paths to equality, equity and success.
Upon learning why John Sr. was deemed weak and dispensable, Bernadette questions Lianna if, as an alien of blue skin, she understands how unfair it is to ask a Black man this. Bernadette later contrasts and compares this to Hal, who just by genetics is most likely to have an easier life (historical data is there for us to infer and extrapolate). If you’ve got an ounce of intelligence and read, you know, books, you can see Lanterns want to show the Stewarts have had it tough. And that, no matter what, a fear metric alone will always set Black folks up for failure when they’re quizzed in this candid UFO assault. These candidates are half-asleep, too. Yeah, that’s such a lucid, trustworthy barometer!
But the Stewarts’ response shouldn’t be to build a similar cage. The parents literally enslave John at this juncture. As a grandchild of Indian indentured servants who came to the Caribbean in the 1800s, and also, of migrants who came from Venezuela to Trinidad, I have experienced how future generations try to break free from a colonial past, which includes slavery of Africans. And the volatile rhetoric that ensued to suppress this (just parse any case of DEI repulsion globally) freedom. In this wheel, many parents sacrifice and work hard to create a better world, or at least a cycle, where their kids can possibly thrive.
The Stewarts initially seem like people who’d do this… Rebel against Lianna’s bigotry and chisel a path towards diversity, representation and visibility. Let their boy be seen refining his best qualities to stand out. Sadly, Bernadette (a teacher and educator OF ALL THINGS) implements savage Build-a-Lantern tactics. The thing is, and this is my biggest gripe, it’s all done for the approval of an alien who doesn’t parlay empathy or exude compassion.
There is no kindness. It’s transactional, literally, with the white lady tossing Bernadette a diamond as recompense. Is that what Bernadette thinks is a reward for scaring John Sr. and having people call him crazy? If Lianna thinks so, fine. She’s not worldly, no pun intended. But Bernadette shouldn’t want to appease someone looking for a mindless drone and cosmic slave.
Selling their kid down the river and giving their souls to a “master” is inevitably a tone-deaf move, even if the Stewarts’ intentions were good. We know deep down they want to create a Black superhero to inspire the universe (even if Lianna says he may not be on Earth much). Again, I like how they juxtapose Hal to John and how they’re products of their environment. But this was a missed opportunity to punctuate how environments can be influenced by people, and emphasize why POC believe in and back themselves against crippling self doubt.
Instead of kowtowing and becoming submissive, Bernadette ought not to have enlisted in some random lady’s vision and conjured up her training. Instead, she should have done this training on her own volition for her kin, obedient to one cause: let them see us. We exist in spite of the haters, not because of them. As a result, the series would have exclaimed: POC can rise up, progress and win. Seriously, imagine seeing the mother telling her Johns, “screw the Guardians and let’s make the boy fearless for himself.” That would have stayed a relatable sub-arc.
That’s not to say her regimen wouldn’t be harsh. It could have been tempered so she wasn’t literally dumping a kid in the streets where he could be killed. All in all, by dialing back this programming to her mentally conditioning him to be fearless, fans would have connected more with the stigmas of POC parents forcing their kids down a certain road to please the elders — a trope found in Asian homes, Latino residences, and so forth. An uncomfortable topic? Sure, but as series such as Ms. Marvel, Reservation Dogs and This Fool spotlight, POC are willing have these conversations, acknowledge what’s happening, accept, diagnose, and then treat.
That’s what the truth brings: healing and salvation.
In the process, fans would have witnessed an apt reason for Bernadette pushing her son towards her version of the finish line, letting him know he won’t be passed over for the next test in his life. This wouldn’t have been for the Guardians, this would have been to better him in whatever field he ends up in.
That sociopolitical and socioeconomic commentary wouldn’t need any padding or to go as deep as Lindelof and Co. did for Watchmen. It’d be on-the-nose but subtle enough to know the Stewarts aren’t only trying to prove the Guardian wrong and that they’re an afterthought. They’d, conversely, have primarily focused on themselves — i.e. what their ancestors would have wanted.
Lianna as the ghost they forgot or ignored would have been so much sweeter; a delicate yet more poignant, profound and potent direction in addressing the situation to remind viewers to unapologetically be themselves, particularly now when brands see the public as vehicles and vessels to be appropriated… And in how they perceive cultures and people as nothing more than points of sale or generic numbers on resumes; i.e. a workforce to exploit.
Lanterns Shockingly Opts Out of Speaking To Ownership of Identity – And Makes John Stewart Worse For It
The ruthless family swerve lacks depth and emotion as we see the fragmented family shucking and jiving for an alien, selling their souls, and even worse, hoping John gets a chance to win the lottery down the line. Bernadette herself realizes she made a mistake in trusting that Lianna would return to gauge her son. But she persists with the training, further giving the “deadbeat and absent teacher” agency. In so doing, the Stewarts become the very monster they hate.
If the TV series wants to sculpt them like POC who, centuries ago, sold their people into servitude, maybe the creative team can rationalize it in such a manner in due time. But this would struggle to add up. After all, the Stewarts are cognizant, aware of society, and enlightened. To punish John by adopting a plantation mentality just feels like a forced attempt to push ego into the Stewarts’ family dynamic, while knowingly detracting from the very thing John needs to flourish.
