One thing I’ve noticed about the recent Star Wars shows on Disney+ has been the wonkiness of the pacing. It was a problem in The Mandalorian Season 3, it was a major problem in Ahsoka, and it’s rearing its head now in The Acolyte. 

Since Episode 3, “Destiny,” when we saw Mae starting the fire that destroyed her coven of space witches, they’ve hinted at the flip side of this story. Jedi were drinking poison rather than talking about it. Kelnacca and Indara both took postings on remote planets to isolate themselves. Qimir all but accused Sol of perfidy by asking what darkness he was hiding. Mae accused Osha of letting the Jedi brainwash the truth out of her. It’s been a constant drip drip drip of hints.

Well, finally, FINALLY, they are going to reveal all! Totally!

Just next week.

Maybe.

The problem here is that when you build up something like this, you really have to deliver the goods. If you’ve spent 6 episodes out of 8 hinting that the Jedi did something terrible, it’d better be on a level of “Anakin slaughtering younglings” terrible. Otherwise, it just feels like a cheat.

So while there was a lot of interesting stuff going on this week, it felt like a lot of filler until we get to those revelations next week. Hopefully.

At the end of last week, Mae engineered a switcheroo, chopping off her braids with a lightsaber to get onto Sol’s ship and leaving an unconscious Osha with the Master. Sol didn’t notice, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt by thinking that he’s too consumed with grief over the loss of his Padawan and his entire team. He even full-on hugs Mae and doesn’t realize it’s a different person.

Qimir, however, knows that it’s Osha, and spirits her off to his secret hideout planet. The planet is technically “unknown,” but it looks a lot like the kind of place that a hermit Luke Skywalker would pick to hide out. (There’s even a cute little aquatic waterfowl that looks a lot like a puffin with a prehensile beak/trunk)

Hello, Build-A-Bear Workshop?

Qimir attempts to entice Mae to the Dark Side (and also, straight up entice her with some skinny dipping).  And Qimir isn’t doing a hard Darth Vader/Palpatine pitch; he’s pretty chill about everything. He tells her she can leave — just swim over to his ship. He lets her handle his lightsaber. (No, not like that. Get your minds out of the gutter.) He just wants to practice the Force and have a pupil. (“The power of two,” he says.) The subconscious emotions of fear and anger are more powerful, and the Jedi are afraid of them.

Osha protests that that leads to the Dark Side. Qimir wonders if that is why the Jedi “threw her away.” This is what finally provokes Osha, who ignited his lightsaber and swings it at his head. She finally admits that she didn’t leave the Jedi Order of her own volition — she failed. It seems that Osha also has a great deal of anger inside her; she just carries it better than her sister. Qimir admits he made a “mistake” when he thought Mae was after more than just revenge. It seems that he may have found a better candidate after all. He’s happy to patch up his Mouth of Sauron helmet while she thinks about it. The helmet, by the way, is made of cortosis, a nifty material that is resistant to lightsaber strikes and is also blocks out the senses, like the Jedi training helmets that make you rely on the Force.

Back on the ship, Mae is still subject to her conflicting motivations. She’s about to stab Sol on bridge, but he obliviously storms past her to go reset the communications relays. (The ship is conveniently suffering from power and comms disruptions. Because we have to pause for dramatic reasons, that’s why.) She does a hard reset on Pip before she can rat him out, but Bazil isn’t so easily fooled. And thank goodness. Sol stuns her, and then takes off before the Jedi rescue party can show up.

Why is Sol so eager to avoid the Jedi? Well, with Mae subdued, Sol is going to tell her everything. At the same time, Osha puts on Qimir’s cortosis helmet (and that really sounds like a lost King Crimson album title). She is about to slip into the sensory deprivation state, and be guided by the force, when the credits roll.

So, this is a breather episode, between the hard-driving combat of last week and what promises to be the shocking revelations of next week. But, even taking that into consideration, there wasn’t a lot happening. Once again, Mae is fumbling with her motivations — do you want to kill Sol or not? Do you want your sister back or not? Make up your mind! If there is supposed to be some grand internal struggle, I’m not getting it. She just seems flip and indecisive.

