Warning: SPOILERS for The Acolyte are ahead!
Most of the characters who appeared in The Acolyte were brand-new to a galaxy far, far away, but there were some notable exceptions. Vernestra Rwoh was already a mainstay in High Republic literature, and a young Ki-Adi Mundi scored some screen time in “Day,” but those paled in comparison to the two surprise appearances in the Season 1 finale. Along with Darth Plagueis making his first canon appearance nearly two decades after being mentioned in Revenge of the Sith, the third of the Star Wars movies in order (chronologically-speaking), franchise fans with a Disney+ subscription also got a silent cameo from Yoda. Showrunner Leslye Headland explained why Season 1 ended with the latter, and I like her way of thinking on this.
It turns out Rebecca Henderson, who plays Vernestra Rwoh, deceived us, as she said back in May that Yoda would not appear in The Acolyte Season 1. To be fair, I don’t blame her for doing this since it would have been a major spoiler, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, Headland opened up to EW about how featuring Yoda in the Season 1 finale helped to “balance the scales” after the Plagueis tease earlier in Episode 8, titled “The Acolyte.” As she put it:
If you were going to introduce Plagueis, then you needed a formidable other side of that. As somebody that knows who Plagueis is and knows where the lineage of the Sith is headed, it would be imbalanced if you didn't have somebody on the light side who carried as much gravitas. So to me it just made sense.
Leslye Headland added that throughout The Acolyte, Vernestra keeps saying “tip the scales,” and her meeting with Yoda at the end of Season 1 exemplifies that philosophy after we spent a few seconds with Plagueis, the Sith Lord who will one day train Palpatine. It makes sense, because as dark as The Acolyte has been, which includes killing off Yord Fandar and Jecki Lon in “Night,” you need to counterbalance bringing in Plagueis with a little bit of light. For a show set in this time period revolving around the Jedi, Yoda was the best way to do this.
Yoda was seen in the final seconds of The Acolyte Season 1 finale when Vernestra Rwoh came into his chambers to speak with him. While it isn’t explicitly stated what she intends to bring up, this episode also revealed that Henderson’s character has a connection to Manny Jacinto’s character, who we know as Qimir/“The Stranger,” but his real identity hasn’t been disclosed yet. Venestra subsequently blamed the late Sol for the murders Qimir and Mae committed, but now she’s hoping to use the latter, who had most of her memories erased, to find her former apprentice. So even though the Jedi Order as a whole believes Sol killed Indira, Torbin, Kelnacca and all those other Jedi, there’s a good chance Venestra will share what really happened to Yoda on the condition of secrecy, which paves the way for him to become an important player in the next season.
While Leslye Headland has heard “nothing” about if The Acolyte Season 2 is moving forward, if/when it’s added to the slate of upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows, we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, Skeleton Crew is the next series in the franchise coming up, but no premiere date has been set for it on the 2024 TV schedule yet.
