Lanterns Episode 3 Recap – OutKast

Following the shocking reveal that Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) is in communication with the legendary Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) at the end of episode 2, Lanterns Episode 3 makes the somewhat unsatisfying decision to abandon the cliffhanger altogether. Instead, the story takes a pause here to spend the full hour exploring the origins of John Stewart — something the comics haven’t done before.

It’s 2016, and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) arrives for an interview with a Guardian named Lianna (Laura Linney). Set earlier in the year than the events in Rushville, Nebraska, this interview even predates John’s time training under Hal Jordan.

John offers Lianna his condolences for the loss of one of the Guardians but questions why interviews are happening when, historically, the ring has chosen its wearer. Lianna only cites his condolences as an answer, but seems more surprised that John hasn’t asked the question normally asked at the outset of the interview: “Why me?”

John explains in Lanterns Episode 3 that he already knows why. This triggers a flashback in Lanterns Episode 3 to when John was just a baby. His mother, Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), gets out of bed to check on one of her children calling from another room. The window outside glows green and John’s father, John Sr. (J. Alphonse Nichols), is lifted into a green bubble and asked by a looming voice, “Are you afraid?” When John answers that he is, the entity returns him to his room.

Lanterns Episode 3 is flashback-heavy, focusing on John and his parents.

A time later, long enough that Hal Jordan is now the Green Lantern, John Sr. watches the news as Hal’s selection is relayed as being a matter of being lifted into a bubble and asked: “Are you afraid?” When John Sr. realizes that the question was meant to interview him to be a Lantern, he shoots the TV, causing a relationship-ending conversation with his wife, who doesn’t believe the story about the green bubble in the first place.

Then one night, while Bernadette takes out the garbage, Lianna approaches her, asking for John Sr. When Bernadette explains who she is, Bernadette realizes she was wrong not to have believed John Sr. Lianna apologizes for the trouble she has caused her family. Lianna offers Bernadette a large diamond in recompense. Bernadette, wary of aliens, asks for proof, and Lianna takes her natural form: a towering blue extraterrestrial.

Bernadette invites Lianna inside for coffee, and they talk about how John Sr.’s encounter with the ring has put him under a mountain of persecution and scrutiny — a problem only amplified because he’s a Black man. It becomes clear that Lianna has no concept of race and the problems that people on Earth struggle with.

Further, she explains that baby John, whom Bernadette is holding, has great potential, and if he were to pass the test as an adult, he might become a Lantern instead. It’s at this point that Lanterns Episode 3 returns to the interview, and John has only just put it together that the same woman sitting across from him is the same woman who visited his mother all those years ago. He informs Lianna that the diamond caused his mother some trouble because the police struggled to believe it was hers to sell.

Lianna moves on to talk about his military service. She already knows that he earned the rank of Sergeant Major. He has to clarify that he’s no longer in the service. That leads the audience to a flashback in Lanterns Episode 3 from John’s time in the service.

John, in full military dress, walks into a steakhouse and sits across from a man in civilian clothes who is upset that John has shown up for a discreet meeting in uniform. The man, General Chavez (Mark Espinoza), is calling on John’s talents as a sniper to go into Russia and assassinate a high-level target.

After he accepts the mission, Lanterns Episode 3 makes the confusing decision to backtrack to the time when John was just a baby. Bernadette reconciles with John Sr. after explaining that Lianna had visited. The two sit in relative silence in the middle of the night, making a plan to raise their infant son to become the kind of man The Guardians are looking for.

In another dizzying jump to John’s military career, John jumps from a plane in weather that realistically would have been incredibly unlikely to have been approved. Then, Lanterns Episode 3 stops that part of the flashback so that John can draw a line in the sand and not reveal any more information about the operation or the reason for his dishonorable discharge.

John once again has to explain human nature to the extraterrestrial Lianna in Lanterns Episode 3.

Lianna moves on to ask John what he thinks about Hal Jordan. John admits that he doesn’t really think about him. When pressed for a response, John says he isn’t really thinking about him, but he respects him as someone whose job is to protect people.

