STAR WARS: THE ACOLYTE: EPISODE 5: COCKBLOCKED AGAIN

* The episode begins with Osha regaining consciousness on the forest floor, and I swear to God I thought they were just jumping ahead and skipping over the lightsaber fight entirely. They only have a $180 million budget, after all.

 

* But no, the battle between the Jedi and Darth Teeth is still going on in the distance.

 

* Osha crawls out of the underbrush and finds herself face to face with the corpse of one of the Jedi redshirts. A hundred or so yards away, she can see the Sith Lord Who Laughs effortlessly dispatching the rest of the team. Two of the Jedi land blows on his armor, which has no effect on him but causes their lightsabers to short out, so he must be wearing cortosis! Instead of helping their allies by switching to Force-based attacks, the Jedi just look at each other in confusion and stand around uselessly until their blades come back on.

* Darth Zippermouth impales one Jedi with his lightsaber, then I think he uses the Force to telekinetically yank a second Jedi onto the length of blade sticking out of the first one's back. Badass finishing move but it happens so quickly it's hard to tell.

* In a matter of seconds, all the Jedi have been killed except Haircut, who's lying wounded on the ground. Where the hell are Squid Game and Jecki?

* Osha fires a stun blast directly into Smylo Ren's head but it has no effect on him. Haircut yells for her to run as Smylo gives chase without finishing him off for some reason.

* Osha books it through the forest but Smylo Ren telekinetically hurls his lightsaber after her. At the last moment, Squid Game jumps out of the trees and deflects the blade back at him. He pushes Osha toward Haircut, who also got there already somehow despite his injury, and orders them back to the ship while he faces down Smylo Ren.

* Oh good the little otter is there and he meets up with them on the way back to the ship.

* "You don't remember me?" asks Smylo Ren. Squid Game observes that he carries a Jedi weapon despite not being a Jedi. Did the Sith not use lightsabers when the Jedi fought them before? 

* The Expanded Universe took its cue from the Emperor calling lightsabers a Jedi weapon in Return of the Jedi and showed the ancient Sith using alchemically enhanced metal swords. Then after the prequels came out and had all the Sith just using regular lightsabers, the EU kind of forgot about that. It would be cool if Disney Star Wars Canon is going back to that original idea.

* Well not cool for me because I won't be reading any of that crap anyway, but still.

* MEANWHILE, Mae runs out of Kelnacca's hut only to get tackled by Jecki, who pronounces her under arrest. So where was she while all the redshirts were being slaughtered? Anyway, they get into a catfight.

* Squid Game demands to see Smylo Ren's face, but Smylo says this would let Squid Game read his thoughts. I guess he's wearing Magneto's helmet.

* Osha and Haircut hear Jecki screaming and Osha wants to go back for her because of sapphic reasons but Haircut is like "lol no way we need get the eff out of here." He says that Smylo Ren "gets inside your head and stays there" and Osha says that she saw her mother do that once, presumably referring to when Master Torbin's eyes turned to tar. I guess they didn't show that part of the fight.

* Jecki finally gets the handcuffs on Mae but Smylo Ren suddenly comes running out of the trees. Jecki dual-wields her lightsaber and Kelnacca's against him and is apparently able to hold him off because she's a main character. While they're both distracted Mae escapes.

* Smylo Ren cuts one of Jecki's sabers in half then disappears. As Jecki looks at the severed hilt you can tell how weirdly thick the lightsaber props are on this show. I wonder if this was a stylistic choice to show a difference in technology between the High Republic era and the movies, or if they just didn't know how to make the props.

* Brazil the space otter has disappeared AGAIN so Haircut and Osha are left trying to find their way back to the ship. Haircut has his lightsaber out as a flashlight but Osha tells him to put it away because they're back in the area where they were attacked by space moths. She reminds Haircut that moths are attracted to light but he has no idea what she's talking about. Dude were you not right there when it happened last episode?

* Smylo Ren calls Mae a traitor and goes to strike her down but Squid Game and Jecki intervene and double-team him. Osha senses the child-ghost of her not-dead sister calling her through the Force and turns on her flashlight to lead the ultramoths back to the battle.

* Squid Game's lightsaber shorts out from the Sith's cortosis armor, leaving Jecki to fight him alone. She smashes the butt of her lightsaber into his helmet multiple times, causing it to fall open, finally revealing the true identity of Darth Teefs: it's Qimir Rouge! Just like everyone suspected.

* Pissed that he's been exposed to Professor X's telepathy, Qimir retaliates by splitting his lightsaber into two lightsabers and violently stabbing poor little Jecki three times through the chest. Given her evaporated heart and lungs it seems like she would have died instantly, but this is Disney Star Wars so I'm sure she's fine.

 

It's just a flesh wound.

* "She was a child!" cries Squid Game. "You brought her here," Qimir points out. Which, fair.

* Qimir TKs Mae over to him and holds his lightsaber emitter to her head, forcing Squid Game to throw down his weapon. Squid Game asks what he is and Qimir says he has no name, so I'm going to start calling him Jianyu. Jianyu then casually admits that the Jedi would call him a Sith.

