Lanterns: The Official Podcast | Ep. 6 "Bad Optics" | Justin Britt-Gibson, Stephen Williams, & Stephanie Economou

DC Studios Showcase: The Official Podcast

The episode explores the creative and technical execution of Episode 6 of 'Lanterns,' titled 'Bad Optics.' Host Juju Green interviews co-exe

Key takeaways

The episode utilizes a 10-year time jump to 2026 to contrast a prosperous past Rushville with a more distressed, 'bad optics' present.
Director Stephen Williams leveraged the real-world atmosphere of Altadena fires to enhance the somber tone of Hal Jordan's funeral scene.

Main topics

Character evolution in 'Lanterns'
Visual storytelling and atmosphere

Notable quotes

The time jump was actually very helpful for us because it allowed us to imagine two versions of Rushville.

Conclusion

A detailed look at how technical artistry in direction, writing, and m

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) I can fix this. I just gotta tie some things up over here. Speaker 3 (0:04) Aye, what about we? Or is that what you just say in the pitch to make good for everything you got and I didn't? Hey, man, Speaker 1 (0:11) listen. Speaker 3 (0:15) You never came home. You've been stuck in Rushville for ten years and you ain't leaving until you finish whatever the hell it is you and Hal motherfucking Jordan started out there. I just pray it don't kill you like it killed him. Speaker 6 (0:35) What's good, everybody? I'm Juju Green, and welcome to Lanterns, the official podcast. Every week, we go deep on the episode, we bring in the people who made it, and we get into what exactly the show's about underneath the surface. Now, today, we're diving into episode six, Bad Optics, written by Justin Britt Gibson and Damon Lindelof, and directed by Stephen Williams. Now, remember, this is a spoiler. a spoiler discussion, so don't come here complaining that there's spoilers when you knew that. Go watch the episode, come back, and listen to everything we're talking about after the fact. Now, this episode is kind of a rebirth. It's a second mystery taking shape on the heels of the first. The question is, who killed Hal Jordan? And a 2026 version of Jon Stewart is on the case? What? Like... The way the last episode ended, it felt like a finale in and of itself. So now we're dealing with the fallout. And what I liked about this episode is that you get something different. You get a little bit more of a melancholy feel, like Hal Jordan writing his own eulogy. Pretty sad. Kind of crazy. But... very poignant at the same time. Later, I'm gonna be talking to Grammy Award-winning composer Stephanie Ikunomu. But first, joining me to unpack the episode is co-executive producer and writer Justin Britt Gibson and director Stephen Williams. Justin wrote the previous episode and co-wrote this episode with Damon Lindelof. You guys already know how the vibes are with that one. Speaker 6 (2:02) All right, guys, let's welcome Justin Brick Gibson, the writer of episodes five and six, and director Stephen Williams, the director of three and six. Thank you so much for talking to me, guys. Great to be here. Thanks, Juju. Good to be here. This episode, it's Speaker 5 (2:15) a Speaker 6 (2:15) lot to get into, right? It's the moment where everything just kind of changes, right? We got a 10-year time jump, let's just say it. How Jordan's dead, which we knew from episode one, it was the big twist reveal. Talk to me about jumping ahead this far into a world where it feels a little bit darker without Hal Jordan in it. Like, even Jon Stewart hasn't even thought about the Green Lantern ring in 10 years. So talk to me about, like, the decision, whether in the writers' room or, like, kind of, like, taking on the atmosphere. Like, what was this like bringing this to life? Speaker 5 (2:44) The time jump was actually very helpful for us because it allowed us to imagine two versions of Rushville as well as two versions of Jon Stewart. centrally as well as Carrie Kane and a little bit of Hal Jordan. And it really allowed us to create this sort of beautiful dichotomy of, you know, them then and then now and sort of this feeling of like, because, you know, in 2016, you sort of see the Halcyon days of Rushville where it's sort of this like. bright, booming town where not all is what it seems, but it also is this place where everybody seems to have it all figured out and everybody has a sort of great life. And then obviously John and Hal come in and sort of turn everything upside down. And so using those two timelines allowed for, I think, you know, the sort of seamless transition of storytelling where you immediately know. And I think. This is a credit to you, Stephen, as a director. It was so important that the filmmakers sort of articulated that visually. I think Stephen did an incredible job sort of giving us... the new version of Rushville, which is sort of