Skeleton Crew Keep Jod a Villain?

More often than not, Star Wars is about redemption. Darth Vader saves Luke. Ben Solo helps Rey. The Mandalorian gives up his code for Grogu. On and on down the list, characters that at one time are bad end up turning good. So far though, on the latest Star Wars show, Skeleton Crew, we’ve seen the opposite. Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) has gone from a roguish would-be hero to a full-blown evil villain throughout the series and now, as we get to the end, we’re wondering, what’s going to happen next?

Obviously, your guess is as good as ours here. We have not yet seen the final episode, and won’t until everyone else does at 9 p.m. EST next Tuesday, January 14. So don’t worry about spoilers. We’re just wondering if the show will keep its top-billed A-list star a bad guy or if it’s even a possibility not to.

To quickly recap, the four kids who make up the crew met Jod in a prison where he used the Force to help them escape. He then became their de facto guide and leader as they attempted to return to their home planet of At-Attin. Jod however, who is known to almost every character on the show as a different name, seemed to mainly be tagging along not out of kindness. He wanted to see if the legends are true. If At-Attin truly has a huge treasure on it.

So Jod took the crew across the galaxy, put together clues, and gracefully avoided any specifics about himself. We know that he is Force-sensitive. We think he was telling the truth about being lost and alone. He was definitely a pirate captain before making a few mistakes. But when it became clear At-Attin did house some kind of treasure, a switch went off. The antihero instantly became the selfish, evil pirate we met in the first scene of the series. And, by the end of the penultimate seventh episode, he’d taken things well beyond that, killing his former first mate Brutus, brandishing a lightsaber to threaten bot the kids and their parents, and finally discovering At-Attin’s treasure.

In our minds, Skeleton Crew has taken such care to show Jod fully embracing his pirate side, it would almost be a betrayal for him to go back. At least in this season. Maybe, by the end of this season, he escapes and in a hypothetical subsequent season, we see him learn the error of his ways. Anakin Skywalker, of course, very famously came back from the side of Actually Having Killed Some Kids–Jod’s pretty tame in the grand scheme of things. Sure, he lopped SM-33’s head clean off, but he wouldn’t step on the cute alien mouse that called that head home! If that switch happens now though, in this season, it would be a major disappointment if he immediately turns around on this path he’s been on.

Jod’s arc has been one of the true highlights of the show, setting up an emotionally charged showdown between him and the four kids he pretended to save. Let’s keep it that way. Make the star of your show a bad guy. We don’t care. We love it. If Skeleton Crew hopes to go down as maybe the second-best  Disney+ Star Wars show to date, it should play that out and keep him living in that dark side for a little while longer.

What do you think? Do you agree? Is Jod worth, or worthy, of saving? Let us know below.

The first seven episodes of Skeleton Crew are now on Disney+. Catch up before the finale.

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