* Lmao okay, to be fair, I was expecting the show to resort to some kind of cop-out where the evil Force-user dressed in black robes, wearing a scary helmet, wielding a red lightsaber, and bearing a grudge against the Jedi was actually not a Sith Lord by virtue of some technicality, allowing the real Sith to remain hidden until Palpatine's titular revenge. But I guess they just said fuck it, there's a Sith openly fighting Jedi 100+ years too early. You know what, good for them. Oh heaven forbid they violate the sacrosanct text of the Star Wars prequels!

* Jianyu tells Squid Game that all he wants is the freedom to openly use his power however he desires, but the Jedi cannot suffer a Sith to live, so now that they've seen his face they all have to die.

* He starts with Haircut, who comes running out of the forest and TKs Jianyu's cortosis mask into his hand, which he then uses to short out Jianyu's own lightsaber blade, the first clever thing he's done on this show. So Jianyu then puts him in a headlock and physically snaps his neck.

* Mae tries to run off and save her own skin again but Osha stuns her with the blaster and she goes down. Osha looks with shock upon the dead body of Jorg "Rooster Haircut" Fandar, her erstwhile friend who spent months getting ripped for that five-second scene where he had his shirt off.

* Squid Game and Jianyu get into a punching contest. Squid Game beats the shit out of him before finally turning his lightsaber back on and is about to cut the Sith Lord's head off but stupid Osha stops him. "But the dark siiiiiiiiide," she whines. Bitch you're not even a Jedi, what the hell do you care about the dark side?? Let Squid Game kill this guy who tried to kill your sister and just murdered two of your friends!

* But like a true American alpha male, Squid Game pushes his feelings deep down inside him. "Jedi do not attack an unarmed foe," he intones.

* Well actually I think he's also trying to trick Jianyu because he's wise to Osha's plan to summon the moths, so he just waits passively as Jianyu draws his lightsaber to strike him down. If I was writing this show I would have just had the moths attack him right then but apparently Osha isn't satisfied with Jianyu's current illumination (maybe she's afraid he'll just turn the lightsaber off?) so she activates a light on her little pocket droid and sticks it onto Jianyu's back. 

 

* "I love you, Pip," she tells the droid as she abandons it to its fate. To be fair the thing has been a constant presence throughout the show but it's also been so inconsequential and without personality or agency that there's no emotional resonance whatsoever to this "sacrifice."

* Anyway the moths descend on Jianyu and fly away with him as he strikes at them with his lightsaber. Are they like predators? Real moths are attracted to light but they don't try to like eat it or whatever. Also Jianyu is just temporarily inconvenienced and will clearly return later. Shoulda let Squid Game cut his head off!

* Instead of getting the fuck off this planet before Jianyu returns, Osha decides now is a good time for Twenty Questions and asks Squid Game why Jianyu said she shouldn't trust him. "What did you do?" she demands. Squid Game says that he'll explain everything, then Mae shoots him with a stun beam.

* Wow how annoying!

* Osha bitches at her sister for being a psycho narcissistic murderer and getting all these people killed. "The Jedi were more my family than you ever were!" Mae claims that Osha has been brainwashed by the Jedi colonizers. Osha tries to arrest her but Mae Force-pushes her into a rock, knocking her out.

* Mae picks up one of the many discarded lightsabers lying around and uses it to cut off the longer section of her hair so she and Osha now have the same identical haircut.

* I swear to God, if she impersonates Osha and the Jedi can't tell it's her just because she looks the same I am going to be so fucking pissed.

* Even as I was writing that sentence, "Osha" who is clearly Mae wearing Osha's stupid civilian robe woke up Squid Game and was like "Mae's gone, let's get out of here" and Squid Game FELL FOR IT GOD FUCKING DAMN IT USE THE FORCE!!!!

* Hey but at least Brazil found Osha's lame little droid!

* On the bright side, Mae doing the old clothing switcheroo means Osha should be running around in her underwear oh but never mind apparently she was wearing a tank top and full pair of pants under her sweltering hot full-body robes while running around in the humid jungle.

* Yeah yeah yeah "male gaze" whatever but god damn, this show was made by a lesbian and we STILL can't have an attractive woman take her clothes off.

* What the hell is wrong with America?

 

STAR WARS: THE ACOLYTE: EPISODE 4: BLUE BALLS

* This episode is 26 minutes long. Is this show a sitcom now?

* The Jedi Kelnacca trudges alone through the jungles of Kohofar, wearing his Jedi robe with the hood up and looking suitably comical.

* He's making like a salad or something and drawn on the wall of his little house is the concentric circles marking from Mae's head.

* I guess the whole Squid Gang just gave up on the hunt for Mae and her master and headed back to Coruscant. Jecki, the little girl with the Halloween makeup, is doing her Jedi exercises and Mae comes to tell her she's leaving forever.

* Meanwhile Mae and Qimir Rouge arrive on Khofar. For some reason Mae's hair has like tripled in length with no explanation. I guess it was always that long, maybe?

* Qimir tells her that even though she's learned her sister is alive, she still has to kill Kelnacca, because she promised Darth Xenomorph and lying is wrong.

* A group of Jedi Masters, presumably, is discussing recent events. For some reason, one of them is Ki-Adi-Mundi, nobody's favorite background character from the prequels. He's the one whose head looks like a giant phallus.

