The Acolyte Darth Plagueis Cameo: Leslye Headland on the Sith Lord’s Arrival
Exclusive: The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland talks to us about bringing Darth Plagueis to the screen for the very first time in Star Wars history.
This Star Wars: The Acolyte article contains spoilers.
The Acolyte could only end in tragedy. Last week, we learned the truth about the role Master Sol played in the massacre on Brendok 16 years before the start of the series, and it’s now all out in the open in the finale. Sol confesses to his crimes and Osha, taking her first steps down the path of the dark side, punishes him for it, Force choking her former master to death. Knowing it’s too late to turn back, Osha makes a deal with The Stranger to become his pupil/acolyte in exchange for Mae’s freedom. By the end of the episode, Osha and Mae have essentially traded places: the former Jedi padawan is now the protege of a Sith Lord, while the latter is in custody on Coruscant after having her memory wiped. We’ll have to wait until a potential second season to see how their story turns out.
But we also learn in the finale that what’s transpired is actually much bigger than twin sisters at odds with each other. They’re chess pieces in someone else’s game, as the true villain of the series is revealed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that is sure to send Prequel Trilogy fans into a frenzy.
Den of Geek spoke to showrunner Leslye Headland to get to the bottom of this massive cameo, as well as another at the very end of the episode, and what it all means for the future of the show…
Darth Plagueis the Wise
At last we know who is truly pulling the strings in The Acolyte: it’s a hooded Sith Lord literally watching from the shadows as The Stranger (presumably his apprentice) convinces Osha to become his acolyte. But who exactly is this mystery Dark Lord of the Sith?
While his name is never uttered in the episode, and it’s difficult to completely make out his face, he has the elongated head and spider-like fingers of a Muun. Headland confirmed to Den of Geek that this is indeed the Darth Plagueis the Wise we heard so much about in Revenge of the Sith.
“I’m very proud of how we introduced him,” Headland says of the character’s spooky one-shot cameo. “I really wanted it to feel like a creepy horror film [and] him to feel different than other iconic villains, which was actually kind of difficult. I wanted him to be in a space that we had already been in so that you didn’t feel like we has just aimlessly walking around. That he had a lot of stature and had a foreboding feeling in his presence.”
Was it always part of the plan for The Acolyte to serve as the onscreen debut of this legendary Sith Lord in canon? “Absolutely,” Headland says. “I wanted to introduce him as the complication for season two.”
For those who need a refresher on the character, just go back to the opera scene in Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine tells Anakin a story about a Sith Lord who had the power to create life as well as stop those he cared about from dying, but ironically could not save his own life when his apprentice eventually decided to murder him. We know of course that the apprentice who killed Plagueis was Palpatine himself.
But The Acolyte takes place 100 years before even The Phantom Menace, which means Plagueis hasn’t met Palpatine yet—the future Emperor hasn’t even been born at this point in the timeline—which would explain why The Stranger might be Plagueis’ apprentice on the show instead of Sidious.
Fans of the old (and no longer canon) Legends continuity will of course point out that The Acolyte has lightly tweaked the Sith Lord’s previously established history. In Legends, Plagueis was thought to have been born between 147 and 120 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), but he already looks pretty old at the time of The Acolyte, which is set in 132 BBY, suggesting the show has changed the character’s age to be much older for his canon debut. That said, the show does closely follow the character’s Legends backstory in other ways, including his connection to cortosis and his base of operations on an ocean planet (it was the planet Bal’demnic in Legends).
So, how does Plagueis fit into everything going on in The Acolyte? Well, the most well-known fact about him is that he was obsessed with manipulating midi-chlorians to create and sustain life. Obviously he would be extremely interested in the witches capable of using the Force to create twin sisters who are themselves very powerful in Force. The implication is that Plagueis discovered that using the Force to create life was possible from these witches and devoted much of his time to mastering that power for the Sith cause.
Now that The Stranger has recruited Osha, it probably won’t be long before she’s brought before Plagueis so he can learn more about the mysteries of Osha’s origin, learnings that will undoubtedly tie into Palpatine’s future plans in the Prequels. After all, just a few years ago, Marvel’s Darth Vader comics heavily implied that it was Palpatine who manipulated midi-chlorians to make Shmi Skywalker pregnant with Anakin, a trick he very likely learned from his master. The Acolyte seems to be the story of how the Sith gained that knowledge and put it to work…
Yoda
Although Headland told Den of Geek magazine ahead of the series premiere that Master Yoda wouldn’t appear in the first season of the show, we do technically get a glimpse of the legendary Jedi’s wrinkly head in the very last scene of the finale. This cameo was inevitable. A Jedi Master who is over 900 years old at the time of his death in Return of the Jedi—which is set about 140 years after The Acolyte—Yoda has already been on the High Council for centuries by the time Vernestra Rwoh shows up in his chambers to seek his guidance regarding what transpired on Brendok and Khofar and who’s behind it.
“It was obviously a very big conversation,” Headland says of bringing such an iconic Star Wars character to the show, which was part of the plan from the beginning. “He was always the endpoint [of the season]. If you’re going to introduce Plagueis, you have to introduce a worthy adversary. It’s kind of that simple.”
How big a part Master Yoda will play in the dark times to come is unclear, but Headland did tease a few details about his role in the show’s future if it gets renewed for a second season: “I think you should expect the influence of Yoda.”
For Headland, part of Yoda’s role in The Acolyte is about answering one key question about the Prequel Trilogy: “I wanted to explore why Yoda knows about the Rule of Two when Yoda wasn’t alive during the New Sith Wars [the conflict in both canon and Legends that led to the formation of the Rule of Two under Darth Bane]. How does he know that?”
Will a second season bring Master Yoda face to face with Plagueis or at the very least The Stranger and Osha? It certainly sounds like a possibility.
Star Wars: The Acolyte is streaming now on Disney+.
Written by
John Saavedra is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den of Geek. He lives in New York City with his two cats.