“What kind of sick, twisted masochist are you?” The Cast of ‘The Acolyte’ Had a Shocking Reaction to Episode 5 Massacre

‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ yesterday released its 5th episode, we’re officially more than halfway through the show, and things are finally picking up pace. Plenty of shocking things happened in the latest episode. First, two major characters have been killed Yord and Jecki Lon. They were ruthlessly eliminated by Qimir – who turned out to be The Stranger aka Sith Lord master of Mae.

We also learned that Mae & Osha switched places, with Mae going to Coruscant to Master Sol and Osha being picked up by Qimir.

Now obviously that twist with Qimir being Sith Lord was supposed to be the high point of the episode, and the actor Manny Jacinto revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he had to lie to people around him for two years:

I’m the worst liar. I’ve been lying to people for the last two years — to their faces, some of them, they straight up call me out and they’re like, ‘I don’t trust what you’re saying.’ Some of them believe me. But I’ve been lying, and it gives me a lot of anxiety, having to lie to people. I mean, right now I’m tingling. Just because this is the first time that I’m actually able to talk about it

Headland chimed in to comment on the fact that people warned her during development that this might be a bit too much fighting:

I got some feedback when we were writing and prepping the episode that said, ‘Gosh, it’s just so much fighting. Don’t you think the audience will tune out at some point? And I said, ‘No, I feel really confident that they’re going to love this.

She also explained how she managed to lull people into a false sense of security by sacrificing a bunch of red shirts on screen, only to have the main characters killed off, she also said she was surprised by what she was able to get away with within the family-friendly franchise:

That’s what I loved about starting with the red shirts. You’re kind of like, ‘Oh, he’a just going to kill a bunch of red shirts, and everybody is going to be fine and… OH MY GOD, JECKI’S DEAD! Okay, I’m listening. […] I just figured someone would stop me and nobody did. I figured someone would say, ‘This is too far!’ But they didn’t.

Star of the show Amandla Stenberg commented how the cast reacted to Headland’s plan and that they were shocked would be an understatement:

We were all like, ‘Leslye, the way that you take them out is so brutal! What the hell? What kind of sick, twisted masochist are you?

Dafne Keen commented that she liked that Headland actually dared to kill people:

There are so many directors in blockbuster sagas that are so scared to kill off their characters, and are so comfortable with bringing characters back to life, and all of these little writer tricks that I think are quite cheeky. And I really like that she was actually killing people. Because if you’re not making it dangerous, then why are we even here? Why are we concerned by the story? Why do we care? Leslye has such a backbone as a writer, to make you fall in love with these characters and then slaughter them all like pigs and be like, ‘Yeah, this is our villain. We’re not just saying he’s so big and scary, we’re actually showing you how big and scary he is.

What did you think about the Episode 5 massacre? Let us know in the comments below!