 

* One of the Jedi has the throwaway line "Could this be a splinter order?" which no one directly acknowledges. I assume this was written in to handwave away Ki-Adi-Mundi's line in The Phantom Menace "The Sith have been extinct for a millennium!" Oh he doesn't remember the time several Jedi got killed by the Sith a mere 100 years before that because someone briefly floated the possibility that it was the work of a "splinter order."

* If that's the case they could just not have put him in the show. In the old Expanded Universe continuity he wasn't even born until 40 years after The Acolyte takes place. I guess now his species can live for centuries. Unfortunately, the older they get the more flaccid their heads become.

 

* But seriously though, dialogue like this drives me crazy, not just in Star Wars but in anything. "Could this be a splinter order?" What is that? How does such a thing come to be? Has it happened before? Are there any known ones currently active? Why is that more likely than it being some other Force-using organization unrelated to the Jedi, like the witches we saw in the last episode or, say, the Sith?

 

* This episode is the length of a Saturday-morning cartoon, I think they could have easily padded the runtime a little by having the characters present in this scene discuss any of these questions for the audience's benefit. But instead they just ignore it and move on. Whoever wrote this episode wasn't interested in expanding the universe in this way I guess, just in covering their tracks with as little effort as possible.

* People are actually really pissed about Ki-Adi-Mundi being in this episode for some reason. As soon as they saw him they all raced to Wookieepedia and saw that the Episode I Insider's Guide revealed that Ol' Dickhead was 60 years old during The Phantom Menace. Even though this invaluable lore was thrown in the fucking trash along with everything else from the Expanded Universe over a decade ago, people are pretending to believe that this super-obscure CD-ROM from 1999 must still be canon under the Disney regime and The Acolyte has obliterated Star Wars continuity once again.

* Ki-Adi-Mundi wants to tell the Jedi Council what's going on but Green Lady shuts him down and says they'll handle this on the DL. 

* If she's not on the council why does she have authority over all these other Jedi Masters? It's not like they're off on their own outpost somewhere; this is the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

* Osha is about to catch a space train to nowhere when Squid Game runs up and asks her to help him catch her evil sister. Osha doesn't want to but Squid Game says there is still good in her. 

* Osha relents but refuses to wear a "civilian robe." It then hard cuts to her sitting on the Jedi ship with an irritated expression, wearing what I assume is a "civilian robe." This would have been funnier if I knew in advance what a "civilian robe" was.

* There's a little space otter alien on the Jedi ship and Osha whispers to Jecki, "Is he, or they, with us?"

* LOL but why wouldn't she say "he or she"?

* They land on Khofar, where Osha is still toting the blaster Squid Game gave her on [other planet]. Haircut says it's the property of the Jedi Order and demands it back, but Osha ignores him and he just forgets about it I guess.

* The otter picks up Kelnacca's scent and they follow him off into the wilderness. While they travel, Osha asks Haircut to kill Mae if it turns out she can't be redeemed. She says she can't hesitate a second time, so apparently she missed by accident when she was shooting at her in episode two. That wasn't clear in the episode, it kind of looked like she moved the gun to miss on purpose. But apparently not.

* "Keep up the pace, keep down the volume," says Squid Game, which doesn't sound like something he would say.

* Then they get attacked by giant cicadas.

* "It'll be dark soon," says Squid Game. "There is no way out. It'll be dark soon."

 

* Osha reveals that she left the Jedi because she could never accept the death of her family like a true Jedi should.

* Mae whines to Qimir Rouge that her master wants her to kill a Jedi without using a weapon but it's impossible, and he'll kill her if she doesn't do it. Oh I feel so bad for her.

* Qimir seems to know an awful fucking lot about how her anonymous master thinks and what he wants of her. HMMMM, kinda sus ngl.

* He goes to get her some water and when he comes back Mae catches him in a snare, whereupon she tells him she quits being evil. Osha being alive changes everything and she's going to go turn herself over to the Jedi.

* Did she really sell her soul and become a murderer just because she thought her sister was dead? Her dead parents and coven and destroyed village and losing everything had nothing to do with it? The last thing she said to Osha before setting their stone castle on fire was that she was going to kill her! Kids will be kids I suppose.

* Meanwhile, the space otter has disappeared and the Jedi are wandering around the woods blindly. Hey why don't you use the Force.

* Mae is running up to Kelnacca's house when the otter sees her. He screeches an alarm, causing the Jedi to come running. Mae goes into the house and finds Kelnacca dead on his toilet, just like Elvis.

* What the hell, man! Who introduces a Wookiee Jedi then kills him off-screen without doing anything? He and Trinity deserved better than this garbage.

 

* Mae realizes that her master was already here and kelled Kilnacca, which means he either somehow teleported ahead of her to get there first after she betrayed him, or he already did it a while ago and she was on a wild bantha chase the whole time. I'm not sure which is stupider.

* The Jedi assemble outside Kelnacca's house. There is Squid Game, Haircut, Jecki, Osha, and five expendable redshirts.

 

* "In the name of the Galactic Republic, and the Order of the Jedi, anyone inside that domicile should come out with your hands where we can see them!" one of the Jedi demands. So they really are just space cops after all.

 

 

* While the Jedi stand around outside the hut waiting for a response, Darth The-Smile-Demon-From-The-Movie-Smile just fucking silently glides down out of the jungle behind Osha like a goddamn Dementor. 

