The Acolyte
I’m pleased to report that this week’s episode of The Acolyte is a lot better than last week’s embarrassing entry. There are not space witch chants, thank the Thread. “The power of one, the power of two, the power of many!” will hopefully never be sung again. It can take its place in that great meme graveyard in the sky.
What we have is still not great, however, and the episode ends on a really annoying cliffhanger after a measly 30-minute runtime. I’m a big advocate of weekly releases instead of the Netflix binge model, but Disney’s Star Wars shows are an exception to this.
Andor, one of my favorite shows of all time, should have been released 3 episodes at a time. That was how most of the first season was structured (and is apparently how the second season is structured also, though with bigger time jumps between each Act). Shows like The Acolyte would probably benefit from something similar, with at least two episodes dropping each week, especially when they’re this short.
There’s honestly not even that much to sum up here. The Jedi and Osha (Amandla Stenberg) discuss next steps on Coruscant. Osha plans to head out on her own, but Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae) convinces her to come with him and his team to Khofar where the Wookie Jedi Kelnacca lives. That’s where they suspect Mae—Osha’s Jedi-killing twin—will head next.
Among the expedition sent to the jungle planet is Bazil, a Tynnan Tracker and by far my favorite character in The Acolyte so far:
Bazil
Bazil looks a bit like a capybara. He’s got the nose of a bloodhound and the Jedi, including the dimwitted Yord (Charlie Barnett) and padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) send the adorable little guy out to track Mae. He soon disappears, much to the frustration of his handlers.
Mae is on Khofar, however, racing to find and kill Kelnacca before the Jedi catch up with her. She’s accompanied by Qimir (Manny Jacinto) who grows more and more mysterious by the episode. At first it seemed like he was just helping Mae, but this episode makes me suspect that he is, in fact, a Sith. Either that or a red herring.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. Qimir and Mae argue about her plans for the future. She wants out, basically, and he isn’t happy about it. Then he gets caught in a trap, dangling up in the air, and Mae takes off and leaves him there. When she reaches Kelnacca’s abode, she finds the Wookie dead already, cut through by what appears to be a lightsaber.
(Of course they keep killing off the most interesting characters!)
When the Jedi show up—too late to save Kelnacca—the Sith appears, igniting his red lightsaber. The Jedi draw their weapons and prepare for battle—and then the episode ends, just when things were finally getting good! This is an especially frustrating cliffhanger because, as readers of mine know, I haven’t been very fond of this show so far. As far as Star Wars series go, I think it falls pretty squarely in there with Obi-Wan, Boba Fett and Ahsoka, as in wavering between mildly enjoyable to deeply mediocre to downright bad (the power of one! the power of two! the power of maaannnyyyy!)
Teasing us with a big fight between a gaggle of unprepared Jedi and one seriously powerful looking Sith is more irritating than anything. Next week’s episode better not be some flashback bottle episode, though it’s clear we’ll get more flashbacks since there’s a shot of Kelnacca leaping with his lightsaber out in one of the trailers, and that hasn’t happened yet. And he’s dead.
Who is the Sith?
The Acolyte
Getting into theory territory—and I’m aware the timeline may not work out perfectly here, nor am I an expert on all things Sith—here’s what I’m thinking, and please correct me if I’m mixing things up.
Qimir, I believe, is an apprentice to the Dark Lord of the Sith—whoever that may be at the time of this show. That could be Darth Tenebrous or his predecessor, though the timeline is a bit murky with regard to the Sith during the High Republic.
I wanted to say Qimir is Darth Venamis—a mysterious apprentice who Tenebrous trained alongside Darth Plagueis, the master of Darth Sidious, aka Palpatine—but I think we’re too far in the past for that. Then again, the show could juggle timelines a bit. I don’t think they’re set in stone at least as far as canon is concerned.
Either way, my guess right now is that Qimir is a Sith apprentice and that there is another, more powerful Dark Lord lurking in the shadows. Perhaps Osha and May’s Force-powerful mother, Aniseya. Perhaps Darth Tenebrous (who could have been using the witches to create more potential acolytes to widen his selection pool; we know Tenebrous wasn’t above breaking Darth Bane’s restrictive Rule of Two).
Verdict
The Acolyte
This was certainly a better episode than last week’s though the series continues to suffer from wooden dialogue and odd pacing. I’m also having a hard time liking most of the characters, which I suspect is just a symptom of the mediocre writing.
On the other hand, I’m also obviously invested in the mystery of the Sith and I was starting to really get into the episode—right when it ended! So far, most of the episodes have ended jarringly and this is no exception.
I’m also a bit annoyed that they killed off Kelnacca before he did anything particularly interesting and before we could learn much about him, so hopefully the flashbacks will flesh out our furry friend. Seems like a waste otherwise.
I’ll add further thoughts / scattered thoughts as they come to me. For now, what did you think of Episode 4? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.
Scattered Thoughts:
- So I watched this episode originally several weeks ago as a screener and some things had slipped my mind, such as Qimir telling Mae he went into the jungle of Khofar to help her despite fearless bounty hunters being too afraid to go there. This just reinforces my theory that he’s the Sith apprentice. Their entire conversation in Khofar also makes me think he’s the Sith.
- Mae’s decision to turn herself in seems super rushed. I forgot how she turns on a dime here, deciding to turn herself into Kelnacca just like that . . . because she was so tired after hiking?
- People have talked about how they think Osha and Jecki might have the hots for one another, but isn’t Jecki supposed to be a teenager and Osha is in her late twenties? I think they’re just friends. Are people allowed to be just friends in modern TV anymore? Do we have to ship everyone, everywhere all at once?
- I’m even more annoyed rewatching the final scene of this episode because it really, genuinely is where the episode (and the show) finally get interesting and exciting and then they end in the most jarring cliffhanger ever. No doubt this annoys me doubly having had to wait weeks just to rewatch the damn episode and now I have another week to find out what happens. I just want to see a cool fight. The Sith, whoever they are, is super powerful to be able to knock back all those Jedi.
Okay, that’s all for now.
