The internet is abuzz this week about the fifth episode of the “Star Wars”/Lucasfilm series, “The Acolyte,” from writer/director Leslye Headland. And for good reason, but we’ll get to that in a second. For the uninitiated, “The Acolyte” is a murder mystery series investigating a crime spree that pits a Jedi Master against a dangerous warrior from his past. More specifically, it’s about a Jedi, Sol (Lee Jung-Jae from “Squid Game”), and his former Padawan learner, Mae (Amandla Stenberg), trying to solve the mystery of who is murdering Jedi. As revealed in the first few episodes of the series, including episode one, the assassin is Osha, the identical twin sister of Mae (also played by Stenberg, obviously). But manipulating everything behind the scenes is a very dark Sith lord.
*Spoilers for episode five ahead: please don’t read if you haven’t seen it yet.*
As revealed in episode five, “The Night,” the mysterious Sith behind everything, known as The Stranger, was actually Qimir (Manny Jacinto), who had been posing as a smuggler working for the unknown Stranger.
Fans are also super abuzz about how action-packed and brutal the episode was. The Stranger faced off against Sol and seven of his Jedis and ferociously slaughtered them all (minus Sol), including Jedi K Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and Sol’s current Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen); two fan favorite characters that audiences assumed would be around for a long time.
Ultimately, Sol and Mae escape by the skin of their teeth, and The Stranger finds an unconscious Osha, who betrayed him in episode four. Directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, known for the epic, relentless fight scene episode in “Daredevil” season three, “The Night” was basically one long, relentless action Jedi saber fight scene that arguably outdid the “Duel Of The Fates” lightsaber fight in “Phantom Menace.”
Not only were the fights incredible and the fight choreography jaw-dropping, but the fierce brutality of the episode and all the deaths really gripped and raised the stakes.
So two big mysteries have been revealed so far in “The Acolyte,” who was murdering the Jedi (Osha, on behalf of The Stranger), and the identity of The Stranger, but there are still more secrets to be held. One, there’s the question of what Sol and the original Jedis did when Mae was first rescued from the burning buildings that killed her mother and family—the accepted story seems to be in profound question, and The Stranger suggested Sol has a dark secret he must reveal (“I’ve accepted my darkness. What have you done with yours?” The Stranger says to Sol at one point pointedly).
But there’s also a darker, deeper secret about The Stranger. And Headland says it won’t be revealed until if/when “The Acolyte” gets a second season.
“He wants [the] freedom to be able to be who he is and wield his power the way he wants to,” Headland said about The Stranger and some of the greater mysteries that still remain around the character in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. “But he also wants freedom on a second level that I think we’ll get more into if we get a season two. 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?”
Headland hinted at some of those secrets.
“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 six and episode eight that are really big clues as to why he is the way he is and why his philosophy is the way that it is.”
On her philosophy about first and second seasons, the showrunner suggests the series’ story will nearly demand a second season because the full story won’t yet be revealed.
“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.”
Want to hear our theory, which is a massive spoiler if we’re right? Here’s your chance to turn away.
But here it is: This Sith, isn’t the Sith Lord, he’s the Sith apprentice and the freedom he seeks is the freedom from his Sith Lord master. The Sith always comes in twos, the Master and the Apprentice, and it’s always a tradition that the Apprentice wants to usurp his Master and eventually take over.
In fact, Headland spelled it all out already in this “Star Wars Conversations” video with Dave Filoni (see below), and no one seems to have noticed.
“What I was interested in was The Sith,” she explained. “[In] the Master/apprentice dynamic, if the Apprentice is craving his Master’s power, then at some point, he must recruit his own Apprentice to overthrow the Master. And that is the Acolyte.”
I.e., The Stranger/Qimir is the Apprentice, Osha is his recruit, and the Master is likely a Sith we won’t see until season two. Spoiler? Hey, she said it. Three more episodes of “The Acolyte” remain, and by the sounds of it, the series really won’t work without a season two, so that’s almost undoubtedly coming no matter what. Watch the clip below.