Warning! Spoilers for The Acolyte Season 1 Episode 8 follow.
Fans were treated to one of the biggest cameos in live-action Star Wars history in The Acolyte Season 1 finale.
Creeping out from the shadows, Darth Plagueis himself watches Sith warrior Qimir, aka The Stranger, and his soon-to-be acolyte Osha set off for a showdown with Jedi Master Sol and Mae.
It’s a tantalizing tease for a character Star Wars fans have fussed over even since Palpatine namechecked him as part of his ‘The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise’ tale, delivered to Anakin in Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith.
The Acolyte’s Season 1 finale has sparked renewed interest in Darth Plagueis and plenty of fan theories about what his appearance means for the events we may see in Season 2, as well as the futures of Qimir and Osha in the context of the Sith’s Rule of Two.
Speaking to IndieWire, The Acolyte creator and showrunner Leslye Headland said the plan from the very beginning was to have Plagueis in the finale. The only question was: At what point would he show up?
“Plagueis was always in the finale, in every version,” Headland said, before referencing Episode 8’s other shock cameo right at the end: Yoda. “There was a version where he was the button of the finale [instead of Yoda],” Headland said. “You want to feel Osha’s triumph. You want to feel her joining forces with The Stranger. Plagueis stepped on [that moment].”
The Acolyte is set around 100 years before the events of the prequels, which do not feature Darth Plagueis or any of the characters introduced in The Acolyte. This, coupled with the Sith’s Rule of Two and Palpatine’s eventual emergence as Plagueis’ apprentice, adds an inevitability to proceedings, Headland explained.
“Even though [Osha and The Stranger] are standing there, sort of looking out at the sunset, ready to conquer the world, the tragedy is we know they don’t,” she said.
“We know there can only be two. We know Plagueis is there. We know that these two are doomed in some way. So to me it’s a bittersweet tragedy, this foreboding ending. But that’s because I know about the Sith lineage and all these other things, whereas I think a different subset of the audience can be like, ‘They’re married!’”
For now, though, we have the Plagueis we see in The Acolyte, a character Headland wanted to give a sense of “graceful horror”.
“Obviously the species has been determined, if not by [Star Wars] canon, then by Legends and definitely by head-canon for everybody,” Headland said. “So when we were designing him and talking about his appearance, it was a lot of Crimson Peak, of Guillermo del Toro.”
At this point in the Star Wars timeline, with the Jedi at their peak, the Sith are “hiding out” and “fighting for survival,” Headland added. “They’re not running the First Order. They’re not running the Empire. They’re not the Chancellor of the Senate.”
For more on The Acolyte, check out IGN's Episode 8 review, as well as our Biggest Burning Questions and How the Finale Sets Up the Potential Season 2.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