* Squid Game screams for Osha to run as the Jedi ignite their lightsabers and charge. Smylo Ren nonchalantly TKs Osha out of his way and sends all eight Jedi flying with a blast of the Force.

* This last minute or so was actually kind of cool and creepy and against my better judgment I found myself getting geared up for the battle to come. So naturally the episode ended right here.

* Cliffhangers are one thing but this was shorter than an episode of The Honeymooners. Kelnacca died off-screen and Mae randomly decided to stop being evil for no reason after a lifetime of homicidal psychopathy, now you have to wait another week to get to the ball-numbing, mindless action that the fanboys crave.

* Ralph Kramden would never have wasted my time like this.

* 5/10. I'd rate it lower but nothing that bad really happened, because nothing happened at all.

 

* Except of course for Ki-Adi-Mundi cracking open Star Wars lore like an egg and smearing its runny yolk all over Amandla Stenberg's monogrammed jeans.

STAR WARS: THE ACOLYTE: EPISODE 3: DESTINY

* The planet Brendok, sixteen years ago.

* Osha and Mae are eight years old and Mae is apparently already a psychopath who torments animals with the Force.

* They also dress identically and have the same identical haircut they do in the present day. Why would their parents do this.

* I'm pretty sure that the little girls playing them are just similar-looking rather than identical, even though the adult versions are both played by Amandla Stenberg. 

 

* Why would the casting director do this.

* Mae has followed Osha outside the fortress walls of their city. Osha has run away because she's scared of undergoing some ceremony called "the Ascension."

* One of their two dead lesbian moms, Koril, who might be a Zabrak, comes to retrieve them. Little do any of them realize that a young Squid Game is spying on them from behind a tree!

* Back in town we meet the second dead lesbian mom, whose name is Whatever. The two moms worriedly discuss a group of Jedi visiting the planet and remark that the twins are not normal children. That explains why neither of them changed their hairstyle for twenty years.

* Later, at Witch School, Mother Whatever teaches that the Force is a Thread woven through all of existence and people who call it "the Force" are big stupids.

* Osha confesses that she doesn't want to do the Ascension and become a witch. Mother Whatever tells her that she's too young to know what she wants. "The galaxy is not a place that welcomes women like us." I guess the Republic hasn't overturned Proposition 8 yet.

* Later, as they prepare for the Ascension, Osha complains that Mae is always up in her business. She wonders what's out there in the galaxy but Mae is like there's nothing out there for us, we're the same person and you have no identity or desires of your own, you only exist as an extension of my ego.

* That night, the coven gathers around a giant vagina I mean chasm in the ground. "We were hunted, persecuted, forced into hiding, all because some would consider our power dark. Unnatural," Mother Whatever says directly into the camera, addressing the audience. They were on the brink of extinction until the birth of the twins, the only children on the planet.

* Osha and Mae approach the vagasm, their facial structures looking nothing close to identical.

* The witches enact some voodo magic, chanting "The power of one, the power of two, the power of many!"

* Osha's full name is "Verosha" apparently. Mae's is "Mae-ho" ("my hoe," really?).

* Mae swears her devotion to the coven, with Osha reluctantly doing the same. Before the latter can be baptized with black magic, however, a witch runs in and announces that the Jedi are coming. Mother Whatever orders the witches to hide the children.

* Trinity, Squid Game, Tobin Bell, and the Wookiee Kelnacca walk in. Trinity says they were unaware that the planet was inhabited. Mother Whatever is like "you ignorant slut."

* Hiding among the crowd, Osha is wowed by the Jedi's bathrobes and lightsabers. 

* Trinity accuses the witches of training children in the ways of the Force against Republic law. Mother Koril insists there are no children on Brendok but Trinity calls for them to come out and Osha does, followed by Mae.

* Trinity asks where their father is. "They have no father."

* Squid Game notices a marking of golden concentric circles on Mae's forehead that appeared after her Ascension. He claims it wasn't there when he was spying on the children earlier that morning, which understandably creeps out the witches. In response, Squid Game pulls out his lightsaber, but instead of doing anything untoward he offers it to Osha, telling her he thinks she would make a good Jedi. He asks if she would like her Force affinity to be tested.

* Osha is excited for the opportunity but Mother Whatever seizes Tobin Bell's mind in the Force, making his eyes fill with tar for some reason, and demands that the Jedi leave. But Osha begs to take the test and Mother Whatever relents, allowing the twins to visit the Jedi camp tomorrow and be tested.

* After the Jedi leave, the witches call a coven council where they debate murdering the Jedi. Mother Koril calls them "a bunch of deranged monks." We find out that Mother Koril carried the twins in her womb but Mother Whatever "created" them, whatever that means. Against Mother Koril's wishes, Mother Whatever says that the twins must be tested because Osha is old enough to know what she wants, which is the opposite of what she said to Osha earlier. Character development!

* The next day, Mother Whatever coaches the twins, telling them to answer all the Jedi's questions incorrectly so they don't take the girls away. Mae says the Jedi are bad, Osha insists they're good. "It's not about good or bad," says Mother Whatever. "It's about POWER, and who's allowed to use it."

* The Jedi take a blood sample from Osha, presumably to get her midichlorian count. They do the test the Jedi Council did to Anakin in The Phantom Menace where he had to identify the images shown a screen he couldn't see. Osha gets all the answers wrong but Squid Game sees through her ruse. He tells her to have the courage to decide what she wants, and she decides she wants to be a Jedi and leave the planet to meet all the other Jedi children.

