Why Is Lanterns Afraid of John Stewart?

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Episode 5 of Lanterns, "Lights Out."]

It's one of the most arresting first scenes in a television drama this summer: A little boy places an apple on his head, setting his gaze dead ahead at his father. The father, a Marine, raises his sidearm and asks if his son is afraid; the boy says no. The Marine shoots true, the two go back in for burgers, and the side of the shed is revealed to be riddled with bullet holes. The two have been at this for some time. 

This is how Lanterns introduces audiences to its hero, John Stewart, Jr. (Aaron Pierre), a man raised under extreme circumstances for a singular purpose: becoming the new Green Lantern. It doesn't matter that the job is filled by the swaggering jerk Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler). John's parents were told that he had potential to be the Lantern one day, and they were fanatical in preparing him for that purpose. He arrives in the pilot with the confidence of his upbringing, willing to submit to Hal's hazing because it's nothing compared to his lifetime of preparation and his incredible focus on his goal: the Green Lantern ring. Rooting for John is easy. He's confident, wry, unflappable, and not a massive tool like Hal. And for whatever reason, Lanterns has spent much of this season keeping him out of the driver's seat.

That couldn't be more literal in the season's fifth episode, "Lights Out," which, after a brief flashback, immediately picks things back up after the events of "The Weenie," with John literally pinned in the passenger seat after Hal runs his rental car into a telephone pole. He's found by Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), who then lets him burn so she can do what she's done to all of Rushville in order to protect her cover as the last Manhunter: place him in her debt by healing him. It's the latest of what's been a long string of indignities John has endured across this season of Lanterns, and it's really satisfying to see "Lights Out" pivot on John getting real pissed and finally deciding to take what is his. It's all deflated, however, by the ending, in which John finally takes the ring from Hal as disaster strikes Rushville…and then gives it up. 

There are charitable ways to examine this decision. Generously, it is possible to read John's choice in "Lights Out" as the first one he truly makes for himself — deeming the power of the ring a corrupting force that ruined Hal Jordan and will in turn ruin him. It's possible that, after a lifetime of taking orders, he has decided that the Guardians are not worthy to issue them, and that he will not submit to their authority. 

Then there are franchise logistics. Presumably, it's thanks to this decision that Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) — another swaggering asshole — gets the ring, and occupies the role of Green Lantern in Superman and Peacemaker. John, as we know from the Lanterns premiere, is still out there in the present, now looking into the apparent murder of Hal Jordan. (A plot thread that the show is likely to pick up now that the Manhunter in Rushville has been found and killed.) Granted, anything can happen in Lanterns' three remaining episodes, but given the constraints of DC Studios canon and the timeframe the series has set up, it does not seem like John Stewart is ever going to be the Green Lantern. At least, not in this season's primary plot spanning from 2016 to 2026. 

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While the rationale for John's arc in Lanterns is legible, it isn't particularly convincing. If this isn't a story about John Stewart becoming the Green Lantern, then what is it? As the show enters its final act, theme and character ought to be coming into focus, and here, they're just becoming fuzzier. Lanterns has gestured at many heady themes, wrestling with how John's path to the Green Lantern Corps is informed by his upbringing as a Black man in America — "OutKast," the series' standout third episode, is about the trap of Black excellence, an idea that gets at, among other things, the cultural biases that demand Black people be nigh-perfect to warrant even the most basic consideration that they still might then be denied. 

As Lanterns goes on, the series does not seem to have the strongest grasp on how to weave these racial dynamics into its story. After the textured work of "OutKast," how are we not supposed to think about Hal's contempt for John in terms of racial resentment? Lanterns is unambiguous in establishing Hal as a man placed in a position of great power because of his privilege, because society has given him little to fear as a straight white man with few attachments. "OutKast" makes it clear that the ring would not be his but for this privilege, and Hal is completely uninterested in examining that. It's a stretch to claim Hal is a racist character, but he is in a position that reinforces loaded ideas, particularly the white supremacist Great Replacement conspiracy, that Lanterns evokes elsewhere. This is most clearly seen in Will Macon (Garret Dillahunt) and his militia, which operates on the pretext that foreign invaders are coming and must be defended against. Of course, we now know this to be a sham, as "Lights Out" reveals that Will is deeply devoted to Zoe and his xenophobic paramilitary group is really there to defend her. 

"Lights Out" muddies the waters further: Zoe, having struck a bargain with John to heal him if he lets her kill Hal and get away clean, notes that she chose her skin color for two reasons, the first being that the best way to understand and conquer a civilization is to start at a disadvantage, and the other being adversity, which produces strength that comfort never could. 

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Lanterns aspires to moral ambiguity; beyond John, its characters don't fit neatly into "hero" and "villain" roles. While Zoe is the closest thing the show has to the latter — and her willingness to blow up the town she helped build out with her technology and miracle cures definitely makes it easier to see her taken out by episode's end — she isn't unsympathetic, at least to John. As such, her perspective has some dramatic weight here, and frankly, it sucks. John merely absorbs it like he takes just about everything in the show, inert and passive at the notion that his incredibly harsh upbringing wasn't just a necessity, but preferable, edging offensively close to the noxious idea that oppression grants the oppressed superpowers. Taken in conjunction with John's decision to reject the ring, Lanterns seems to be arguing that John doesn't need to be a Green Lantern, because he's something better. 

This is patronizing, and it is difficult to afford Lanterns the goodwill to trust that it will land somewhere more dignified with its protagonist. Early in "Lights Out," Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) tells Hal that the Manhunter's methodology is to seduce the strongest in a community, pointedly asking why John had sex with the Manhunter. It's played for comedy, as Antaan is trying to catch Hal in a lie as well as homophobia, since Hal is trying to convince Antaan that the Manhunter is Will Macon. While Hal is glib, Antaan is serious — Zoe, as we know from the premiere, immediately seduces John the second he shows up in a Rushville bar, and as the next five episodes demonstrate, John Stewart is pretty effectively neutralized by the Manhunter. Lanterns seems happy to help them along. 

Lanterns airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.