Jason Momoa in 'Chief of War.' Apple TV+ Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains spoilers from season one, episode eight of Chief of War, "The Sacred Niu Grove."] Jason Momoa has taken a lot of blows onscreen over the years, but shooting the penultimate episode of Chief of War required him to endure a different kind of gut punch. "Even talking about it now is making me emotional," Momoa tells The Hollywood Reporter. "The sounds that are coming out of my body, I haven't heard before. I've never experienced that. I didn't have to act any of that. I'm really going through the horrors of that [trauma]." Related Stories TV HBO, HBO Max Rebound at the Emmys While Apple and 'The Studio' Have a Big Night TV Matthew Rhys Boards 'Presumed Innocent' Season 2 at Apple TV+ Written by Momoa, Thomas Pa'a Sibbett and Doug Jung, and directed by Momoa's long-time producing partner, Brian Andrew Mendoza, the eighth episode of the Apple TV+ historical drama finds Momoa's native Hawaiian warrior Ka'iana enduring one personal tragedy after another. At the end of the previous episode, Ka'iana watched in horror as Captain Simon Metcalfe (Jason Hood) and his crew of "paleskins" murdered hundreds of innocent Hawaiians - a massacre that could have been prevented if Chief Kamehameha I (Kaina Makua) had listened to Ka'iana's warnings about European settlers over the counsel of his chief advisor, Moku (Moses Goods). But rather than admitting they had been mistaken, Kamehameha and Moku not only kick Ka'iana off Kamehameha's council, they also initially decline to use the "red-mouthed weapons," or guns, that Ka'iana had procured from abroad to assist them in their impending battles with the blood-thirsty, power-hungry kings, Keōua of Hawai'i (Cliff Curtis) and Kahekili of Maui (Temuera Morrison). Without the protection of Kamehameha, who is also Keōua's estranged cousin, Ka'iana sees no choice but to flee with his family. But before Ka'iana can get the rest of his loved ones on board with his new plan, Keōua effectively declares war on Ka'iana by killing his younger brother, Nahi (Siua Ikale'o). Avenging Nahi's death will be the driving force behind Ka'iana and his family heading into the season finale, which drops this Friday. While Chief of War was originally ordered and billed as a limited series, co-creators Momoa and Sibbett decided, five weeks before the start of production, that they wanted to plant a bunch of seeds that could come to fruition in future seasons. "We were like, 'Man, we have to tell more. We have to open this [story] up.' But when we changed the structure, we knew that Nahi was going to have to die," Sibbett tells THR. "It was also one of the areas that I veered away from history a little bit. Nahi didn't die this way, but I knew for story [purposes], it was going to create the maximum amount of emotional impact that we need to carry us into the finale and then hopefully give us that draw for a season two. We needed the family to lose something significant." Like the viewers, those who worked on Chief of War had a similar reaction to the news of Nahi's untimely demise. "I remember when we put those pages out, the crew were reading and getting really upset. I had people coming up to me like, 'What are you doing? He can't die! Why are you doing that?' There was even this really small, for a short time, #SaveNahi campaign," Sibbett recalls with a laugh. "The fact that people were reacting that way about Nahi told me we actually made the right decision, because nobody wants [him to die]," Sibbett adds. "If they're upset and really frustrated, that's actually a good thing because that means they're going to need to see how it pans out, and audiences will keep coming back to find out more." Jason Momoa as Ka'iana and Kaina Makua as Chief Kamehameha I in the penultimate episode. Ikale'o, a Tongan-American actor who made his TV debut a few years ago in an episode of NCIS: Hawaii, had an inkling that his character would be killed off. "I had to check my ego and prioritize the message," he says. "Some of these deaths in major shows really, really get you. So I thought about it, like, 'Okay, my job now is to serve that purpose of that scene,' and I had made my peace with it before I signed on to this show." The little research that Ikale'o was able to do in preparation for the role always described Nahi in relation to his older brother. "Nahi wants to be somebody [on his own], but I think he figures that his place in the family is to be the follower of Ka'iana, to be the supporter of Ka'iana, and also a fierce protector of the ohana, the unit. He was always idealizing and idolizing Ka'iana as the go-to for everything," Ikale'o explains. The fact that Ka'iana returns from his travels with a newfound wariness - when he used to f