* The witches are pissed at Osha, but she says that she wants to see the galaxy, not stay here and be a witch, which causes Mae to physically attack her because she's a psychopath.

* Mae steals Osha's coloring book and says she will kill her to stop her from leaving. She locks Osha in her room and sets fire to Osha's coloring book, which ignites the hallway outside Osha's room.

* Osha takes out her sonic screwdriver and uses it to open a child-sized aperture that's built into the wall of her room for some reason. She crawls through a tunnel and arrives at what I guess is the coven's, like, giant power generator or something? Mae is there, and both twins are like "What have you done???" Anyway then the thing explodes. 

 

* Squid Game runs in just in time to see Mae fall off a catwalk into a bottomless pit. Osha starts to fall as well but Squid Game saves her. They run out of the building, passing the dead bodies of all the witches piled up together. So clearly they didn't all die in the fire lol.

* Osha wakes up on the Jedi's ship, headed for Coruscant and her new life as a Jedi, which she will eventually fail at.

* Disney+ inserted a 90-second ad break here, then the show came back for a five-second scene of Mae alone on the planet saying "Osha," then it cut to credits. What a cliffhanger!

* This is the episode that was rumored to crack open Star Wars lore like an egg and smear its runny yolk all over the unkempt beards of fans across the globe. "They're doing away with the Chosen One prophecy! Anakin is no longer the only person conceived by the Force! The Jedi are white colonizers who oppress other cultures! They're wrong about the way the Force works too!" I was pretty excited to see what kind of continuity bomb this episode dropped, so it was a huge disappointment when it never came.

* So let's take a moment to anal-ize the major complaints that have been levied against this series so far.

1) FIRE IN SPACE 

We covered this briefly when it came up in the first episode, but there's no way around it: The Acolyte shows a fire burning in the airless vacuum of space.

What's this? Scientific inaccuracy? In Star Wars????

"Okay," you say, "but those first two aren't really fires in space; they're explosions in space. The starship is venting atmosphere or a flammable gas or fluid. That's what's burning, and once it's burned up the fire will go out. The one in The Acolyte just looks like a campfire!" It doesn't look great, I'll give you that, but none of these Disney+ Star Wars shows looks especially great. I can promise you that George Lucas wasn't thinking about how to realistically portray space physics when making those movies. If scientific accuracy is so important (in this explicitly science-fantasy not science-fiction universe), why not just assume there's a gas line rupture or something feeding the fire in The Acolyte? It's not like there was any on-screen confirmation that that was what was happening in any of the movies.

"Also Han and Leia aren't walking around in vacuum, they're inside a space slug." The space slug's mouth is open to space, and they didn't know it was a space slug when they went walking around inside it, which implies that if they really had been walking on the surface of the asteroid, exposed to vacuum, they would have been fine just wearing those little oxygen masks.

Also in every movie the medium-less vacuum of space somehow conducts the sounds of starship engines and weaponsfire. There was actually a science-friendly explanation for this in the Expanded Universe, but they threw that out.

 

2) NO WHITE PEOPLE

 

Trinity and Torbin Bell are white people.

 

2b) NO WHITE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN CAST

 

I find this a strange complaint coming from the same sort of people who'll often pooh-pooh the idea of representation in media, saying something like "You don't need to look like someone to relate to them," an idea I don't necessarily disagree with. So why are white men complaining that none of the main characters in The Acolyte is a white man? If the characters suck, surely they wouldn't suck any less if they were white. Well, I see two options. For some, the issue isn't the omission of white characters, it's the deliberate omission of white characters as an ideological choice by the showrunner to push some kind of message. And the only two white people of any importance so far got killed! Everyone just wants to be a victim, I guess. As a straight white male myself, I find it an embarrassment to my people that anyone would give a shit about this.

The second option is that a lot of the people complaining about this are just racist.

 

3) FAT JEDI

 

Fat Jedi guarding the temple in the second episode! How can there be fat Jedi? Jedi have to be physically fit and mentally disciplined. Remember when Yoda had Luke doing backflips and handstands and running around a swamp in The Empire Strikes Back? How is this fatass supposed to do that?

Well, for starters, Luke didn't get the typical Jedi training regimen. Yoda gave him the crash course version, and Luke needed to be in shape because Yoda wasn't training him to be a typical Jedi; he was turning Luke into a weapon to defeat Darth Vader and the Emperor. So 100+ years before the movies, when the Jedi were at the height of their numbers and power, maybe they eased up a little on the Presidential Physical Fitness Award requirements.

Or, if you think the Jedi would never be so lax (obviously you're ignoring the sad case of poor Coleman Trebor), maybe this dude just isn't a very good Jedi. Maybe he was inducted into the order as a baby but his Force potential never really blossomed and he started stealing cookies from the Jedi cafeteria, and now they just use him as a security guard at this tiny satellite temple on a planet no one's ever heard of. That would explain why he's still a Padawan but is played by an actor in his late thirties.

Or we can go the opposite way. Maybe he's so good at using the Force that his weight isn't an issue at all. Maybe he's constantly buoyed by a cushion of Force energy, like the ocean supporting the crushing weight of a whale. Maybe he just levitates up stairs and never gets winded in a fight because his breath comes in time with the heartbeat of the universe.

