THE ACOLYTE Showrunner Explains the Sith Villain's Nakedness in Episode 6 - "It Had to Happen"

I finally got around to watching Episode 6 of Star Wars: The Acolyte. After watching Episode 5 and seeing a cool lightsaber battle scene, I was actually curious to see what happened next.

Well, with that last episode, I felt like I was watching a Star Wars show produced for The CW in the mid-2000s. It was entertaining in a way that made just me laugh.

One scene in particular that felt very CW, was that scene where Osha confronts Manny Jacinto's Sith Villain, Qimir aka The Stranger, as he’s chillin’ in a lake naked. The moment plays out with a seductive desire of sorts.

Showrunner Leslye Headland recently talked about this scene and how the sensuality of presenting the Sith villain naked in it, was an important element of the story, an how it “had to happen.”

Headland told Collider: “Lucasfilm really believed in my vision. From a narrative perspective, it had to happen. It had to. He did, like, a Steven Seagal neck snap in the [previous] episode.

“How do you, at all, get from that to humanity? The only way to do that is to show him in such a wildly vulnerable position, and it has to be visual.”

She added: “I can’t think of something more vulnerable than someone holding a lightsaber on someone who’s that exposed. I just don’t.

“I felt like he was so merciless in the previous episode that he had to stand in front of her and say, like, ‘You absolutely can kill me,’ essentially.”

I do understand what she was trying to accomplish with the scene, but with the writing, and how it was all executed it just fell flat for me.

I have friends that do like this show, and after having conversations with them about it, I really am trying to see what they see, but then when an episode like this last one hits, and I find myself laughing though it, I feel like we are watching two completely different shows.

My friends and I are usually on the same page when it comes to Star Wars, this is the first project where we don’t necessarily see eye to eye on things. It’s interesting!