{"id":1045515,"date":"2026-09-05T19:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1045515\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T19:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:50:14","slug":"lanterns-writer-on-creating-johns-divisive-family-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1045515\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lanterns’ Writer on Creating John’s Divisive Family Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since its premiere last weekend, audiences have been watching<\/a> and talking about \u201cOutKast<\/a>,\u201d the third episode of Lanterns. Written by Vanessa Baden Kelly, the flashback-heavy story digs into what makes Aaron Pierre\u2019s John Stewart tick, and we\u2019re early into the show\u2019s run, but it already feels like it\u2019ll be a season standout.<\/p>\n

In a recent Hollywood Reporter<\/a> interview, Baden Kelly highlighted the team writing \u201cwhat rings true to us\u201d throughout the season. In her case, John being groomed as a Lantern from age five parallels her time as a child star on Nickelodeon\u2019s All That,\u00a0but only to a point. She didn\u2019t grow up with stage parents, but she said sports parents are considerably more overbearing, and that\u2019s what helped them figure out how the Stewarts see their son.<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods\u2019 father, Earl, and Venus and Serena Williams\u2019 father, Richard\u2014as well as musical patriarch Joe Jackson\u2014were all \u201ctalked ad nauseam about,\u201d as was the mindset of embracing that parenting method.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a necessity for it when you\u2019re growing up in a certain environment? If you\u2019re growing up in Gary, Indiana, if you\u2019re growing up in Compton, is this the smartest way to do it?\u201d asked Baden Kelly. \u201cDoes it fuck you up so bad that you\u2019re not able to ever come back from it? And could they have done this in something else? [\u2026] The discourse raging online, watching people have the same debates we had in the room about whether this is abuse or whether they did what needed to be done, is reminiscent of what we talked about for six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came to making Bernadette Stewart be a more active player in John\u2019s upbringing, Baden Kelly cited Sonya Curry, Steph Curry\u2019s mother, as inspiration for the mother-son dynamic in the episode. \u201cThese are not women coddling their children,\u201d she said of sports moms. \u201cI think the [writers] room agreed, it\u2019s tough love when dads do it, but when a mom does, people are like, \u2018She\u2019s terrible!\u2019 I wanted to play with that a little bit because it\u2019s like, \u2018Is she?’\u201d (And yes, she did acknowledge things get pushed \u201ca little bit in a different direction\u201d when said parenting involves shooting apples off your child\u2019s head.)<\/p>\n

You can read the full interview<\/a> for Baden Kelly\u2019s additional thoughts on the writers room and making this new version of John. Equally gratified for the opportunity and \u201creally sad\u201d at the harsher reactions, she hopes \u201cOutKast\u201d doesn\u2019t lead to people writing off the rest of Lanterns. \u201cI hope people stick it out with John. He goes through the very human experience of what it feels like to make your own decisions about the life you\u2019ve been given,\u201d she said. \u201cI would caution anybody who feels like they know where [his] story ends, based on episode three, to really make it through to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since its premiere last weekend, audiences have been watching and talking about \u201cOutKast,\u201d the third episode of Lanterns.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1042834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[66614,171,191496,487,151292,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1045515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-aaron-pierre","tag-entertainment","tag-green-lantern","tag-hbo-max","tag-lanterns","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117220175395861781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1042834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}