I did think that the tact Qimir takes in his attempt to seduce Osha to the Dark Side was clever. If he had pulled a Vader move, Osha would’ve run away screaming, but now, she’s willing to reopen herself to the force. Sol is about to unburden his soul to Mae. Will this make Mae and Osha switch places? Possibly, but I’d like to think that Osha is stronger than that.

Hopefully next week, in the penultimate episode, we find out what this tragedy was really all about. But, as any Jedi knows, it can be hard to stick the landing.

Episode Rating: 3 out of 5

Well, that was exciting!

After a week which had a rather aimless race through the woods, we got the big reveal of the Master, and some extremely fun lightsaber battles.

Osha wakes up to find a dead Jedi next to her, and the sounds of battle across the field. Through the trees, she sees the flicker of the red blade of the Master make quick work of the Jedi. In one EXTREMELY COOL move, he impales a Jedi on his lightsaber and then Force pulls ANOTHER Jedi onto the blade. He head butts lightsabers with his helmet, which causes them to short out. The Jedi seem badly outmatched, even though they outnumber him 10 to 1. As Yord gasps while getting Osha away from the fight, “He doesn’t obey the rules of combat!” (Oh my! Where are my Jedi pearls to clutch?)

Mae sees the chaos outside and decides to get away before the Master unleashes his wrath on her.  But before she can leave, Jecki enters Kelnacca’s Hut to arrest her. Mae fights her off and tries to flee. Wait, wasn’t Mae going to surrender herself last week? Why is she running now? Is the threat of her Master enough to make her change plans again? Jecki, ever the eager student, is relentless and pursues her.

While they fight, Jedi Master Sol takes on the dark attacker. So far, he’s the only one who can put up any resistance. (That doesn’t speak well to your abilities as a trainer, BTW.) That is, until the Master disappears during the fight, reappearing by Jecki and Mae. He scoffs at Mae, telling her she could learn this Padawan. After all, she knows how to be loyal. Jecki tries to fight off the Master, and she does very well! (Apparently, she was the only one to pay attention in Sol’s lightsaber classes.) But, the Master is too much for her, and after some very impressive lightsabering, he kills her.

As Yord is leading Osha away, she appears to hear Mae’s cry for help in her mind. Even though Yord is insistent, and following Sol’s direct order to get her out of there, she has to turn back. As they pass through the trees full of hungry, giant umbramoths, Osha has an idea. She tells Yord to ignite his saber to get the moths to follow them.

Sol has caught up to the Master and re-engages. He whacks at the Master with his saber until the helmet breaks off, revealing…

Qimir!

Now, there was a lot of speculation online after last week that Qimir was the Master. After all, Qimir was on the planet and close enough to float into Kelnacca’s clearing. And they were all correct.

Qimir taunts him, saying that he is what the Jedi would label a Sith. He blames Sol for Jecki’s death, saying “you brought her here.” Qimir wants freedom. Freedom to wield his power how he likes without having to answer to the Jedi and their rules. As he says, if you don’t believe in rules, how can you break them? It’s just then that Yord and Osha come back to the clearing. Yord leaps in to fight and promptly gets his neck snapped by Qimir.

Enraged, Sol starts to pummel Qimir, and he is about to slice off Qimir’s head with his saber, when Osha screams at him to stop. Osha still believes in the Jedi, believes that they don’t kill unarmed or defenseless people, even if that person just murdered ten Jedi. (Osha, come on. This would save us so much hassle.) Sol thinks he’s past saving. “His mind is twisted by darkness!” “At least I’ve accepted my darkness,” retorts Qimir. “What have you done with yours?”

Osha wonders what he means by that, and starts to question Sol about what he’s hiding. It’s just about then that the umbramoths show up. Osha turns on Pip’s flashlight and sticks him to the back or the Master. The moths descend on Qimir, and in the chaos, Mae and Osha escape.

Once safely away, the twins finally have their reunion. But, like most things with family, it doesn’t really go like they’d hoped. Osha blames Mae for the fire that killed their family, plus the Jedi she killed. Mae is insistent that Osha has been brainwashed by the Jedi, and that they destroyed everything. And I would really like for Mae to get more into that, but she instead knocks out Osha. Mae then slices off her braids with a lightsaber, and it’s pretty clear what her next step is going to be.