much more down on its luck and not a boomtown anymore, and everyone's very adversarial when it comes to the Green Lanterns and the sort of impact they had on the town. As much as it was important for us to get that right in the storytelling, it was absolutely essential to find talented filmmakers who would be able to visually articulate that. Speaker 6 (4:07) the aesthetic of this episode, it doesn't feel like essentially, like again, like you said, the town is like bustling and booming and all these like happy-go-lucky people. It now feels like the site of one of the biggest tragedies to ever happen. Right. Which goes ahead with, it goes right along with the title, Bad Optics, right? Right. You know? Right. Rushville has some bad optics happening and the Green Lanterns, as a result, always have the bad optics as well. So can you talk to me about kind of like discovering this look of... of the new Rushville and just kind of like this dreary dark cloud that's hanging over not only John and Hal's ghost, but the town Speaker 4 (4:45) itself. Ten years is a long time. So not only has the town changed and as Justin so clearly articulated, the relationship of the town spoke, the inhabitants of Rushville to John, Hal's memory. Green Lanterns in general, but Jon Stewart has changed. He is a completely different character in a way than, let's say, in episode three, some of the earlier episodes where he's much more guarded, much more reticent. Here he's, you know. running this incredibly successful architectural firm. He seems happy. He opens the episode in a very bombastic, forthright way and is juggling a lot of balls between his relationship with his brothers, his company, trying to figure out what happened with Hal, what went down, trying to connect all those threads. Speaker 4 (5:42) And he is doing that against the backdrop of this incredible shift in gear that happened in Rushville, and it's now a much more distressed locale. It's been destroyed and not yet fully refurbished, or parts of it have been, you know. affected by significant events that happened elsewhere in the show, and it's not been returned to its former glory. And so, there's a lot that's coming together in this episode. Speaker 6 (6:13) Yeah, there's a lot. There's something I want to talk about here when it comes to the origin story of a lot of heroes, right? Like, obviously we know the parental figure's dying is kind of like a stalwart thing, but it's very rare when you get... a story such as this where the origin involves the destruction of an entire city on your first foray into trying to be a hero, right? Your first day out, and this whole thing just completely goes to shit. And so you can see Rushville as almost like this scar that's been hanging over John for those 10 years. Like, yes, he may be happier. Yes, he may be more successful in things that he want to do. He doesn't want the Green Lantern Ring anymore, but Rushville will always be a part of him, and the people of that town will look at him as the hero. who failed, right? And so him coming back and him wanting to figure out how's murder and him wanting to tie up these loose ends, I thought that was a very clever way of redoing an origin story that is, you know... familiar but not familiar with that character. So I thought that was really great. Well, it's almost like a re-origin story, right? Yeah. It's sort Speaker 5 (7:14) of like John's experience was this, it was literally a baptism by fire, you know? And so for him to come back to this, I always like get origin stories, stuff like that. But the way you use it as a contextual, to contextualize John's story is really interesting. And I think that's a really cool way to look at the character because, you know, throughout superhero storytelling, it always is this thing of, you know, we see the person from birth into the suit and all this other stuff. And for John, it's much different. This is someone who walks ultimately like, you know, walks away from it, you know? And for John, it's this like, sort of like. really strange and eerie homecoming, you know, where it's this place that, you know, I think deep down he wanted to avoid because it's really like opening the door on his past, you know, and everything that he was trying to do was the Green Lantern. And now he's really, really trying to move on. And so much of this episode is about him. finding out that he can't move on, you know? And that's what we in the room were really trying to sort of, like, convey through all of the sort of the pushing and pulling. He's getting pulled in all these different directions, you Speaker 6 (8:21) know, Speaker 5 (8:21) whether it's his parents or his brother. But ultimately, he just can't help himself, you know? I think, because honestly, I think if John really did move on, he wouldn't have gone back. He wouldn't have taken the bait, you Speaker 6 (8:32) know? I don't think he would Speaker 5 (8:34) have taken mom's bait. He'd have been like, ah, okay, whatever. Whatever, bro. He's Speaker 6 (8:37) just been Speaker 5 (8:37) trying to, like, mend things. Like an ex-girlfriend. You don't go see your ex-girlfriend, you know, unless you want trouble. You're looking for trouble. Speaker 4 (8:44) You Speaker 6 (8:44) ain't coming back. It's going to be a Speaker 5 (8:46) lot of trouble. Speaker 6 (8:46) You ain't coming Speaker 4 (8:46) back. Speaker 6 (8:50) See the Green Lantern ring as the ex Speaker 5 (8:52) -girlfriend. I love that. When the girlfriend says, hey, I want to have a conversation, it's like, you delete that message immediately. Forget you Speaker 6 (9:00) ever got it. Speaker 5 (9:01) Yeah, Speaker 6 (9:01) let's not do that. I think it's funny how his brother even has those moments like, bro, don't Speaker 5 (9:07) go Speaker 6 (9:07) back. You have this weird relationship with that ex-girlfriend, man. I hope you find peace. I hope you're happy. But, bro, don't go back. I love this contextualization of the Green Lantern ring as an ex-girlfriend. Who hurt you, bro? Who hurt you, Justin? Speaker 5 (9:23) Too many, man. Too many. Speaker 6 (9:26) But, like, I really want to talk about kind of, like, the differences between 2016 and 2026 of, like, you know, the evolution of Jon Stewart. Because, you know, just the evolution of, like, superhero-dom as a whole. Like, first off, setting this thing in 2016, when I heard that, I went, oh, this is interesting. Why are we setting it back 10 years ago? And the first thing I thought about was, oh, well. In the current day, if you watch movies like Superman, superheroes are kind of accepted, Superman's kind of running around, even Batman is being told is a big legend. Whereas the Lanterns, they're kind of like, oh, we got bad optics. You know what I'm saying? The PR needs to be done on the Lanterns. And so I found that very interesting about the state of superhero-dom and the commodification of superheroes and things like that. Did you guys have conversations about how people viewed superheroes? And when Guy Gardner eventually comes into the fold, he's just kind of like, hey. I got this suit. Like, I can't be seen with you guys, because what you guys did was kind of messed up. Did you guys have those conversations about superherodom as a whole when it came to the change in... I mean, I can't Speaker 4 (10:28) speak for the writer's room, but definitely that was there in the script. It was there in the text. Guy Gardner has his own, you know, workout beverage, you know, with his face right on it. And the tone of the piece becomes kind of... It's a self-referential kind of irony in a way in the piece that's... also allows for an intrusion of humor. It's kind of funny. These superheroes are postmodern superheroes in a way. Guy Gardner for sure is, and he's hilarious. And that aspect of it was there in the script, and Justin can speak more about the conversations that, you know, led to that. Speaker 5 (11:07) Credit first goes to sort of James Gunn and how he built this universe with, you know, obviously Superman and Peacemaker. So sort of this idea of, and I love the term you used, Stephen, of like sort of this... postmodern superheroes. I think we're in a time where there's a lot more cynicism. These characters feel a lot more lived in. And we all have a vernacular for them now, you know? And so, what I love about... What we did was sort of trying to find ways to sort of normalize it. It was not a big deal that people are flying in the skies and they have all these cool powers, you know? It's kind of, it's a nuisance, if anything, in our show to sort of articulate Speaker 6 (11:40) that, Speaker 5 (11:41) you know, these people are a nuisance and they're, you know, they're wreaking havoc and that's part of Jon's business. He's building sort of these shelters for when these, you know, kaijus come in, these superheroes have to, like, you know, lay waste to cities just to save the city. And so I think... I think there was something fun and really sort of like interesting about sort of recontextualizing superheroes and the way people look at them. And I think Rushville 2026 is this great sort of microcosm of that idea and the way sort of John is received when he gets back there and he's turning on the signal to signal Guy and obviously gets into a bit of a scuffle with the locals, you know, and those guys, they don't like superheroes. And I think I liked... approaching it from that sort of vantage point because I think, you know, if this genre is to sort of thrive and move on, we have to find fresher ways to tell these stories. And that's, I mean, this is a larger thing, but I think that's one of the things that attracted me to this. the vision of this show is that we kill Hal Jordan in the pilot. I was like, I was shocked.