If you’ve ever doubted the expression “tough as a mother,” Lanterns Episode 3 is proof positive of a mother’s fortitude, especially if that mother is played by Hamilton alum Jasmine Cephas Jones.

**Spoiler alert: This article contains details from Lanterns Episode 3 (“OutKast”) now streaming on HBO Max**

While the very first moments of Episode 1 of the HBO Max series led some to believe it was John Stewart’s (Aaron Pierre) father (J. Alphonse Nicholson) who opted to raise him without fear, shooting an apple off child John’s (Cairo Cash Lee) head and asking him if he’s afraid, the latest episode looks to flip the script and share the real story, revealing that it was John’s mother, Bernadette (Cephas Jones), who made the decision. For the actress behind the role, having Berndatte be the impetus for John’s Green Lantern training is not only the perfect choice for the story, but the most “badass” one, as well. After all, someone has to succeed Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and why shouldn’t it be a mother who sees her son’s potential and goes all in, right?

“I was really, really shocked, and I thought it was a beautiful love letter to mothers who I think can be the unsung heroes, the heroes without capes, the women who make possible happen from the impossible,” Cephas Jones tells DECIDER. “I just thought it was a really beautiful and like badass take on starting John’s training and that it’s her idea and she’s really, really heavy on it. It’s it’s really cool to see women in this way and kind of like drive the force. I think sometimes we see a lot of women take the back seat in TV or films, and here we see her take the front seat and she puts her foot on the gas pretty, pretty hard.”

Her foot is on the gas all the way throughout John’s childhood, including when he finally accepts the way that his parents decided to raise him, which results in him taking his mom out to their backyard, having her place an apple on her head, and shooting it off of her in the dead of night. It harkens back to an earlier scene in the episode when Bernadette tells John Sr. to shoot an apple off the younger John’s head, assuring him that this is the only way they can insure their son grows up to be ready to answer the call of the Guardians.

“My first day was actually the decision that I make to John Sr. to shoot the apple off of Cairo’s head and my second scene was me in the white night dress getting shot at by Cairo so that day was really… it I felt a lot of pressure, nobody put pressure on me, but I felt lot of a pressure just as an actor to have everything together,” she adds. “It was just really important that I that I had it together but I think we pulled it off.”

As for the fans of the show who will undoubtedly have thoughts about the horror of seeing how John Sr. and Bernadetter bring up their youngest son — including buying him a Green Lantern suit and a rifle for his fifth birthday instead of the simple crayons he so desperately wanted — the actress says that while it certainly isn’t what she would do, personally, this is a character who saw her family falling apart and had to make tough choices on how to try and fix it.

At the beginning of the episode, John Sr. is visited (i.e. dramatically lifted out of bed) by a Guardian who asks if he is afraid, to which he, of course, responds “Yes.” That is the same question the Guardians would later ask Hal Jordan, who was then selected as the Green Lantern. Bernadette later explains to a Guardian (Laura Linney) that asking a Black man in America if he’s afraid has levels of racial implications that the Guardians had never considered. It’s only as the Guardians attempt to make things right with the Stewarts by offering them a fat diamond that Bernadette and Linney’s character come to a sort-of arrangement about her youngest son. So while it may be tough on him, it’s all for the greater good of his fate and humanity.

“The setup for that made sense to me for a lot of her decisions. And I think it was a way to get her power back for her and her family, as well. And in a weird way, [it’s] even like some type of healing because of what John Sr. went through,” Cephas Jones explains of the difficult childhood John endures.

She adds, “I don’t know if I would do that personally, but also at the end of the day, Bernadette is Bernadette and she is such a force and she’s so determined and she did a great job. I mean, she’s raised a superhero. And I think the most important thing is we all believed in his destiny. As a family, the Stewarts believed that he is the chosen one, but we had to make him believe it. So by the time he is getting interviewed, he knows, ‘I know exactly why I’m here and I’m supposed to be here.’ And that was the ultimate goal, I think.”

Maybe, just maybe, the ends justify the means in this single case. After all, it worked out pretty well for John.

The first three episodes of Lanterns are now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes premiere Sundays.