When a god says “jump,” you ask, “how high?”
That one-word instruction kicks off this week’s Lanterns against a black screen, after which we see John Stewart plummeting into a stack of mattresses from what appears to be the ceiling of an abandoned mall. Following various arrow signs, he shows up to a tiny office where a mysterious Laura Linney tells him to sit and wait. Day turns to night, and then day again, but John doesn’t move until Linney returns. This is his interview for the job for which he’s been preparing his entire life — the job of a Green Lantern — a conversation around which the episode’s flashbacks are structured.
The resultant story makes for fascinating drama, akin to the highlight of HBO’s Watchmen: its eighth episode, “A God Walks Into Abar.” Although not quite as polished on the racial politics front, Lanterns’s third episode is no less intriguing, as an hour of television dedicated not only to answering pressing questions but fleshing out its lead character in disturbing ways. Linney, it’s quickly revealed, is one of the Guardians of the Universe in disguise — the enormous, blue-skinned beings tasked with protecting the cosmos by overseeing the Green Lanterns. Her conversation with John also divulges the depths of his entwinement with current ring-bearer Hal Jordan, via a flashback to when John was a baby, in the all-important year of 1986.
In a major departure from the comics, it turns out that before Hal was selected by the ring (a process detailed in a conversation in the pilot), the glowing green trinket first made its way to John’s father, John Stewart Sr., who was — as previously described — lifted into the air by a glowing green ball and asked, “Are you afraid?” The show once again makes its budget constraints work in its favor; we don’t actually see this encounter but experience it by way of a green light being cast on baby John, as his father screams, “Yes!” in the background, failing the test.
The conversation between John and the Guardian skips back and forth between his infancy, his strict upbringing, and a Marine mission whose details he’s reluctant to divulge, all of which slowly help the series’ emotional pieces fall into place. For clarity, we’re going to stick to a linear retelling, starting with John’s mother, Bernadette (played by a tough-as-nails Jasmine Cephas-Jones), doubting his father’s story as the product of war trauma, until she’s eventually visited by Linney’s disguised Guardian, who reveals her true form (just off-screen) and explains what transpires. It’s here that Linney first lays eyes on baby John and claims that it was his father’s genetic makeup that drew the ring to him — a makeup John carries, alongside that of his fearless mother. It’s also here that his fate is sealed, as a future Lantern bred for fearlessness, for better or worse.
Bernadette explains the racial nuances the Guardians might not know as newcomers to Earth, echoing the landmark 1971 Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic series, which attempts to bring the space cops down to Earth by exposing them to racial strife. It’s not the most polished of subplots, struggling on occasion to root John Sr.’s failing in a lifetime of racial persecution, and by having the Guardian’s reparation to the Stewarts — an enormous diamond — lead to a police inquiry. But it does manage to situate his parents’ drive to raise him for greatness within racial parameters that just about make sense. They know he’ll have to go above and beyond to prove himself among white peers (like Hal, even though this racial difference means little to the Guardians), so they decide to raise him differently from his older brothers, alienating him within his own home through rigorous tests of bravery and survival.
They also try to communicate with the Guardians through radio satellites, though these seemingly omnipotent beings don’t answer them, thus framing them as cruel or indifferent gods whose bidding they do by sacrificing a normal childhood for their son. They even tell John that the Guardians have been sending birds as spies to report back on his progress — a particularly Odin-esque myth — which turns out to be a lie. They raise John through practically religious doctrine, as a means of survival and excellence, crystallizing the show’s otherwise shaky racial themes in some interesting ways.
The episode also touches on John’s artistic side — he was once an architect in the comics — as he’s forced to turn his back on sketching in order to keep training, including being gifted a Green Lantern suit at the age of 5, having apples shot off his head, and, eventually, doing the same to his mother, in a particularly nerve-racking scene. Once he finally joins the U.S. military, he’s sent on lengthy, covert missions from which he refuses to be rescued until he’s sniped his target, even if this takes several months. However, when he’s sent on such a mission in Russia — “jump,” he’s told once again, as he parachutes from a plane — it ends prematurely when none other than Hal Jordan swoops in to nab John’s target, resulting in his dishonorable discharge so his superiors can save face.
Still, the emotionally stunted John claims not to harbor ill feelings toward Hal, though this is most certainly challenged by the end of the episode. Linney’s Guardian tries to draw out some resentment from her new candidate, but John expresses (or feigns) sympathy for Hal, who was betrayed by his father figure Sinestro, an experience John likens to his own complicated upbringing. “It’s human,” he says. “We love the people who raise us, even if they’re crazy.”
Throughout the episode, Aaron Pierre brings a withheld anguish to every conversation, alongside a resignation toward his lot in life. He knows his parents have raised him to be the ultimate superhuman, but he also knows the cost. So when his discharge eventually pushes him off his path, his mother finally lets him follow his artistic dreams. However, it’s here, in art school — at the most unexpected time and place — that a Lantern recruiter (shiftily played by Sergio Lanza) approaches him in disguise. In a great dramatic irony, his artistic pursuits, far away from the regimented goal of militaristic stoicism, lead to his initial tryout.
First, John is asked to sketch a building, and then he’s handed a Green Lantern ring and instructed to imagine his father’s wristwatch, re-creating its ins and outs in realistic detail. (A figure removed from humanity making a timepiece? Talk about Watchmen-esque!) This is where the episode finally loops back on itself, with the recruiter laying out a black hole on the ground, revealing the mall to be a kind of pocket universe. “Jump,” he’s told. He complies.
The interview ends with Linney’s Guardian revealing that they’re searching for a protégé on Earth because one among her ranks has been mysteriously killed. However, they aren’t actually looking for a backup. It turns out, for reasons yet to be explored, they’re looking to outright replace Hal, introducing yet another layer to the conspiracy. John is brought onboard and rushes home to tell his parents that his lifelong dream, and theirs, has finally come to fruition — it’s the first time we see him express even a shred of excitement. However, it turns out Hal has beaten him there and told John Sr. and Bernadette already. As offenses go, robbing John of this fleeting joy is cosmically insignificant, but it’s deeply personal, and it sets their relationship off on the sourest of notes (alongside Hal’s microaggression toward John’s parents, calling them midwestern Huxtables as an intended compliment).
Moments later, their infant dynamic sours even further when, just outside John’s home, Hal makes his objections to the Guardians’ plans known, telling his new protégé he’ll only be replaced “Over [his] dead body,” setting the stage for a religious rebellion and a battle of faiths in different beings and ideals. The resentment between John and Hal is simmering and mutual, opening the door to some of the friction we’ve already glimpsed, while the episode at large lays the complicated emotional foundations for what we’ll likely see between them going forward.
This Week’s Coolest Constructs
(1) The watch. It’s just the one on this week’s flashback-heavy episode — apart from the shield Hall creates around John’s target — but it’s a brief glimpse at the kind of personal and artistic detail John is capable of bringing to a job for which he was raised in such cruel, emotionless fashion.
