Star Wars: Acolyte Reveals How Sith Weapon Helped the Master

Star Wars: The Acolyte‘ explained how the mysterious Sith Lord from the latest episode managed to deactivate so many of the heroes’ lightsabers in the most recent episode. Manny Jacinto’s Qimir is revealed to be The Stranger, a sinister helmet-wearing force user who can render lightsabers irrelevant in a fight. His cortosis gauntlet and helmet are the key to this ability. Star Wars: The Acolyte‘s official social media profiled the new villain and made mention of his toy. Basically, when our Jedi heroes went on the offensive against The Stranger, any blow that hit those cortosis gauntlet immediately shorted out their weapons, making them even more defenseless against his murderous skills. Here’s what Star Wars says about the new bad guy.

“With a specialized cortosis gauntlet and a mask permanently twisted into a frightful grin, The Stranger with a red-bladed lightsaber appears as if out of thin air. While some may call him a Sith, little is known of this dark sider who has been training Mae Aniseya in secret, hiding his face from his pupil,” the post reads. “When needed, he has adopted the alias Qimir, acting as a shiftless drifter and supplier with seemingly no cares at all other than his own amusements.”

So, The Stranger headbutting that lightsaber to disable it becomes more than just stylistic flourish, it shows off just how much this Dark Side menace has trained to take Jedi out. Also of note for Star Wars fans, in the older Star Wars adaptations, cortosis was brittle, which helps explain why Jecki was able to damage his helmet and reveal the attacker’s identity. (In the comics and novels, this is likely to help make sure it didn’t become an overused plot device.) The gauntlet specifically hangs out on his off-hand showing even more combat skill and training. Quimir has been sitting in the tall grass this entire time, waiting for this moment to just lay waste to Sol and his allies.

Manny Jacinto On Becoming The Stranger In Episode 5

Needless to say, a lot of Star Wars: The Acolyte fans weren’t expecting to see all the Jedi they’ve been following over the course of the series be brutally murdered by a rogue Sith. (All the Yord Horde has to be reeling because of how abrupt it all was.) But, showrunner Leslye Headland apologizes for nothing. She and Manny Jacinto sat down with Entertainment Weekly to talk about that massive reveal and all the carnage. For the actor, he says that the team prepped for this day for a long time. All the while, Jacinto was perfecting his lightsaber work so he could render one of the more impressive battles the Disney+ era of Star Wars has seen.

“We talked a lot about how you take a low-status character and convert him to a badass,” Jacinto told the outlet. “He’s a guy that is so under the radar, that nobody is paying attention to, and all of a sudden he’s actually the guy pulling the strings.”

“I had almost four months to train for that fight scene,” he continued. “That was the first time I really got to dig into something with so much action and really make use of my dance background. We worked on everything. We did boxing, we worked on kicks, we worked on all the choreography. It was tough. They conditioned my body so that I could get through this five-person fight scene.”

Were you shocked by that intense Episode 5? Let us know down in the comments!