Lanterns continued this past Sunday with the John Stewart-centric "OutKast," which featured the debut of Laura Linney as one of the Guardians of the Universe.
The episode's subtitles have now revealed her character's name: Lianna.
Possible spoilers follow.
In the comics, Lianna isn't actually an original Guardian, but one of the Maltusian children that was born when Kyle Rayner reignited the Central Power Battery on Oa and restored the dead Guardians to life. After taking on an adult Maltusian form, she defeated both Rayner and Jade before ultimately joining the other Guardians.
Linney may not be playing this Lianna, but the name certainly supports the theory that her character will turn out to be a villain.
Though Lianna is most likely not the Manhunter Antaan and his people are searching for (the other Guardians would surely have been able to tell), she has already been shown to have a duplicitous nature by enlisting Stewart as Hal Jordan's replacement, not his trainee.
Hopefully, this Sunday's episode will bring some more answers. According to MTTSH, the flashbacks will end with episode 5, which (presumably) means the remaining three episodes will be set in 2016 and 2026 only.
As for the new twists to John's origin, EP Damon Lindelof explained the decision during an interview with The Wrap.
“When you’re playing around with the canon, you have to treat it like you’re handling plutonium. But at the same time, there’s kind of no fun and creativity and originality in that. So you simultaneously have to start to iterate. How do I expand upon the existing canon without completely and totally violating it? Are there different contextual frameworks for fearlessness that are more relatable to the time that we live in now?”
You can check out a new character poster featuring Lianna below.
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.