An artist (sorry, Kyle Rayner) and a man who uses heart and soul over logic, emotions and principle over amoral methods, and whose ethics and spiritual values make him worthy of, not just a ring, but of existing. The ring doesn’t matter. It’s not the endgame that makes him whole and a person. That’s not to say becoming fearless for a grounded world wouldn’t have dovetailed into a military career where he learns his upbringing is bad. In fact, the show could easily still tie this into him understanding why his parents created a literal school of hard knocks.
It’d have been due to a breaking point the Guardian shunted them into. But one the parents could still redeem themselves from, as all they’d want is for their boy to show no fear to a world that’d try to crush him… And to a cosmos that would try to label, victimize, appropriate and rob him of opportunities.
Simply put, it’s all about the power balance. Stripping the Stewarts of individuality and identity and having them opt to kick their sense of choice to the curb is demeaning to POC. I say this as someone who, in my advertising days, had to argue with a Black client about why my billboard pitch and visuals of a Black family hugging each other at the breakfast table wasn’t outlandish.
No, sir. Black people do show sentiment and endearment despite what naysayers say. Thankfully, I won the war against that bigoted stat, which is the basis of this argument. Nothing’s wrong with platforming parents of color doing life the wrong way. They’ll err and make mistakes like everyone else. But give them the option of marching to the beat of their own drum; not to the drum of someone Bernadette already knows exhibits all the traits of a slave master looking for stock: a boss who’s cold, uncouth and robotic.
Giving the Stewarts their agency could have been uplifting and flawed at the same time. Unfortunately, “OutKast” creates a whirlpool of toxic obligation, robbing a young, vulnerable, impassioned Black boy of his being and fabric, all to garner approval from someone who just views the family as an ancillary, utility tool.
Frankly, Lanterns‘ discussion of skin color, like in the past comics where John pointed out the advantages White people had to Hal, was always going to require nuance, sensitivity and grounded realism. It was always going to be polarizing. It can even be deluded to an extent, while simultaneously shattering stereotypes. But burdening John as a gofer isn’t an evolution in his story. It’s not his parents’ evolution either. Amid all Lianna’s grandstanding, political posturing and parasitic, psychotic grief, this serves only her growth as she gets a devoted acolyte; a blind disciple who should have been taught not to endure this rigmarole of loyalty for haters and those who’d never appreciate him for who he genuinely was on the inside.
As the Caribbean people say when we frown at capitalism, consumerism and commercialization, once culture vultures appropriate and use us, “Massa days never done.” Bernadette ignores this notion. Not even her bargain/reward for John to go to art school can be trusted because she thought Lianna forgot about them. It sums up how she always reacted to her overlord. She wasn’t proactive nor did she understand her family’s worth as human beings.
Which is a shame, because a John who embarked down this rough path, then became Lantern material without pondering a Lianna interview, would very much have been the kind of unimpeachable, selfless hero anyone (no matter your skin color) would have supported for a Corpsman. And this path would have made it easier for John to confess, forgive and offer absolution to parents who tried to pivot and do what they thought was right by him.
That restitution and redemption song, to me, would have shaped a more intriguing conversation on race relations, especially at a time hatred proliferates and has an undesired, ignorant bearing on pop culture, including cogs looking for an excuse to review bomb and tank ratings. We’d have seen an imperfect, erratic and agitated Stewart clan seeking validation from numero uno (themselves), while eventually copping to their sins and becoming better, not for Oa and a Corps that didn’t see or feel them, but for their own inner peace. Not for an invisible manipulation system that gives Lianna what she wants (control and ownership), even after scarring John Sr. mentally and flippantly, nonchalantly hurting additional victims.
At the end of the day, John not having liberty and free will while he was groomed with literal guns to his head will resonate as the story of a modern Black tribe choosing to side with the subjugator they know they should have shied away from. Had Lianna not displayed why she was a detriment to their lives, the Stewarts as bootlickers chasing that golden (well, green) ticket would have been justified. She did, though. She didn’t mask the fact she wasn’t an ally, which is where the Stewarts should have began shaping John — good or faulty — to be his own man.
With that kind of diligent, learned perspective, Lianna would have had no choice but to recruit and sharpen John to her liking, because he’d have had willpower and been unafraid in a way Hal never could be… A kind of relentlessness that comes from a hot prospect resisting parents who thought they were crafting a hero on their terms. Not that of an uncaring extraterrestrial shapeshifter in disguise. Not to please someone who didn’t take time to understand the experience and pain of people who don’t look like her. Not to sate a boss judging them in a criminal moment she creates. Not to hop and skip to someone who doesn’t understand the pillars of identity at all… Someone who never did and who never will.
Lanterns Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of Lanterns premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET. Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in Lanterns with premiere dates.
- Sunday, August 16, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 1: “Pilot“
- Sunday, August 23, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 2: “Trust Fall“
- Sunday, August 30, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 3: “OutKast“
- Sunday, September 6, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 4: “The Weenie”
- Sunday, September 13, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 5
- Sunday, September 20, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 6
- Sunday, September 27, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 7
- Sunday, October 4, 2026: Lanterns, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
Where To Watch Lanterns
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