“Osha” then finds Sol, and heads back to the ship with him. Sol, who got injured in his fight, doesn’t think anything is amiss. However, Bazil (Yay, Bazil’s back! And unharmed!) found Pip, and brought him back to the ship. He smells Pip, then smells after “Osha,” and he knows something is wrong.

This leaves Osha lying in the forest as Qimir approaches. Nice work, Mae. I really believe you when you say how deeply you care about your sister…

Now while the action was fantastic (I am seriously going to put a pre-order down for any Sideshow collectible that has the Master shishkebob-ing two Jedi at once), I am still confused by Mae and her whipsawing motivations. One minute she’s going to surrender to the Jedi, the next she’s plotting to kill Sol. One minute she has renounced the Master and his dark ways, the next she’s pledging fealty. One minute she’s overjoyed to see Osha, the next she’s knocking her unconscious and leaving her with the Master to fend for herself. And yes, each shift is spurred by a plot development, but there’s so little hesitation on her part.

Still, the action was really good. And unlike a few recent Star Wars shows I can mention (*cough,* Obi-Wan, *cough*) the lightsabers are once again deadly. (Remember when the Grand Inquisitor got disemboweled by a lightsaber, only to be back in three episodes? Change your batteries!) And to its credit, the show is not afraid to kill anyone. I grumped about Carrie-Anne Moss and the Wookiee getting killed before they could show off their Jedi skills, but this show also had no mercy for sweet young Jecki and Yord.

So, it’s a welcome improvement after last week. And I am still hoping we learn about what dark secret Sol is hiding, and whether or not he figures out that it’s Mae in his ship and not Osha. (Bazil! Help him!)

Episode Rating: 4 out of 5

Last week, we were introduced to twin sisters Mae and Osha. Osha is a Jedi Academy dropout who likes to repair the hulls of spaceships in outer space. Mae, who she presumed dead, was hellbent on getting revenge on the four Jedi she blames for destroying her life. This week, we get a return to their childhoods and see the events that set them on their current paths.

Sixteen years ago, on the planet Brendok, we meet Osha and Mae. They are extremely close, likely because they are the only two children in their colony, which is entirely made up of women. Osha is more pensive, yet still yearns to see the worlds outside of their highly protective compound. Mae is the boisterous one, who likes to run and use her nascent Force abilities to torture the translucent insects around the bunta tree. They are supposed to be preparing for something called “Ascension.” Mae is excited for it, but Osha isn’t, which is why she disobeyed her mother and left the colony to come to her favorite spot to think and draw.

They get caught by Mother Koril (Margarita Levieva), who drags them back to the compound. Mother Koril has the horned ridges of a Dathomirian (like Darth Maul). It’s not safe outside, she tells them, and as they leave the camera pans over to someone spying on them from behind the trees. It’s a younger Sol.

On their return, their other caretaker, Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith), tells them to go get ready for the Ascension ceremony. After the children leave, Aniseya asks if there was any sign of the visiting Jedi. Koril says no, the scouts think they have moved inland. (Should’ve looked harder. Sol was pretty conspicuous.) You see, says Aniseya, I told you this was a safe place for our coven.

Which explains a lot. They are witches, who can use the Force. And if Mother Koril is a Darhomirian, then these are likely the foremothers of the Witches of Dathomir we met in the Ahsoka series (which was a very cool concept that Ahsoka really didn’t do a whole lot with). And as Mother Aniseya explains in a demonstration for the twins, their magic comes from The Thread.

The Thread binds all life together and connects it, and witches can pull the Thread to effect changes (which sounds an awful lot like how Yoda and Obi-Wan explained the Force to young Luke). So the witches have their own method of using the Force, which is separate from Jedi training, and apparently, the Jedi aren’t all that thrilled about it.

At the ceremony, where the children will Ascend into becoming full witches (a Bat Witch-vah, if you will), Mae is super excited and eagerly promises to carry on the legacy of the witches. Osha is hesitant and hems and haws until the Jedi show up and interrupt. Aniseya tells the children to hide while the witches deal with them.