Lianna asks him what he knows about Sinestro, which John really only knows from the news. She explains that Hal was mentored by Sinestro and is troubled by the extent of affection he still holds for his former mentor. John once again has to explain human nature to the extraterrestrial, saying that people grow bonds with those who raise them — even if they’re crazy.

Lanterns Episode 3 then cuts to John’s fifth birthday party. As his family stands there singing Happy Birthday and watching John open his gifts, it’s becoming clear that John is treated with a different set of rules than his brothers. In a mildly inappropriate parenting decision, Bernadette and John Sr. give him a Green Lantern shirt instead of the crayons that he asked for because he has a destiny.

The clear divide between John and his siblings is evident when one of the older boys storms out of the dining area, clearly upset at the abject favoritism that his parents show the youngest sibling. One bad parenting decision typically begets another, and now five-year-old John is given a gun to continue working toward the goal of his becoming a Lantern.

Lianna cuts in to ask if that’s why he became a sniper. John explains that his target range as a sniper is over a mile away. Lianna wants to understand how John feels about the distance and solitude. John correctly interprets it as Lianna questioning him about his connections and attachments, to which he replies that he enjoys solitude.

Lianna is confused by his answer and asks whether John resents his parents for the rigors of his training; the audience learns a bit more about the Guardians’ familial structure — or, more accurately, the lack thereof. John expresses his sadness for her, which only confuses her further. John attempts to explain family to someone who doesn’t have one.

Lanterns Episode 3 then returns to the five-year-old John timeline, where John is outside, shooting apples from a distance with considerable proficiency. When Bernadette comes outside, upset that the dish to communicate with Lianna isn’t set up, John Sr. defends his decision to keep training, and Bernadette wants more tangible proof that they’re raising their son to be fearless.

Bernadette suggests that instead of shooting apples from afar, John Sr. should shoot one as it rests on John’s head. The unhinged suggestion is questioned at first, but with some pressure to make John fear nothing, John Sr. eventually shoots the apple that sits on John’s head.

Lanterns Episode 3 portrays John Sr. and Bernadette as unconventional parents.

When Lianna cuts back in to ask if John loves his parents in Lanterns Episode 3, he answers that not only does he love them, he owes them everything. In another moment of an alien not understanding human expressions, Lianna questions the idea that he “owes” them and asks how he would repay them. The conversation leads back to the central idea — that he was trained for this.

In another military-time flashback, John sets up a hiding spot with a clear view of his target’s compound. He sits night and day watching and waiting for his target to appear. He builds an enclosed shelter and watches from inside. He does push-ups to keep fit, but this is clearly his home until his mission is carried out.

Moving on to a ten-year-old John’s timeline, Bernadette and John Sr., along with all three of their kids, are in the car. The OutKast song “ATLiens” on the radio is being edited by the station for language, which the siblings know, but they assume John wouldn’t even know the real lyrics because he’s being raised differently than his brothers, and they’ve recognized it. His siblings tease him relentlessly for it, but desperately wanting to avoid being an outcast in his own family, he finally speaks up and raps a bit of the song.

At this point in Lanterns Episode 3, but not in response to the language, John Sr. and Bernadette stop the car and leave John on the side of the road in a bad part of town so he can get home on his own. Despite protests from John’s brothers, who are suddenly very protective of him, John Sr. makes John get out of the car and find his own way home.

As John walks in the dark alleys, Lianna cuts back in to talk more about John’s military career, asking why he didn’t use the panic button. John only says that he had a mission to complete. This further confuses Lianna’s perception of human connection as she seems to think this behavior is contrary to human programming. John clarifies that humans aren’t programmed but rather raised.

This returns Lanterns Episode 3 to John’s walk home, and it’s the middle of the night when he arrives. Bernadette informs him that there’s a pork chop waiting for him in the microwave, but exhausted, he just collapses on the bed. Lianna cuts in again to further harp on the idea that he would need their connection, and John has to explain that his parents weren’t always there even when they were physically in the same room.

