‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Just Brilliantly Revealed Jod Na Nawood’s Origin, Probably

Star Wars’ Skeleton Crew series continues to be one of the best things Disney Star Wars has produced, and last night had an excellent penultimate episode before its season (series?) finale.

Ahead of this episode Jude Law said we would learn a lot about his character, pirate Jod Na Nawood, and many thought that would be a flashback episode about his origin story. That did not happen, but if you were paying attention that is…kind of exactly what happened.

What was on display here was a look at how Jod must have been “molded” into the slippery force-using pirate he is today. The idea here is that he was a Youngling that escaped the Order 66 purge of all (almost all) Jedi, a crusade led by Anakin Skywalker on orders from Palpatine.

Did you recognize some moments from Revenge of the Sith? You should have, namely the famous scene where Anakin enters a room of Younglings and pops out his lightsaber. There’s a cut then, but we know he butchers them all.

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We see that same shot here with the kids, and then it’s what Jod says to them, which seemed especially harsh in that moment:

"Poor boy…What exactly are you going to do? You're all weak. Weak, sheltered, spoiled children."

That sounds like projection to me, and either what was said to Jod, or what he felt in that moment going up against Clone Troopers or maybe even Anakin. It would explain why he has force powers now (unless that too is a con).

The timeline mostly adds up. Order 66 took place in 19 BBY. Skeleton Crew takes place in 9 ABY. That’s 28 years from Order 66, and while I’m not sure how long you can still be considered a “youngling” (9? 10?) or how old Jod is supposed to be exactly (Jude Law is 52 but can play younger) and I can buy this working.

But frequent Star Wars show-watchers may remember, Reva in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show had essentially the same origin story, a surviving Youngling who eventually became an Inquisitor. Then, in the gaming world, Cal Kestis was a Padawan who also survived Order 66. I suppose this could be the third branch of this path. Kestis became a Jedi, Reva became an Empire-employed Inquisitor while Jod is just a freelance scoundrel pirate who is kind of evil but mainly just greedy.

So, is this right? We’ll see if we get answers in the finale.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.