Hell, maybe he's not even really fat. Maybe he's like the Kingpin, stocky but 300 pounds of solid muscle. Maybe he'll take off his tunic and reveal that he's completely shredded under his robe.

A lot of maybes with this guy. What's his name again?

Oh, he doesn't have one. He's just some nameless minor character who probably won't even be seen on the show again. I guess his story doesn't matter. Still outrageous that he's fat, though. WOKE.

 

My problem with this is that Yoda has a handicap based on his physical limitations, when his character should be above that sort of thing. . . .  This goes against everything that the Force is about! You see, Yoda was so magical and interesting because you didn't expect this little tiny creature to be a Jedi Master. We all had a preconception that a great warrior would be someone physically strong and intimidating. By making Yoda a little guy, they were illustrating that the Force is something beyond the physical. But by showing Yoda fight with the lightsaber, it ruins all that, because it takes that concept and those rules and throws it in the dumpster.  

 

— Mr. Plinkett

 

4) THE JEDI STEAL BABIES

 

They don't. The witches seem to think that they will, but despite Trinity's kind of aggressive insistence that they be allowed to test the twins, the Jedi make it clear repeatedly that it's completely Osha's choice whether or not she wants to come with them and learn the ways of the Force. Eventually Osha's mother even agrees. Well, one of them does.

 

5) THE JEDI ARE WRONG ABOUT THE FORCE 

The witches refer to their religious interpretation of the Force as "the Thread," because it weaves together reality and ties the witches to one another. They say that the Jedi are deluded enough to believe that they can "use" the Force, but they don't really understand it.

Apparently people are outraged about this. How dare they defame the Jedi like that! The Jedi are our heroes. Do they really expect us to just buy into all this nonsense and accept that these oppressed homosexual women are so awesome and correct about everything and the Jedi suck?

Well, probably not, I would think. The witches are some weirdo cult who have personal and practical reasons to dislike and mistrust the Jedi. A group of weirdos saying the Jedi are bad is not the same as the writer inserting their personal opinion into the story and definitively stating that the Jedi are objectively bad. This isn't a Karen Traviss situation where all the characters share the same viewpoint, including those for whom having that belief makes no sense. Osha, the ostensible hero of this show, even says point blank: "The Jedi are good."

I guess people are also upset about the "Thread" thing and think this is meant to retcon everything we know about the Force and give a big middle finger to George Lucas and his movies. Well, first of all, the way the witches talk about the Thread doesn't even sound all that different from how the Jedi describe the Force. 

 

Secondly, this is far from the first time that Star Wars has introduced a new organization of Force-users whose beliefs differ from those of the Jedi. The Fallanassi, another all-female religious order, called the Force "the White Current." It was called "the Potentium" by the heretical Jedi sect of Zonama Sekot. The Sorcerers of Rhand believed in ultimate entropy, a power even greater than the Force that they called "the Dark."

This is just basic worldbuilding. Why wouldn't there be alternative schools of belief about the Force? It doesn't mean that the Jedi are wrong, it just means that the galaxy is a big, philosophically diverse place.

 

6) LESBIAN SPACE WITCHES CUCK ANAKIN SKYWALKER 

 

The big rumor for episode three was that Osha and Mae would be revealed to have been conceived by the Force as a "dyad" of Chosen Ones a century before Anakin, fundamentally altering the Jedi prophecy from the prequels by introducing a cyclical lineage of messiahs and eliminating Anakin Skywalker's singular specialness. To be honest I was really looking forward to this twist, not because I thought it would be particularly well done or interesting, but because I think turning Darth Vader from a guy who turned against evil out of love for his son to a prophesied messiah acting out a preordained destiny was one of the biggest narrative blunders George Lucas came up with. But it didn't happen.

 

All we found out is that the twins have no father, and that Mother Whatever did something to cause Mother Koril to conceive without one. We don't know what she did; presumably that will be revealed later, and it will probably be like some arcane pagan ritual or something. But it doesn't matter, because the fact that she did anything at all already disproves the Chosen Ones theory. Nobody did anything to directly cause Shmi Skywalker to conceive Anakin without a father. The Force conceived Anakin through the midichlorians, because he was the Chosen One. Mother Whatever ain't the Force.

 

 

* In conclusion, this episode wasn't the unprecedented continuity bomb we were promised, but it really wasn't anything special either. This show seems incapable of maintaining any sense of mystery or tension for very long. We're made to think that Osha is the killer, then we immediately find out it's really her twin sister. The Jedi are suspicious of her, then they immediately start to trust her. She gets blamed for Torbin's death, but don't worry, here's Haircut to vouch for her. What happened to Osha's family sixteen years ago? Squid Game tells us right away. Is he telling the truth? Wait till next episode and we can see with our own eyes that he was. Something still seems amiss, though, will we find out what it is? Probably sooner than later.

 

* 6.5/10, I guess?

* Also I can't believe that was Margarita Levieva playing Mother Koril. What are the odds that she was really the one who killed off the coven and has been pulling the strings as Mae's faceless master all along?

 

 

STAR WARS: THE ACOLYTE: EPISODE 2: REVENGE SLASH JUSTICE

* I hate when subtitles caption nondiegetic music. Like who does this help.