A 10-year-old John’s flashback reveals that as he looks for his mother, he hears her voice. He enters her room to find her obsessively trying to reach The Guardians about her son’s progress. When he presses her for information, Bernadette accuses him of not making enough progress to warrant The Guardians’ response.

John claims to be afraid of nothing in Lanterns Episode 3, so Bernadette takes him downstairs, and he calmly stands as his father shoots an apple off his head. Then Bernadette instructs him to shoot and places the apple on John Sr.’s head. John can’t handle the fear of shooting his father and fails that test.

Lanterns Episode 3 does something that DC has never attempted: giving John Stewart a proper origin story.

Later that night, Bernadette checks on her son and finds that he’s got a gift for drawing. She gives him comfort and explains that if being a Lantern isn’t what he wants to do, she’ll let him forge his own path. Comforted, John finds renewed confidence and says he’s ready to shoot. When Bernadette attempts to go get John Sr., John stops her and says he wants it to be her. Downstairs, she stands with the apple on her head and looks more terrified than she has in any scene preceding it. John, confident as ever, pulls the trigger and Bernadette is left wearing applesauce.

It’s at this moment that Lianna presses John for more information about his dishonorable discharge. She is no longer willing to let John’s boundary stand if he wants the job of becoming a Lantern.

Through the use of yet another flashback in Lanterns Episode 3, he explains that after 9 months waiting in a hole, he finally found his target. Just when he was ready to take the shot, Hal Jordan flies in, destroys the compound, and uses the ring to shield the target, swooping in and grabbing him before the blast can kill the target.

Back in the steakhouse, General Chavez debriefs John, explaining that Hal overheard the need to get rid of the target from a high-ranking official at a strip club, fearing that their sniper had been taken out. He took that highly classified intel and acted on his own accord, but the Russians are upset about the intrusion, and John is being offered up as a scapegoat to save face.

Lanterns Episode 3 continues with a flashback to his parents’ house; John learns that while he’s been moping around, his mother applied for him to attend art school. After some encouragement, John is seen attending art school.

Back in 2016, but before the interview with Lianna, John is summoned for an art-related job. He shows the man who summoned him that he’s not just good at art. He’s a savant. The man then asks him to recreate his father’s watch using a ring. Satisfied with the results, he sends John on to his interview.

Returning to the end of the interview, John states that he holds Hal responsible for losing his military career and for many of the problems with his family while he was growing up. Lianna explains in Lanterns Episode 3 that the Guardians have grown tired of Hal and want to replace him with John.

Despite giving John an origin story, Lanterns Episode 3 struggles with its many jumping points.

The Guardians are going to tell Hal that he is to train his backup, but in reality, after that interview, Hal was officially no longer The Green Lantern. When John arrives at home to tell his parents in Lanterns Episode 3, Hal is already there congratulating them. After exchanging pleasantries, they move outside. Hal’s demeanor rapidly changes as he explains that he doesn’t need a sidekick or a backup and that he’ll be dead before he gives up his ring. Then he takes off into the sky while OutKast’s ‘Gasoline Dreams’ plays over the ending credits.

Lanterns Episode 3 does something that DC has never attempted: giving John Stewart a proper origin story. While the comics are full of information about Hal Jordan’s lore, Lanterns is finally giving John Stewart a richer story than simply becoming The Green Lantern.

Unfortunately, this exposition-heavy episode of Lanterns was literally all over the place. With the story taking place in five different points in John’s life from infancy to adulthood, it can be difficult to keep everything straight. Still, Lanterns Episode 3 did a good job of providing some crucial information about John, the Guardians, and Hal. It may not have been as strong as the two episodes before it, but Lanterns Episode 3 was a decent entry in the series and will likely be remembered as one of the richest pieces of John Stewart lore ever created.

Lanterns Episode 3 is now streaming on HBO Max with new episodes airing weekly on Sundays.

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