‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ Stars Break Down That Shocking Finale Villain Twist
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for all of Season 1 of Jupiter’s Legacy.]
The first season of the newest superhero TV series, Jupiter’s Legacy, dropped on Netflix on May 7, and it ended with a bombshell: The original superhero who turned against the rest of the Union isn’t actually behind the current threat.
Throughout the eight episodes, we learned George/Skyfox (Matt Lanter) turned against the others — he disagreed with close friend Sheldon/The Utopian’s (Josh Duhamel) Code (never kill). It also looked like he was the one who released a clone of the villain Blackstar (Tyler Mane), who’s locked up in prison, on the world. But the truth is, it’s Sheldon’s brother, Walter/Brainwave (Ben Daniels), who has orchestrated everything, including framing George.
Walter even created a construct of his frenemy for Sheldon’s wife, Grace/Lady Liberty (Leslie Bibb), to see when she went in after him into the Blackstar clone’s mind. He also killed his own daughter, Raikou (Anna Akana), to keep his secret.
Daniels and Lanter take TV Insider inside that twist and more.
The True Villain: Walter’s Goal
“The world will be a better place if he was in charge and he has to kill his daughter because it’s just sacrificing one for the many in the grand scheme of things,” Daniels says. “She just has to go [because] she’ll thwart his plan for world domination — I mean, for world peace.”
Steve Wilkie/Netflix
If Walter had his way, “he would like to have his fingers in every pie,” he continues. “I think pretty quickly it would have become some kind of weird police state, for the good of the world, of course. He would have liked to have interfered a lot more, to save the poor people.”
With that in mind and what we saw in Season 1 from Walter, he’s the bigger threat as a villain, according to Lanter. “He’s that snake in the grass, evil manipulation behind the scenes,” he explains. “I think that’s always more dangerous than George, who doesn’t really seem like the guy to do things in secrecy. His personality is large and bold and comical. As you saw [with] the power rod that he built for [his son] Hutch [Ian Quinlan], he thought it was funny that every time he says, ‘take me to my father,’ it goes to a strip club. That’s George’s personality.”
Brother vs. Brother
Walter is trying to separate Sheldon and his son, Brandon/Paragon (Andrew Horton), to create instability in the Union and force a change in the leadership. “[Walter] knows Brandon is the only one strong enough to [get rid of Sheldon],” Daniels says.
Marni Grossman/Netflix
But the brothers’ rivalry (“I’m not my f**king brother,” Walter tells Blackstar during a visit to his prison cell) goes back to before they even got their powers. They disagreed about things like running the family business and their father and it was George, not Walter, who backed Sheldon’s journey to follow his visions. That journey led them to the Island, where the original six became superheroes.
“I was really into exploring what it is like to have Elvis Presley as your younger brother, who everyone loves and just glides through life. No matter what he does, he is showered in roses, where poor ol’ dweeby Walter can’t get a look in,” Daniels explains. “He feels completely awkward and is the butt of jokes. And their father seems to not like him.”
Because of that, it was important to him that Walter got a chance to “let out” everything he’s feeling in Season 1 — and he did, while the six were walking along a ledge on the Island and the slightest misstep could result in one of them falling to their death.
“Episode 7 used to be very, very different,” Daniels reveals. After it was added to the script Walter “unbuttons and says what it’s like to have Sheldon as a brother and puts the entire group in danger,” the director, Marc Jobst, wanted to have that happen in a cave and showed the actor the spot.
Steve Wilkie/Netflix
“I said, ‘OK, I’ll go look at the cave, maybe I can make it work in a kind of claustrophobic way,'” Daniels continues. “We went down into this cave … and then this melon-sized rock just fell from the ceiling about four feet in front of us, so we couldn’t film there [for] health and safety [reasons].”
As a result, he got the moment he wanted, on the ledge. “You saw that anger and that rage and that hurt, where it all kind of stems from really,” the star says. “And as soon as he gets his superpower, all that anxiety he has as a young man goes because he knows what everyone is thinking. Then the world is a different place for him and he can start to play and enjoy, and gradually he sets all the chess pieces in place and sort of reaps his rewards really — for the good of the world, of course.”
Walter and George’s Complicated Relationship
As Sheldon’s brother and his best friend, Walter and George just never really could get along, something that Daniels attributes to both being “a mass of insecurities for different reasons.”
Steve Wilkie/Netflix
“Walter’s insecurity can’t let him appreciate George and let George into his life,” he shares. “He’s in pain as a younger man, emotionally and psychologically.” George picked up on how much it bothered him to be the butt of everyone’s jokes.
There were, however, a few moments in the flashbacks where it did seem like George cared about Walter. “I’m glad you [noticed] that because these guys have grown up together,” Lanter agrees. And with George’s parents had passed away, the brothers are “the only family he has.”
But, “in some ways, George and Sheldon have been closer than Walt and Sheldon ever were.” That’s because Sheldon and George were much more social than Walter. Lanter speculates that Walter “feels slighted by George his entire life.” In that love-hate relationship, “I think [Walter] wants to be George in a way, but he hates George because he can’t be,” he continues.
There were a few flashbacks of Walter and George that ended up being deleted. “You actually see them getting on a bit better,” Daniels says. “But I think probably that might’ve been confusing ultimately.”
Marni Grossman/Netflix
In one, “George actually invited Walter out to this party,” Lanter shares. “Walter was clearly stressed out about his brother and George said, ‘Come on out and party with me, I’ll introduce you to this girl.’ I really liked that scene, and I know Ben did too. I think we’re both a little bummed we didn’t see it because I do think that if you show a little relationship there prior, it kind of makes it a little sadder when you see that relationship deteriorate over the years.”
Jupiter’s Legacy, Season 1, Streaming Now, Netflix
