Lanterns star J. Alphonse Nicholson has tied Episode 3 to Kamala Harris. Surprise.
Nicholson plays John Stewart Sr. In a new interview, he said America is living with “the consequences of not trusting a black woman” and that the episode shows what happens when you do trust one.
He said it to Fantastic Frankey, the same DC podcast host who spent the week telling fans Hal Jordan is “canonically” racist.
‘This black woman is the reason’
A big chunk of the audience calls John’s mother the villain of Episode 3.
She’s the one running the training: shooting apples off her kid’s head, cutting him off from his brothers, drilling the fear out of him from birth.
Nerdrotic’s crew put it simply: “Thanos has more moral integrity.”
Nicholson sees the opposite.
“I think this show hits it home that this black woman is the reason why this young man goes where he needs to go,” he said.
He gave credit to the woman who wrote the episode: “Especially shout out to Vanessa Baden Kelly for making sure that we centered that in this story because that’s the center of our real lives.”
Then came Kamala Harris.
“You imagine where we would be right now if Kamala got up in there,” Nicholson said. “We’re experiencing the consequences of not trusting a black woman. And now we have this show… how great of a superhero we can create and have if you trust a black woman.”
Some defenders of the episode argue the show wants you to see the parents as abusive and wrong. That’s not how Nicholson talks about the mother. He’s praising her for making John a superhero.
The same interview compared the episode’s Guardian interview to the real thing for Black professionals: “one of our worst nightmares,” “being judged by a white person.”
‘Why make it about race?’
Critics of the episode keep getting written off as “racist frat white fan boys.”
Tyrone Magnus is a Black YouTuber, and he hated it too.
“Why make it about race?” Magnus asked in his review.
His point: the episode already answered why Hal got the ring. John Sr. said he was afraid. Hal wasn’t. “It wasn’t because he was white. It wasn’t because he was privileged.”
“I grew up with a ton of black men, and I’ve never heard one of them even say that they were afraid to be a black man in the United States,” Magnus said.
He would have cut the material entirely: “I would have left all the… racism and racial stuff out.”
He hated the parents too. He called them “tiger parents,” called the family a “strange, weird, off-putting dynamic,” and said the ring’s test made John’s father look “like such a damn coward.”
“The first two episodes were fine with me. Third episode I didn’t like.”
Even fans who liked the episode can’t agree on whether John’s mother is supposed to be right.
The people who made it aren’t arguing. The writer already said race and privilege were the point, and that she’s fine “even if a million people hate” the show.
Now the cast says the lesson is Kamala Harris.
Season 2 still isn’t confirmed, and the Episode 3 viewership numbers land this week.
