Leslye Headland Admits She Doesn’t Really Understand The Acolyte’s Space Witches Either

Television

If you don’t understand what the hell is going on when you watch The Acolyte, don’t feel bad; the people writing it don’t seem to know either. In an interview with Nerdist about this week’s episode, “Choice,” showrunner Leslye Headland – the one who teamed up with her star to call Star Wars fans gay – tried to explain what happened in that scene where the witches turn to dust or ash or whatever the hell is going on. But what’s more telling about this show than her explanation is how she qualifies it:

“The ‘why’ (about the dematerializing) is the first thing that Jodie and I talked about in seeding the character. What she is doing is what Jecki says in episode four, that it’s an honor to see anyone transform into the Force. I believe that Aniseya is transforming herself and Mae into the Force in a way that doesn’t kill them.”

Okay, admittedly, I’m not watching The Acolyte (I’d rather watch Judge Judy non-stop for a month), and I haven’t watched much of the cartoons or whatever other apocryphal material is out there. But as far as I know, there was never any such thing as “transforming into the Force” before this, unless you count Force Ghosts, dead Jedi who have become one with the Force. I suppose that’s what she means when she says the witches are doing that “in a way that doesn’t kill them.” The logical conclusion you can draw from this is that the witches are more powerful in the Force than any Jedi we’ve ever seen; more powerful than Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, or anyone else. It’s kind of funny, then, that as this mega-powerful witch who can out-Force the Jedi is “transforming into the Force,” she gets killed by Lee Jung-jae (I’ve seen clips while watching reviews) with a lightsaber. That doesn’t seem all that tough. This sounds like a bunch of nonsense that nobody on the show thought about all that much.

And Leslye Headland’s own words seem to confirm that. In that quote, she says, “I believe” that this is what happened. I’m sorry… you “believe” this? You mean you don’t even know for sure what was going on in what seems like a pivotal scene of your show? That’s infuriating, even for someone not watching The Acolyte. This person was given $180 million to make the series, and she doesn’t even care enough to know what happens in the story. And it isn’t just this scene; the interviewer asks Headland about how Carrie-Anne Moss’ character forcing one of the witches (who had also presumably “transformed into the Force”) out of the Wookie Jedi killed the rest of the witches, and Headland said, “I think what she did is, in the moment, in trying to sever the connection between Kelnacca and the witches, she dealt with a power that she did not understand and was unfamiliar with.” Aside from that not being an actual answer (and, again, making little sense since the witches are clearly more powerful in the Force than the Jedi if they can literally turn into it), she once again admits she’s only guessing about what happened.

This is not writing; this is a child playing with action figures. It’s also confirmation that nobody involved in Star Wars under the current regime cares about it (with the possible exception of Tony Gilroy, as I’ve heard Andor is actually quite good). Remember when the writer of one episode said that Dave Filoni approves all the scripts? How much could he care if he lets this stuff go? Does he even ask for an explanation about things like witches “transforming into the Force”? Combine this with the idiocy of having Obi-Wan Kenobi fight Darth Vader several times before A New Hope (and defeat him!), people just randomly mastering the Force, the undoing of any accomplishments by the original trilogy characters, whatever the hell you want to call The Book of Boba Fett, and on and on ad infinitum, and you’ve got a conveyor belt of empty content rather than stories in an established universe about actual characters. I’ve let Star Wars go at this point, but when I see things like this – people from Lucasfilm nonchalantly telling everyone that they don’t care what happens in their own Star Wars stories – my anger wells up again.

Then again, Leslye Headland can’t even decide if the witches are gay anymore, so I guess this shouldn’t be surprising.