* Murderess Mae throws a thing onto one of those sentinel robots Jabba the Hutt had, causing it to short circuit, and for some reason this opens the front door of the Jedi Temple on planet Olega.

* Mae goes inside and tries to pick a fight with some Jedi who is floating in the air meditating. He doesn't acknowledge her presence but she's unable to land a hit on him because the Force repels her every strike. Finally, a cool Jedi!

* Eventually Mae's presence is detected and she has to flee with her tail between her legs.

* Meanwhile Osha is explaining her job as a "meknek" to Squid Game's new Padawan, the little kid in Halloween makeup. Face Paint says she thought only astromech droids could repair starships. Osha replies, "I'm better company than a droid. And way more flexible." Uh, okay, groomer.

* I'm sure she is flexible, though.

* Shocked to learn that this cutie pie was that little girl who died in The Hungry Games. What asshole hair stylist gave her those awful dread-bangs she has on The Acolyte?

* In the hallway, Haircut insists to Squid Game that Osha is still guilty and is probably in cahoots with her evil twin. Oh so he's like a dumbass.

* Green Lady contacts the gang by hologram and diverts them to Olega to investigate the assassination attempt on Jedi Master Torbin Bell.

* Mae meets up with her friend Qimir Rouge and complains that she failed to murder a guy. This tweaker is like a master poisoner apparently and he prepares a concoction to kill Torbin. Mae says she still has two more Jedi to kill after him.

* Squid Game questions Osha about her new tramp stamp. I saw somebody gushing on Twitter about how it "fucks" that Star Wars characters have tattoos now. Um...

* The Squid Gang arrives at the temple on Olega at the exact same time Mae is making her second assassination attempt. What a coincidence.

* Mae tells Torbin to confess his crime to the Jedi Council or else she will poison him to death, which prompts him to come out of his meditative trance. "Forgive me," he says, and chugs the hemlock like a bitch.

* What happens next is very confusing. So Squid Game has already told the temple gatekeepers that he's an old friend of Master Torbin and asked to see him. As Torbin is talking to Mae, the gang is following the gatekeepers through the temple hallways, presumably on their way to meet with Torbin. Osha sees the de-aged ghost of her not-dead sister again and follows it off down a branching hallway. She then somehow gets to Torbin's room before the other Jedi, who then arrive to find her standing over the body and immediately blame her for the murder. 

* How did she beat them there? Were they taking the scenic route? Why are they immediately suspicious of her when she was with them on a different planet when the original assassination attempt took place?

* Then Haircut comes in and vouches for her, claiming he was following her the whole time and she didn't do it. If there's one thing I love more than artificial drama it's instant conflict resolution!

* The Jedi deduce that the poison must have come from the local apothecary, but when they survey it they spy Mae's friend the poisoner. "I don't know who that guy is!" says some fat Jedi.

* Face Paint suggests that Osha pretend to be Mae and get Qimir Rouge to spill his guts, which works. The Jedi bust in to arrest him and Haircut may be a dumbass with a ridiculous haircut but I like how the actor does this cool flourish with his lightsaber every time he takes it out. I know if I were a Jedi I'd always be doing the same thing.

* Mae says she'll take down her evil twin but Squid Game says "No, I must face her alone." It's like they're in some kind of star war or something!

* Squid Game accuses Mae of being full of anger and wanting revenge. "Look what revenge has done to your sister!" he says. For some reason Mae doesn't say "Wait, revenge for what? Wasn't she the one who started the fire that killed our gay moms? Why would she want revenge on the Jedi? What aren't you telling me, Master Squid Game?"

* That night, Squid Game confronts Mae on the street when she returns to the apothecary. Maybe not the best idea to have this confrontation on a public street with civilians walking around but what do I know.

* [thrilling music playing]

* Mae starts punching at Squid Game but he effortlessly blocks all of her blows and takes her knives away because she sucks.

* Squid Game reads her mind and realizes that even she doesn't know the identity of the Sith Lord who trained her. 

 

* "Your thoughts go to your sister," he says. "My sister is deeeeeeeeeeeaaaaddd!" she replies. Then she telekinetically throws up a big cloud of dust and escapes.

* She hover-carjacks some guy and is about to make her getaway when BAM somehow Osha is standing right there! In shock, Mae utters her sister's childhood nickname, "OshKosh B'gosh." Osha shoots at her and misses and Mae gets away.

* Comical incompetent fatass Jedi is supposed to be keeping an eye on Qimir but he looks away to check out some chick and Qimir escapes with Mae. He tells her that he knows the location of Kelnacca, the Wookiee Jedi who is next on Mae's hit list: the planet Khofar, of course!

* In the cliffhanger for this episode, we cut to Khofar and see Kelnacca walking around. Yup, he's... he's there all right.

 

* I saw people saying this episode was way better than the first one, but was it really? Neither was bad but this didn't feel like some kind of major uptick. I guess it was slightly better in that it had a couple of cool fight scenes (or "fight" scene in the case of the one-sided Torbin brawl), but nothing really worth raving about.

 

* So having now watched the two episodes that were out when media critic Alan Sepinwall broke embargo and posted his (now mysteriously edited) Rolling Stone review of The Acolyte early, I can address his two major points of criticism that drew the Internet's ire: 

 

1) "Charlie Barnett is Yord, a Jedi nerd with an unfortunate rooster haircut." 

