In my review last week, I mentioned that now would be a good time for The Acolyte to show the second half of the Brendok flashback aired earlier this season, where we saw part of the conflict that killed the coven Osha and Mae grew up with. Go figure, that’s exactly what this newest episode does! I wish I could say I was more satisfied with what we saw, though. What in theory should have been an interesting, eye-opening episode, the penultimate of the season, was instead a bland, messy, indecisive one, that couldn’t really make up its mind about the story it was telling.
This one was a bit of a letdown, and I wonder if The Acolyte can make up for it with only one episode left.
If I can boil my problem down to one sentence it’s this; The Acolyte just didn’t live up to the expectations they set forth back when we saw the first part of this flashback. Perhaps this is the fault of the fandom for setting unrealistic expectations. After all, we’ve had over a month to look at that episode and come up with our own answers and theories about the missing gaps. I’m usually never the kind of person to blame a show for not fulfilling headcanon.
The thing is, even without those theories in mind, the answers here are kind of boring. Turns out Mae’s little hallway fire really did do all that damage that blew up the coven. Turns out the witches all died from a group possession being broken. Turns out Torbin didn’t really do anything so awful that he should have spent a decade in some kind of vow of silence and meditation. Sol is perhaps the biggest “villain” among the Jedi, and he’s not much of a villain at all.
In order to explain why these Jedi would feel so absolutely devastated with guilt over what happened, we needed to see something more explicitly awful. Master Indarah is totally reasonable every step of the way. Kelnacca does nothing wrong. Torbin makes a dumb decision, but only after coming under the influence of Aniseya, with an implication that said influence was still affecting him when he ran off to the coven.
It’s like The Acolyte felt some need to waffle about the morality of what the Jedi do here, except they also do the same with the coven. There’s still so many unanswered questions here as a result. Am I supposed to believe this alone is why these Jedi feel so terrible?
Sol once again shines, as his role in what happens is more explicit. He is the one who finds the coven, he is the most vocal about acting, and he is the one who kills Aniseya. It is ambiguous, in a good way, whether he truly felt a connection to Osha, or is just wounded by his lack of a Padawan and driven by desire for one. This makes him quite similar to Qimir, who is also deeply driven by his desire for an acolyte.
The moment he lets Mae fall in order to save Osha is harrowing and interesting in ways fans can debate forever. If Sol can’t save both sisters, surely he should save who he can? Or should he have tried harder? Did his subconscious preference to save Osha color his actions? Did he truly have a connection or preference for Osha, or just latch on to her because she did not have the dark side marking that Mae did? I also like how he showed a willingness to leave the Jedi Council in the dark, as it establishes a lifelong pattern of bypassing Jedi authority, like he did last episode.
Outside of these moments with Sol, though, much of this feels boring or unsatisfying, with many key questions still unanswered.
Most of all, we still don’t know what exactly the deal is with Osha and Mae. How they were born, what the witches meant to do with them – you know, the questions we’ve had all season since the first flashback. These types of unanswered mysteries worked better then, when The Acolyte had an entire season ahead and the promise of a second part to this particular episode. Now, though? This feels like a bigger storytelling sin.
We did learn some new information. We know that Osha and Mae are the result of a vergence of the Force, or perhaps the vergence itself. It was also revealed that they are a single consciousness split into two bodies. We still don’t know what exactly this means, or how Aniseya and Koril created these children. However, their tendencies towards good or evil can be explained by this split consciousness.
Koril also remains a major open question, though in her case I can still see the room to explain more. She seemingly vanishes when Kelnacca is possessed and her insistence on Mae tapping into the dark side could hint at a past as some Sith or Sith-adjacent Dark Side user. There may still be more here for the finale to show us.
The problem is the execution. The finale has so much ground to cover already, and I struggle to see how The Acolyte can deliver on it all in a satisfying manner.
This show has frequently struggled with the execution of its more interesting plot points. For example, on paper, Sol killing Aniseya looks like two people making poor, rash decisions in a stressful moment. In practice, Aniseya had already cruelly taken Torbin over, and was turning into some terrifying smoke form that was also seemingly making Mae dissolve into smoke.
There are also theories out there about lingering effects from the witch possession being the reason Torbin and Kelnacca go into exiles of sorts, but I struggle to buy this when Torbin’s death is clearly painted as one driven by guilt. And again, it’s a cool idea but one the show did not execute well if that is the intention.
Aniseya looks so undoubtedly evil in the moment that it’s hard as a viewer to blame Sol, and Aniseya’s claim that she was going to let Osha go rings false considering what she did in that moment. It also undercuts the idea that Sol did something terribly wrong. We may later see Koril do something similar when she vanishes and possesses Kelnacca, but even then, what does that mean Aniseya was doing to Mae? We have no idea.
(I will say that the fight with possessed Kelnacca against Sol and Torbin was excellent, and everything I wanted to see from a Wookie Jedi fight.)
The Acolyte seems to want things both ways, where Aniseya and the witches are evil enough for the Jedi to be worried, but then actually not having evil intentions at all. I suppose you can argue for Koril having more obviously evil intentions than Aniseya, and maybe we’ll see something develop in that direction, but there’s still the problem that one more episode is left, and even Koril comes across so much as a mother protecting her children.
Ultimately, it is important for a penultimate episode to both leave enough for the finale to still be engaging, but also not pile too much on the finale’s plate. This is why I thought the second flashback episode would be well-placed here; The Acolyte could answer some burning questions about this night, the guilt of the Jedi, and the nature of Osha and Mae, while leaving enough to tie to Qimir next time.
Opinions can always vary, but I find myself disappointed. For the second time I feel like The Acolyte picked a terrible moment for a disappointing episode. Last time, they had half the season to make up for it, and did a decent job doing so. This time, they have one episode to rebound from this. So much remains unanswered about this single incident, and that’s not even considering the events happening now with Osha, Mae, Qimir, and Sol, or Vernestra’s involvement.
It feels like a bit too tall of a task, and that The Acolyte won’t rise above being just an okay show. Which is okay, but it is so close to more.
Images Courtesy of Disney
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