In the Skeleton Crew finale, it's made clear that Jude Law's Jod Na Nawood isn't the pirate with a heart of gold many Star Wars fans imagined he'd be revealed as. Instead, he's a full-fledged villain who hopes to enslave an entire planet and force them to create an unlimited supply of credits.
The show's young leads foil Jod's plan (after learning he was saved by a Jedi as a child only to see them die during Order 66), leaving the pirate to watch as his plan comes crashing down.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly (via SFFGazette.com) about Jod's story arc, Skeleton Crew co-creator Jon Watts said, "Everyone is waiting for that redemption arc, and Ford would always say, 'He's not their parents.' So we had that waiting and you get a little bit nervous. You're like, 'Should we have given him a redemption arc?' But I don't know."
Fellow co-creator Christopher Ford added, "We knew that that character archetype was part of Star Wars, so we wanted to play with it, and especially the whole 'Is he a Jedi or not?' thing. Is he good or bad? And so our twist was this anti-twist, that he was exactly as he presented to be. Seemingly."
Asked about that final shot of Jod, Watts didn't give much away but revealed, "He's seeing the entire plan that he has - probably the closest he's ever been to victory - just going down in flames. That's a great one because I think you could read a lot of different ideas into that expression."
As for his unlikely place in Star Wars history having witnessed Order 66 play out, it sounds like any flashbacks to Jod's past are being saved for a possible second season.
"In our heads, it's like the potential to go deeper," Ford teased. "That part of the story is something that could be explored in the future. So when you have something that's a kind of work in progress like that, you leave it open enough to get worked on and made better."
Will Skeleton Crew season 2 happen? It's been widely reported that the show debuted with lower viewership numbers than The Acolyte, making it the least-viewed Star Wars TV series on Disney+ to date.
Watts said this about what the future may or may not hold in store for the series:
"In terms of what we're doing next, we're excited to talk to everyone, but obviously everyone has their hands full right now dealing with the tragedies of the fires. But we're excited. We're happy that people are finding the show as well. We've slowly been building viewers over each episode, so that's a really exciting thing to watch that grow, and the word of mouth has been really positive."
"So we're excited to get back together with everyone and talk about the future soon."We have ideas in our heads for sure. We're waiting to find out what everyone else thinks, but we've always had an idea of where this could go even before we made the first season. So there's lots of potential out there and hope everyone sees that."
If viewership has increased week-by-week, then it could be what saves Skeleton Crew from becoming another Star Wars TV show that reaches a premature end. There's no official word as we write this, though.
As always, keep checking back here for updates as we have them.