Into the compound come the four Jedi: Indara, her Padawan, Torbin, Wookiee Kelnacca, and Sol. Indara says she thought the planet was uninhabited, which Aniseya scoffs at. “The all-knowing Jedi are ignorant of their surroundings?” Indara tells her that they have no quarrel with the coven but are concerned that they are training children, which is against Republic law. Aniseya reminds her that Brendok is not part of the Republic, and besides, there are no children here. Kelnacca sniffs the air and knows that to be a lie. Osha and Mae have crept close to the front, mainly because Osha was entranced by the lightsabers. (Can’t blame her for that! I’m way older than her and still entranced by them.) Indara calls for them to come forward, which Osha does. Once out, she beckons Mae to come with her. Indara asks where their father is; Aniseya replies that they don’t have one. Indara asks to test the children as potential Padawans, which they have the right to do.

The witches are shown to be quite powerful. When the Jedi get too pushy, Aniseya possesses young Padawan Torbin, causing his eyes to go all black. No wonder the Jedi are wary of them.

Mother Aniseya tells the twins to fail the test on purpose, so the Jedi won’t take them away, and Mae happily complies. Osha doesn’t want to lie, especially to the nice Jedi who listen to her and showed her his lightsaber, but she tries to tank the test by guessing the wrong images on Sol’s pad. Sol tricks her into revealing that she knew the right answer. (“It’s a mountain.” “Correct!” “What? No, it wasn’t!”) Sol thinks she’d be a great Jedi, but only if she is brave enough to speak her truth. And when he tells her about all the other children at the Jedi Academy, she instantly perks up.

Mae is furious that Osha passed the test and is now leaving for the Jedi Academy. When Osha says that she couldn’t lie to them, Mae retorts that Osha lied to her. Osha said she would fail the test and they would stay together, and she didn’t. Mae is so enraged at losing her sister that she starts to hit her until Mother Koril has to drag her away. Aniseya isn’t happy to lose Osha, but she knows that she has to follow her own path and pull her Thread. Destiny isn’t prewritten. She has to choose her way.

After Osha leaves to pack, Aniseya and Koril have an enlightening discussion. It is revealed that Koril carried the twins to term, but they were “created” by Aniseya. So there really wasn’t a father, and that wasn’t just something they said to get the Jedi off their backs. (Hey, you know who else didn’t have a father? Remember, in The Phantom Menace, how Shmi Skywalker said Anakin just happened through some kind of miracle? Do you suppose they’re insinuating that Anakin was the result of the Witches of Dathomir?)

While Osha is packing, Mae appears in her doorway, still angry and intense. She isn’t going to let Osha leave, and she will keep Osha in her room. Even if she has to kill her.

This… kinda comes out of nowhere. Mae is obviously distraught, but it seems like a little bit of stretch to go from “I don’t want you to leave” to “murder by death.” (Editor’s Note: You know what else this sounds like? Anakin going from “must save Padmé” to “let’s kill kids” in, like, 60 seconds!) Mae locks Osha in her room and smashes a bottle of some sort of kerosene against the door to set it on fire. Trying to stay as calm as possible, Osha unscrews the cover of an access hatch and crawls through into a tunnel.

As she makes her way out, she hears screams and loud bangs from above. She makes her way into a power generator room, where she sees Mae. The twins end up on opposite sides of a broken metal bridge, going across the room over a chasm. Each one is urging the other to jump to them, to no avail. The bridge starts to creak and give way, but Sol bursts in at the last moment and grabs Osha, while Mae falls. He leads Osha out of the compound, through a pile of dead witches, and past the corpse of her mother. When Osha wakes up on the ship on the way back to Coruscant, she wants to head back. Sol tells her that everyone is dead, including her sister. They can’t return.

This episode fills in a lot of backstory for the twins, but it all feels like Act One of Rashomon. This story is told in a way that clearly favors Osha and the Jedi, but there are still so many questions left unanswered. Why were the Jedi on Brendok in the first place? Like Mom suggested, the Jedi really couldn’t have thought the planet was uninhabited, right? And why did Sol show up in the nick of time to save Osha? Was he merely coming to pick her up for the Jedi Academy, or was there something else? And how did all the witches die? Surely it wasn’t from the fire. Could that have spread so far, so fast? Or were the Jedi somehow responsible? And surely a full-grown Jedi Knight could have saved both girls with the Force, without having to go all Sophie’s Choice. (Sol-phie’s Choice? Is that anything?) Or was Sol pulling the Thread and choosing a destiny for Osha without Mae? Did Mae really turn into a psychopath at the thought of losing her sister, or are these merely the subjective memories of Osha trying to make sense of a tragedy?

