The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland talks about possible season 2

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Star Wars: The Acolyte episode 5.

MURDERER! While Manny Jacinto may possess the hands that actually killed multiple Jedi on the most recent episode of The Acolyte, the credit/blame actually lands at the feet of show creator Leslye Headland, who has been slaughtering Jedi left and right since the series’ very first scene. Entertainment Weekly went behind-the-scenes with Headland for a cover story on the shocking episode 5 bloodbath and big villain reveal.

But there is plenty more Headland has to say about what went down on the planet of Khofar, when Jacinto’s Qimir morphed into big bad the Stranger, who killed Dafne Keen’s Jecki and Charlie Barnett’s Yord… among others. Headland also discussed some hidden connections to other Star Wars films, what we can expect in the next three episodes, as well as the likelihood of a second season and what that might entail. Grab your creepiest grinning helmet and read on.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Killing a main character is obviously a big move and an exceedingly rare move, and then you do it twice in one episode. Tell me about deciding to part with both Jecki and Yord.

LESLYE HEADLAND: I think a good twist is not about hiding everything from the audience and then throwing it on them like, “Hey, this is what you didn't see! We hid it so well that you didn't see this!” I think a good twist is telegraphing what's going to happen, and then once it does, executing it without an ounce of pity or sentimentality.

I think an example of this where it worked really well was in The Empire Strikes Back, because when Luke leaves Yoda and Dagobah, Yoda straight up is like, “If you face Vader, you're going to fail. You just are.” It's not like the audience didn't know going in that that was what was up. But when Luke loses, he loses in such a devastating way — not just physically, but psychologically. He loses on such a huge level, so the twist of “I am your father” works because you already know he's going to lose. So you're just kind of waiting for how it's going to happen and you don't know it's going to cut as deep as it does.

So how did that play into your reveal of Qimir as the Stranger?

It's not a jaw dropping moment as much as I think the question is, “Well, how is it going to happen? What are we going to see?” There are definitely moments in episodes 2 and 4 where you're like, “There's something going on with this guy when he says ‘You look just like her.’” There's something that you're like, “Whoa, what's this about?” But you need a villain that you kind of agree with in some ways. Not his actions, obviously, but when Sol says “What do you want?” and he says “Freedom” — that is something that you can't argue with.

He wants freedom to be able to be who he is and wield his power the way he wants to. But he also wants freedom on a second level that I think we'll get more into if we get a season 2. But once we knew he was going to kill Jecki and Yord, then it became about: How are you going to execute this in a way that feels satisfying and believable once it does happen?

Are we going to learn more of the Stranger’s backstory, either through flashbacks or dialogue, to learn about how he came across this path?

Because it's Osha's story, you don't know much about the Stranger's background and you're not really going to learn much about it. But there are a bunch of things in episode 6 and episode 8 that are really big clues as to why he is the way he is and why his philosophy is the way that it is.

What can you say about him taking out all these Jedi?

You understand one aspect of the killing is that it's so shocking, but then he does explain it. He says, “They see my face, they all have to die.” He's not like, “I murdered them, that was fun!” He’s like, “I murdered them for preservation. They threaten my existence and therefore I have to kill them.” So, in a way, not that you agree with him necessarily, but you also understand. It's one of the reasons we had him cheat and resort to trickery, because when you're fighting for survival, there's no such thing as a fair fight. You have to survive. And the Jedi cannot know he exists. They must die as far as he's concerned. So it felt like it had to happen. The people that have seen it are like, “How could you do that?” And I was like, “There was no other way around it.”

Well, we should just talk about the kill count for this series in general, because you are murdering Jedi left and right on this show.

To me it came down to panic. It came down to, these Jedi cannot live if he is to continue existing and if the Sith are meant to stay in the shadows. So I think what happens is for the last three episodes, there are a couple of mysteries going on, but one of them is: How can anybody get out of this? Is there anybody that is going to escape this unscathed when this guy is around?

When I first heard that you were doing a High Republic show, I figured it would be concurrent with some of the novels, which are in two different time periods, yet yours takes place later. Was any of that because that gave you the freedom to just create and kill people more than if you had to adhere to some of that canon of the different time periods?

Yeah, but I also wanted to introduce a bunch of things that exist in the expanded universe and bring them into live action, and that felt like if I introduced them at the same time period, then it becomes, “Well, why aren't those things that everybody knows exists?” He uses a lightsaber style called Trakata, which involves turning on and off the lightsaber, which is considered to be very devious. People like the Jedi are so used to training with each other that they're not prepared for someone that's going to use a different style.

Cortosis is something also that exists in the EU, and something that I talked with Dave Filoni about. We found it really important that there not be many metals that could combat lightsabers, because you don't want to devalue the lightsaber. It's one of the most iconic, most powerful weapons known to man. So as we all discussed bringing Cortosis into this particular period, but that it should be something that doesn't work for a long period of time. Meaning yes, it will turn off the lightsaber, but the lightsaber will turn back on pretty soon afterward. It should be unstable. It shouldn't feel like something that can last forever.

Right before he killed Yord, his gauntlet gets blown off. And also something that we'll look into a little bit more, or probably in season 2 if we get one, is that Cortosis is a finite resource. It's not Mandalorian steel that comes from a particular planet that can be melted down. It's a limited resource. So it just felt like as you introduce things like that, you don't want that to happen where something already exists or then it’s like “Well, why didn't they use that in the Clone Wars? Why didn't they use that later on?”

