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As much as The Acolyte fans were hoping for a second season, the Star Wars series got canceled.
Still, that didn't stop showrunner Leslye Headland from unveiling her scrapped plans for Manny Jacinto's Qimir, aka The Stranger, in the franchise's newest artbook.
What Were the Scrapped Plans for The Stranger and Darth Plagueis in The Acolyte?
Last August, Lucasfilm/Disney decided not to move forward with a second season for The Acolyte, despite leaving major storylines and character arcs unresolved by the end of the season 1 finale.
The announcement received mixed reactions from fans and showrunners, considering that Osha (Amandla Stenberg), Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae), and Qimir/The Stranger (Manny Jacinto) became prominent figures in the galaxy far, far away, even after only one season.
Now, the new book, The Art of the Acolyte, details what the showrunner had in mind for how she would have expanded Qimir's character arc and more backstory on the Knights of Ren in season 2:
"It was in the design of the character, as well as knowing that we were going to introduce Darth Plagueis, who has to end up with Palpatine as his apprentice," Headland wrote, "Following the Rule of Two - a precept that limited the Sith to just two at any given time, a master and an apprentice - one way to keep it going is if the Stranger is the first Knight of Ren, part of a Sith-adjacent cult that we know eventually survives."
What Headland Would Have Done in The Acolyte Season 2
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The Acolyte essentially left fans with three potential plot lines: Osha's acolyte journey with the Stranger, the Stranger, aka Qimir's origins, and the hidden Darth Plagueis watching them from afar.
"I really wanted to tell a story about the Sith," Headland recently told Entertainment Weekly, "That was kind of my dream Star Wars idea. But it felt like the time period to do that in would be something pre-Phantom Menace. That seemed to be the most interesting trajectory for the Sith: How did the Sith go from the Rule of Two and being quote-unquote 'extinct' to Palpatine coming into power without the Jedi knowing about it?"
The Acolyte fans protested that Disney/Lucasfilm bring it back for season 2 so they could expand the galaxy far, far away. Alas, that remains a dream in the far, far future for now.
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