The episode ends with Mae looking for her sister at her special place under the bunta tree. Does Mae think Osha’s dead? That she killed her? Or does she still blame the Jedi? Did Sol see her survive her fall? (Jedi really should know that merely dropping someone from a great height is not enough to kill them. See: Palpatine, Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker, etc.) Was he lying to Osha?

It’s a mystery, and it certainly is making me eager to see more. I like what The Acolyte is doing with the characters. Motivations are being revealed and questioned. And now that we have seen the “official” version of the events on Brendok, I hope we see Mae’s version.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Something I’ve written about on here before is that too many shows and franchises expect you to put in a great deal of homework before you can watch the newest installment. I complained about this a LOT when I was reviewing Ahsoka, as the show grew more and more incomprehensible if you hadn’t watched all 75 episodes of Rebels.

So one of the potentially great things about The Acolyte is that is takes place a hundred years before the prequel films. There are no Skywalkers, no continuity to worry about. The only existing character that might even possibly show up is a certain little green Jedi Master. All you have to do is give me a compelling story. And so far, so good.

The Acolyte comes from Leslye Headland, best known for her Netflix show Russian Doll. Several cast members of that show appear here, which gives me hope for a Jedi Natasha Lyonne. The two-episode premiere that Disney released on Tuesday night gives us a solid start, promising action and mystery in equal measures.

The story follows Osha (Amandla Stenberg), a Jedi Academy dropout who now works as a meknek, doing dangerous outer-hull ship repairs for the Trade Federation. (Remember them, with the thick, Ming the Merciless accents? Apparently Feloni will not rest until every aspect of the prequel films — no matter how bad — has been reclaimed.) She toils away, with her pocket droid/multi-tool, Pip, until a pair of Jedi show up to interrogate her.

It seems that a Jedi has been killed on a the remote planet of Ueda. Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) was killed by a force user who fits Osha’s description to a T. She’s identified by the bartender, who was there for the attack.

The fight scene is very well done. The hooded attacker (and that purple cloak she wears is great — expect to see a lot of it at the next Star Wars Celebration) announces her intention to kill Master Indara and is greeted with a round of guffaws from the table. Kill a Jedi? Yeah, right. But she causes enough of a ruckus that Indara is forced to intervene. The battle recalls those scenes in martial arts films where an aggressive foe tries to attack the old sage, and the sage barely moves but causes the reckless attacker to flail and miss. Osha finds a weakness, though, by exploiting the Jedi’s compassion. She hurls a knife at the bartender, which Indara stops with the Force. However, this distracts her long enough to allow Osha to stab her. (I certainly hope this is not the last we’ll see of Carrie-Anne Moss! Seems a waste to get Trinity in your lightsaber show and kill her off inside of five minutes.)

Osha insists that she’s not the killer, but the pair of Jedi — including her handsome former classmate, now Jedi Knight Yord (Charlie Barnett) — arrest her and have her transported back to Coruscant on a prison vessel. After a fortuitous though badly thought-out prison break caused by the prisoners in the next cell, Osha crashes onto Carlac, a mountainous, wintry planet.

A couple of things happen here that are nice little character beats to show that Osha probably isn’t the real killer. First, she tries to force-pull her pocket droid to her to help get her door open, but she can’t. It’s been six years since she left the order, and she’s cut off from the Force. So it seems unlikely that she could knife a Jedi Master in combat. Second, she helps a prisoner who was being sedated by a parasite so he can get out, showing that she’s not cruel or callous. Her reward is the prisoner taking the last escape pod, leaving her to crash.

On Coruscant, at the Jedi Temple, Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) is training a fresh group of younglings when he is informed about the actions of his old Padawan, Osha. She was one one of his trainees, so he feels a special responsibility for her. He and Indara rescued her from a fire on her home world that killed the rest of her family. They brought her to the Academy, even though she was older than the typical youngling, and it was their urging that made the council admit her. When he learns that she crashed in the prison transport, he heads off to investigate with a small team. He brings Yord and his current Padawan, the by-the-book Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen). (I see buddy-cop potential here!)

