Following yesterday's teaser, we have some new promo stills for this coming Sunday's third episode of Lanterns, which will feature the debut of Laura Linney as one of the Guardians of the Universe.
Linney is shown handing what appears to be a large diamond to John's mother, and her character's presence in this scene hints at an intriquing twist in the future Green Lantern's backstory.
We know that Stewart is special in some way (the fact that he had the will to hold that bird construct for so long without the ring clearly shocked Hal Jordan), and the theory is that the Guardians made some kind of deal with John's parents to mould him into a Green Lantern when he was just a baby.
Based on a screenshot from the second trailer (see below), it looks like Linney's Guardian will transform into her alien form in this scene, presumably to prove to John's mother that she's on the level.
John and Hal have only used the ring sparingly so far, and showrunner Chris Mundy explained why during a new interview with IGN.
“It's like Kyle says in the bar in the pilot, ‘When and where to use the ring is the whole ballgame.’ That was a character thing for Hal, but it was also sort of us talking to ourselves a little bit."
"We wanted to earn the times we used it in a big way. We start small and start kind of playful with the $20 bill and all those kinds of things, so that each time we used it, people trusted us, like, ‘Oh, they're not just plastering everything with it all the time.’ It's those characters [deciding when to use it], and then because of that, those writers who are making those characters do that thing, they know when to employ it and when not to.”
HBO in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. The pilot episode is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, who are co-creators for the series. Mundy serves as showrunner. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, James Gunn, Peter Safran, King, Ron Schmidt, and Hawes. Based on the DC comic characters from Green Lantern.
The series stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones.
The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.