diff --git a/livy/src/main/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySparkSQLInterpreter.java b/livy/src/main/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySparkSQLInterpreter.java
index 40aa36349a8..aec81464991 100644
--- a/livy/src/main/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySparkSQLInterpreter.java
+++ b/livy/src/main/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySparkSQLInterpreter.java
@@ -18,7 +18,8 @@
 package org.apache.zeppelin.livy;
 
 import com.google.gson.Gson;
-import com.google.gson.reflect.TypeToken;
+import com.google.gson.JsonElement;
+import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.StringWriter;
@@ -180,15 +181,20 @@ protected List<String> parseSQLJsonOutput(String output) {
     List<String> rows = new ArrayList<>();
 
     String[] rowsOutput = output.split("(?<!\\\\)\\n");
+
+    if (rowsOutput.length < 2){
+      return Arrays.asList(rowsOutput);
+    }
+
     String[] header = rowsOutput[1].split("\t");
     List<String> cells = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(header));
     rows.add(StringUtils.join(cells, "\t"));
 
     for (int i = 2; i < rowsOutput.length; i++) {
-      Map<String, String> retMap = new Gson().fromJson(
-          rowsOutput[i], new TypeToken<HashMap<String, String>>() {
-          }.getType()
-      );
+      // one-by-one serialization to handle the case when
+      // the value is non-primitive such as: {"lang": ["java", "NodeJS"]}.
+      Map<String, String> retMap = deserialize(rowsOutput[i]);
+
       cells = new ArrayList<>();
       for (String s : header) {
         cells.add(retMap.getOrDefault(s, "null")
@@ -200,6 +206,26 @@ protected List<String> parseSQLJsonOutput(String output) {
     return rows;
   }
 
+  private Map<String, String> deserialize(String jsonString) {
+    Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
+    Gson gson = new Gson();
+    JsonElement jsonElement = gson.fromJson(jsonString, JsonElement.class);
+    JsonObject jsonObject = jsonElement.getAsJsonObject();
+
+    for (Map.Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : jsonObject.entrySet()) {
+      String key = entry.getKey();
+      JsonElement value = entry.getValue();
+
+      if (value.isJsonPrimitive()) {
+        map.put(key, value.getAsString());
+      } else {
+        map.put(key, value.toString());
+      }
+
+    }
+    return map;
+  }
+
   protected List<String> parseSQLOutput(String str) {
     // the regex is referred to org.apache.spark.util.Utils#fullWidthRegex
     // for spark every chinese character has two placeholder(one placeholder is one char)
diff --git a/livy/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySQLInterpreterTest.java b/livy/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySQLInterpreterTest.java
index d9ba3f69214..6294473371f 100644
--- a/livy/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySQLInterpreterTest.java
+++ b/livy/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/livy/LivySQLInterpreterTest.java
@@ -174,9 +174,14 @@ void testParseSQLOutput() {
 
   @Test
   void parseSQLJsonOutput() {
+
+    //  Empty output
+    List<String> rows = sqlInterpreter.parseSQLJsonOutput("\n");
+    assertEquals(0, rows.size());
+
     //  Empty sql output
     //  id name
-    List<String> rows = sqlInterpreter.parseSQLJsonOutput("\nid\tname\n");
+    rows = sqlInterpreter.parseSQLJsonOutput("\nid\tname\n");
     assertEquals(1, rows.size());
     assertEquals("id\tname", rows.get(0));
 
@@ -274,5 +279,12 @@ void parseSQLJsonOutput() {
     assertEquals("1\t1a", rows.get(1));
     assertEquals("2\tみんく", rows.get(2));
     assertEquals("3\t3a", rows.get(3));
+
+
+    rows = sqlInterpreter.parseSQLJsonOutput("\nid\tarray\tname\n"
+            + "{\"id\":1,\"array\":[\"1a\",\"2a\"],\"name\":\"1b\"}\n");
+    assertEquals(2, rows.size());
+    assertEquals("id\tarray\tname", rows.get(0));
+    assertEquals("1\t[\"1a\",\"2a\"]\t1b", rows.get(1));
   }
 }