Meanwhile, in the wreckage, Osha sees a vision of herself. Only it isn’t herself. It’s her twin sister, Mae. Which is impossible, because Mae died in that fire. Not only that, but she started it. However, it appears that she survived and now blames the Jedi for what happened to her planet. (Also, kudos to the production on this scene. Hearing a little-girl voice come out of an adult is never not creepy.)

This, understandably, freaks Osha out, and the arrival of the trio of Jedi does nothing to calm her down. She tells Sol that she is innocent, and that Mae is still alive as she backs herself off a cliff. Sol saves her, and tells her he believes her.

Her claim of innocence is bolstered by another attempt on a Jedi’s life while Osha is in custody. Someone broke into the Temple on Olega and tried to kill Master Torbin while he was in a meditative state but could not penetrate his protective Force field. Since Osha was with Sol, she couldn’t have been there as well. It must have been Mae. They are directed to investigate.

Mae has fallen in with a Dark Master who has trained her. Now, we obviously know this to be a Sith, but the Jedi at this time, at the end of the High Republic era, had not seen a Sith in centuries and seem absolutely puzzled that anyone would want to kill Jedi. Mae is intent on killing four Jedi to get revenge for what happened to her and what they did. And her mysterious master, for unspecified reasons, needs her to kill one of them without using a weapon.

However, Master Torbin has been in his meditative state for about ten years and is untouchable. She seeks advice from her supplier, Qimir (Manny Jacinto! Now both Jason Mendoza and Pillboi are canon Star Wars characters! Tahani next!)

He rather cryptically spells out their goals, reminding her that everyone has a weakness. “The Jedi justify their galactic dominance in the name of peace.” Which, they know, is a lie. Torbin is no different. He only thinks he’s found peace, but “what he really needs is something only you can give him. Absolution.” He makes her a poison based on a plant from Osha’s home world. She breaks back into the temple and speaks to the meditative Torbin and offers him a choice. Either confess his crimes to the Jedi High Council, or receive forgiveness from her by drinking the poison. Torbin awakens from his ten-year meditation almost instantly. He says, “I’ve been waiting for you, Mae,” and drinks the poison. “Forgive me. We thought we were doing the right thing.”

Which is… wow. What could the Jedi have done that was so bad that Torbin immediately killed himself rather than talking to the Council? I mean, we saw Anakin slaughter younglings! Back in the Ahsoka show, there was a flashback to young Ahsoka leading troops in the Clone Wars and thinking about the things they had done in the name of the Jedi. Will this be something similar? A fog-of-war moment? Were the Jedi “just following orders?”Or will it be something more akin to a My Lai massacre? Or did the Jedi do something terrible to preserve what they thought was a greater good? My interest is piqued.

Mae leaves the temple just as Osha, Sol and the rest arrive, which leads to a confrontation where Mae attacks Sol. This doesn’t go well for her as Sol is even better at dodging than Indara was. She escapes by using the Force to create a sandstorm for cover. As she runs out to the road to speeder-jack a vehicle, she sees Osha. Mae is just as surprised to see that Osha is alive. (Was that a motivating factor for her? Revenge for her sister? If she knows she’s alive will that change her desires?) Osha fires at her, but the shots are so far off, it looks to me like she missed on purpose.

As she and Sol discuss their encounter, Osha reminds him that there were four Jedi involved in the incident on her home world: Indara, Torbin, Kelnacca, and Sol. She already killed two, and fought Sol, which leaves only the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca, camping out on Khofar. I am quite excited by the Wookiee Jedi. You thought they were badass when they could just rip an arm out of socket? Well, Kelnacca can do that and then use the Force to beat you with it.

So, overall, this is a strong start to the series. I am looking forward to the show digging into the mystery of what happened to Osha and Mae so long ago. What were the Jedi trying to cover up? What did they do that got Mae so angry, she turned to the Dark Side for revenge? Is there a lot of pent-up anger towards the Jedi? And who exactly is the mysterious instructor training Mae? We have eight episodes for them to tease out the mystery. Let’s hope for a satisfying conclusion.

Rating:

Episode 1: Lost/Found: 4 out of 5

Episode 2: Revenge/Justice: 4 out of 5