Sorry to say this, but it has been almost three years since The Good Place ended. Manny Jacinto, who played the dumb but lovable and extremely Floridian Jason Mendoza is coming back to our small screens, but on a big scale. Variety reports that Jacinto has been cast in The Acolyte, a new Star Wars show for Disney+. Since The Good Place, Jacinto has appeared in the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers (acting alongside Nicole Kidman’s accent and wig) and Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor. Most recently, the actor had a small role in a big movie called Top Gun: Maverick. Maybe you’ve heard of it
Jacinto joins an already intriguing cast including Amandla Stenberg (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Jodie-Turner Smith (White Noise), and Lee-jung Jae (Squid Game). The Acolyte has been in the works since 2020. Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland will serve as the showrunner.
Official plot details are intentionally unknown, but what we do now is that show is set a century before the events of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. It will reportedly “depict the galaxy at the peak of the era of the High Republic, when the Jedi were at their strongest and the Sith were believed to have been eradicated from the galaxy.” With its timeline being a century before The Phantom Menace, hopefully, there will be no Skywalkers involved.
The Acolyte is expected to drop on Disney+ in September 2023.