Posted in: Disney+, Star Wars, TV | Tagged: amandla stenberg, disney, Manny Jacinto, star wars, Star Wars: The Acolyte, The Acolyte

The Acolyte Creator: Qimir/Osha Kiss "Was Definitely On the Table"

The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland discusses Qimir and Osha's intimate moment in the season finale and how it could've gone further.

During the final two episodes of season one of The Acolyte, Osha (Amandla Stenberg) had a crash course in exploring the Dark Side with Qimir/The Stranger (Manny Jacinto). As Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) finally revealed the truth in their final confrontation about what happened to her mother, Osha unleashed her newly uncovered Dark Side powers and force-choked him to death, taking the final step to become the apprentice Qimir sought. Before departing, Qimir would wipe Osha's twin, Mae's (Stenberg) memory before Qimir's former Jedi master, Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) caught up. In the closing shot of the episode "The Acolyte," Qimir walks over to his new Sith apprentice and gently moves his hand to hers, which was holding a lightsaber, implying something more might be on the way if there's a season two. Creator Leslye Headland spoke to Entertainment Weekly and broke down how that scene came to be and how far it could have gone.

The Acolyte: Leslye Headland on the Qimir-Osha Moment That Could Imply More Than Sith Master-Apprentice

Headland revealed the touch wasn't originally in the script. "It was Manny and Amandla's idea," she said. "We sat in a tent talking forever about what should happen, what they should do. We just knew that there needed to be a moment of intimacy that denoted mutual respect and the joining of an allegiance. There can be romantic overtones to that." A take without the touch was shot, but it was kept in. Things went potentially further. "A kiss was definitely on the table, I would say," she revealed.

But as the series creator saw it, the pair weren't at that stage yet. "I felt like it wasn't earned yet," Headland said. "For one, I felt like they earned each other's respect, they earned each other's allegiance, but physical intimacy beyond a Jane Austen brush, it just felt wrong, and the cast agreed. The physical intimacy is beautiful. It's 'Pride and Prejudice.' It's 'Jane Eyre.' They're just figuring it out with each other. They're figuring out what that physical intimacy is. You don't want to force that stuff. You want it to feel intriguing and beautiful and something soft with characters that have always been portrayed as so hard. You want to show that this pupil-master relationship is going to develop into something a little more human."

Whether it has anything to do with the mixed reaction from the way Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver's characters, Rey and Ben "Kylo Ren" Solo, kissed in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) is up to speculation. The two developed an antagonistic relationship throughout the sequel trilogy of the Skywalker Saga until the final battle when the two combined forces to defeat Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) once and for all.

"I think it alludes to something more romantic," Jacinto said about Qimir-Osha's touch. "But it also alludes to something I think a lot of 'Star Wars' fans are yearning for. In this IP, you have the ships like Reylo, and you have all those relationships that people just innately want to see — these romantic relationships that people want to see in 'Star Wars.'" For more, including Headland's revelation of how the final shot compares to a certain David Fincher film and why she feels it was appropriate to close season one that way, you can check out the entire interview here.

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