Lanterns episode 2, “Trust Fall,” sees John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) attempt to escape alien captors on the highway while maintaining custody of Hal’s (Kyle Chandler) lantern and trying to keep his conjured bird alive.
The dynamic sequence, which features a close quarters fight in the back of a moving van and a chase into oncoming traffic, is the HBO Max original’s first high stakes action scene and it was choreographed by stunt coordinator and second unit director Justin Riemer.
I caught up with Riemer to delve into the challenge of orchestrating the standout moment around a bird and giving the audience our first real look at who John is as a fighter.
Justin Riemer On The Bird In ‘Lanterns’ Episode 2 Highway Fight
Riemer shared that conceptually Lanterns creators Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof “had a pretty clear idea of where we started and where we needed to end in the sequence,” his job was to figure out how the scene gets there.
He described incorporating John’s bird as a “unique challenge” which led to a lot of discussions about how to convincingly pull it off. For a sequence as propulsive as episode 2’s highway chase, it’s not as simple as knowing a bird is present. They had to consider “how big it would be, how it would move, [and] how it would react to John and the environment.”
That last point encompassed not only the van where the bird starts off cradled in the hands of one of John’s captors but also outside as it flies past and through cars caught in the wreckage piling up as John tries to escape and chase it down.
Riemer said, “The goal was to make the interaction feel as seamless and natural as possible.” But, of course, choreographing the scene meant taking into account a living creature that’s not physically there.
“The physicality of the fight and the sequence stays the same,” he explained. “But you’re constantly thinking ahead for when the bird actually becomes part of the scene.” The answer for Lanterns was immediately.
As soon as John wakes up in a moving van with his hands zip-tied, he locates his bird and then uses it to his advantage. The bird serves as a distraction, first for the man watching John and then for the driver as John fights to free his hands and take down his captor.
It’s the first time viewers see John square off with someone and the team wanted the audience “to understand from the beginning that John is extremely capable.” The choreography drew from three facts about him—he’s “an ex-Marine, and a boxer, he’s someone who has trained for this his entire life.”
For John, it’s not a question of if he’s able to handle the situation. It’s how. That’s why he’s showcased as being “incredibly powerful, but at the same time, very technical and controlled in the way he fights.”
However, this is also a two-person dance. The man John fights factors into the choreography’s storytelling as well. Riemer said, “With the captor, hopefully the audience picks up that there’s something just a little different about him and his capabilities,” even with the subtle choices that were made.
This is in reference to the building suspicion during the fight that John’s captors aren’t human. It starts with the gentle way the man in the back of the van holds his bird and continues through the close quarters clash into the chase down the highway as the man hops from car to car.
The reveal that the beings who captured John are aliens doesn’t happen until after the highway chase, but the action sequence sets it up well.
Screenshots from Lanterns episode 2. Aaron Pierre as John Stewart.
HBO Max
Bearing the bird in mind also helped the Lanterns team figure out the logistics of getting John out of the van and onto the highway without sacrificing momentum. Riemer said they treated the fight in the van and the chase on the highway as two separate scenes and the bird was the connective tissue between them.
He shared, “Inside the van, It’s about John versus the captor. It’s close, physical, and contained. Once we hit the highway, the dynamic shifts to John and the bird. The objective remains the same, John has to catch the bird.”
John’s doing this while keeping up with Hal’s lantern and trying to put distance between him and his captor. But the road isn’t empty, it’s not that simple. The highway presents its own challenges as it’s broad delight and traffic is not exactly light. Riemer described this new element as a change of obstacles.
He said, “The cars and traffic essentially replace the captor, creating new obstacles and danger,” which becomes part of the choreography that John has to navigate to reach his objective.
“Even though the captor is still there,” Riemer continued. “He almost becomes secondary to John’s pursuit of the bird.”
As the audience, we see that clearest when John dives over a car to catch his bird and is so preoccupied with having protected it—while taking note of his captor still chasing him—that he neglects to account for the cars still heading toward him. The scene ends with John knocked out by a van that swerves in order to not hit him dead on.
Riemer couldn’t tease much about what viewers can expect to see regarding John’s fight sequences as we move further into the season. However, he did say, “John is extremely capable with or without the ring,” emphasizing that the DC icon is adept at using what he has on hand to protect himself whether that be his own body or what he’s willed into being.
Lanterns streams Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max. Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for weekly coverage of the series and news about the business of TV. For deeper thoughts on the TV she’s watching, chat with Sabrina on X and Substack.