How did you come up with the look of the Stranger?

When we were designing the costume, I said very early on, “I don't want him to wear armor besides the gauntlet and the helmet.” That’s the Cortosis and how he uses them, but he doesn't have any armor. And my costume designer was like, “Well, why?” And I said, “Why would you wear armor if you don't plan on getting hit? He has that level of confidence of just like, “No one's going to land anything on me.”

The Stranger has that final line, “What extraordinary beings we are. Even in the revelation of our triumph, we see the depth of our despair.” What is the meaning of that line as he's putting that cape over Osha?

My co-showrunner Jason Micallef wrote that line, and I always thought he was talking about himself, and that is something that's going to end up coming up for the two of them in the next episode —  there is no triumph without despair. There is no good without bad. There is no light without dark. His philosophy is that it seems that his existence is meant to balance a particular amount of good that exists in the galaxy. His history and his philosophy and his experience in the world is something that he will be able to share with Osha, which is not as simple as “I'm the bad guy, and the Jedi are the good guys.”

Moving over to the other side of the Force, Sol seems much more empathetic and emotional than your typical stoic Jedi. How much of that is due to events that happened 16 years ago involving Mae and Osha?

The Stranger says, “I've accepted my darkness. What have you done with yours?” It's the accusation that there's something inside of Sol that he has not faced in a while, and that the audience doesn't know about yet, and that Osha really doesn't know about. I think that Sol’s emotional through-line and the way that he's been emotionally available to the audience has to do with a conflict within him. I think his inner conflict puts them out of balance, and that's why he's both compelling and also why he's haunted.

How did you construct the basic outline of this episode? There is so much going on.

In the script, it was always a Samurai battle between Sol and the Stranger, which would be left up in the air where we're not sure who's stronger, and a down and dirty girl fight between Jecki and Mae, and then that Padawan and Master team up the way that you see in Phantom Menace with “Duel of the Fates.” And then it was Chris Cowan, my acting choreographer, who worked on the Rogue One Darth Vader sequence — he was the one that actually came up with the choreography of killing Jecki and then having her fall and reveal the Stranger.

That was the only time I was like, “I feel like this is too far. I really want the audience to be able to mourn Jecki.” And then finally I was like, “You know what? F--- it. Let's just have him ask, ‘What was its name?’” And that came from Obi-Wan asking Qui-Gon about Darth Maul, “What was it?” We always like to humanize our aliens, but other beings might be like, “Was that its name?”

Interesting that you brought up the Darth Maul fight, because I always considered his lightsaber battle in The Phantom Menace to be the best one ever, and it seems like you all clearly took inspiration from that.

Yeah, I'd say that and the train station from The Matrix, those are the two that you're like, “Someday we'll reach for immortality.” But yeah, we were hoping this had a “Duel of the Fates” type of feeling to it. I really love when Sol Force pulls his saber into his hand and turns it on almost at the same time, and then he grabs Manny and is about to f---ing take his head off. Obviously, Osha stops him, but every time I would watch the episode, my wife would go, “KILL HIM!” She just yelled “KILL HIM!” with glee in her voice. [Laughs]

I love Manny's look, too, when he does that. He's so ready to die. He's like, “F--- it, man. I'm good. I'm ready to die. Valhalla! Let's do this. The options are I have to kill everybody here or I get killed.”

And why was Manny the perfect person to play the Stranger?

What's funny is when I met with him, he's such a kind and earnest guy that I felt like, “Oh, he's going to be such a great villain.” Because I think that the best villains are one where the actors approach them with the most amount of empathy. They're not afraid to play a bad guy. They're not afraid to be a villain. He was so sweet that I was like, “Oh, you're going to be perfect.”

You’ve mentioned a possible season 2, so not knowing when you crafted this how many seasons you were going to get, did you craft a firm season finale ending like Obi-Wan Kenobi, or is it teeing up more story to come like the way Ahsoka ended its first season?

I'll tell you my philosophy on first seasons. Something that I've noticed is first seasons will end on what should have been the break into act two. It feels like everyone's really expecting to get a second season, and I don't feel that's a good idea. I think you should put everything you can into the first season and give the audience a nice resolution that feels satisfying, but enough nods to mysteries that you would want to see a second season. So it’s a little bit of both. You don't want to leave it so wrapped up that, like Obi-Wan or a standalone mini-series, that there's no reason to watch a second season, but I think there's enough stuff in the last few episodes that you would want to have answered.

Where are you now in terms of season 2? Have you written outlines? Are there scripts? Are you just sort of playing the waiting game?

I remember reading that Vince Gilligan in writing and doing the first season of Breaking Bad really didn't plan on, “We're getting seven more seasons, and this is what's going to happen to Walter White.” It was much more, “Here's everything we got. We're throwing everything at the wall.” And then with the pickup, he mapped out, “Okay, here's what's going to happen over the course of however many seasons.”

So I took that approach with this. I threw everything into season 1, because who knows what's going to happen? And then I'd say there are four to five major mysteries and plot points that have to get hit in season 2, but until we get a proper pickup, I worry that spending a lot of time in that world — especially being in a period where I've worked so long on this project that honestly I'm exhausted by it coming out — to kind of jump right into like, “All right, season 2….” It will probably be more that I know what needs to happen, and I know what the character development needs to be in order to hit the plot points and the character points for a second, third, or fourth season. So I look forward to working on that, but right now, I haven't.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.