HBO's Lanterns just delivered what critics are already calling its best hour yet, and the show is wasting no time raising the stakes for what comes next.
Episode 3, titled "OutKast," switched things up from the series' first two installments as a near-standalone origin story for John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre. Rather than advancing the season's central mystery, the hour traces Stewart's life from infancy through a dishonorable military discharge to his interview with the Guardians of the Universe.
The episode's central lore twist: Stewart's parents were not passive bystanders in his journey to becoming a Green Lantern. His father, John Stewart Sr., played by J. Alphonse Nicholson, was originally selected by Abin Sur's ring around 1986 but answered, "I am afraid," causing it to pass to Hal Jordan instead. His mother, Bernadette, played by Jasmine Cephas-Jones, subsequently struck a pact with a Guardian appearing in human form and portrayed by Laura Linney to raise their son to be completely fearless. What neither Hal Jordan nor most viewers saw coming: the Guardian secretly intended John to replace Hal entirely, not simply serve alongside him.
The Hal-John rift runs even deeper than a simple rivalry. At some point before the series' present-day timeline, Hal stumbled into a Kamchatka Peninsula mission that John had spent nine months staking out, an intervention that directly led to John's dishonorable discharge from the military.
The episode closes on a confrontation between the two Lanterns, with Hal dismissively calling John "Junior." His parting line lands hard: "The only way you're gonna get this ring is over my dead fucking body."
The episode's title is no accident. Outkast's "Gasoline Dreams" plays over the closing credits.
The changes from comics canon are deliberate. In the source material, John Stewart did not learn of the Guardians' long-standing interest in him until adulthood.
A trailer for Episode 4 is already out, and it does not soften the tension. The footage puts the show's two Green Lanterns on a collision course that suggests that Hal Jordan will have to kill John Stewart.
Episode 4 airs Sept. 6 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