 

It's true, all of it. 

 

2) "Lee Jung-jae, the Emmy-winning star of Squid Game, isn't fluent in English, and as a result his line readings can be halting at times." 

 

Absolutely not true, he's the best actor on the show and his "line readings" are fine.

 

* Also I really dislike the Mae character. I feel like her story will go one of two ways: when they inevitably reveal what crime the Jedi committed and covered up to set her on her path of revenge, it will either justify her actions, in which case the Jedi will be shown to be corrupted by institutional rot like a century too early, or it won't justify her actions, in which case she'll still come across as a violent, psychotic murderer but we'll likely be expected to sympathize with her and root for her redemption. Only time will tell!

* 6.5/10

STAR WARS: THE ACOLYTE: EPISODE 1: LOST DIVIDED BY FOUND

* All right, let's see what this crap is all about.

* "A hundred years before the rise of the Empire..." omg spoilers!!!!

* PLANET UEDA

* Lady assassin walks into a bar/restaurant which is of course populated completely by brand new aliens with none of the classic species from the original/good movies.

* Jedi Master Trinity is sitting in the corner waiting for her lunch. Lady approaches and says "Attack me!" Trinity is like nah so Lady starts beating up everyone in the bar.

* Trinity and Lady throw hands. Eventually Lady pulls a knife but can't land a hit because Trinity keeps TKing her away. Trinity pulls down Lady's mask and is like "You!" Lady says "I'm here to kill you!" which already seemed obvious.

* Lady throws a knife at the alien barkeeper. Trinity catches it with the Force but it was just a distraction because Lady palms a second knife and throws it straight into Trinity's heart!!! Neo is going to be pissed!

* So am I tbh, they just killed their main star power five minutes into the first episode. Laaaaaame.

* God damn it, apparently this fucking murderer is our main character because we cut to her waking up aboard a spaceship that looks comically similar to the defunct Star Wars hotel and bantering with her cute droid companion.

* I guess this is a Trade Federation ship and Lady is a mechanic employed by the Neimoidians. While she's doing repairs on the hull of the ship, something explodes and a small fire starts on the hull. This causes Lady to have a PTSD flashback about her mother dying or something, but she snaps out of it and extinguishes the flames.

* People on the Internet were very upset about this five-second scene because of course fire can't burn in the vacuum of space, especially when it just looks and behaves like a small campfire. I don't give a shit about that because Star Wars is a fantasy universe that has never adhered to the real-world physics of outer space.

* Two Jedi arrive on the ship looking for Lady, who they say is a former Jedi. They are a guy with an absurd haircut and his Padawan, some kind of bat person. We find out that Lady's name is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

 

* The Neimoidians play dumb but Haircut raises a hand toward one of them, prompting the other to immediately roll over and give up Osha. I saw people complaining about how wantonly the Jedi in this show used the Force to get their way. Apparently they were talking about this scene? But it wasn't clear to me that Haircut even used the Force, because the guy he gestured toward wasn't the one who gave up the information. I thought he was just trying to intimidate the Neimoidians by invoking the threat of using the Force to get what he wanted. 

* Haircut and Osha are old friends, but the Jedi aren't here to play. Batgirl starts asking her a bunch of interview questions, one of which is how old she was when she joined the Jedi. She says that she was eight. 

 

* This is something else I saw people complaining about, because in The Phantom Menace Anakin was nine and it was a big thing about how he was too old to be trained. But then in the next sentence Batgirl immediately says that her age was a major concern, and Osha says that the Jedi Council found her circumstances unique. Can we like wait and see what those circumstances were before we complain or

* Real quote from Star Wars: The Acolyte, streaming now on Disney+: "You lost your entire family. Your mothers, your sister, your village, all died in the fire. Even your mothers. Both of them. Both mothers."

* They confront her about the death of Trinity. The bartender comes in and goes "That's her! She killed the Jedi and wrecked my bar!" Osha asks Haircut how he can believe this of her. "It doesn't matter what I think," he says, and arrests her.

* Oh so it was like her twin sister or something, okay got it.

* As Osha gets taken away to space jail, we cut to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

* Some kids and a baby orangutan are meditating. 

* Green Lady interrupts the lesson to tell Asian Jedi From Squid Game that his old Padawan, Osha Antiseptic, was the one who murdered Trinity. "The evidence against her is strong," says Green Lady. "Some weird alien says he saw her do it, that's all a jury needs to convict."

* Aboard the prison ship taking Osha to Coruscant, the other prisoners carry out a jailbreak by... magically hacking the droid pilots, I guess? Osha tells them she wants no part of their plan, then acts all betrayed when they escape and leave her behind.

* But for some reason her little droid is in a cupboard on the ship (maybe he got arrested too?) and when the ship starts crashing he falls onto the floor and she uses him to escape her cell.

* The ship falls from orbit and crashes on some planet but remains mostly intact. Osha was wearing a seatbelt so she's completely fine. There's an OSHA joke there somewhere but whatever.

* Back on Coruscant, Squid Game is jerking it to Osha's Facebook profile picture. He gets called down to what is apparently the Jedi Temple jail, where the escapees from the prison ship are being held. Green Lady informs him that the ship went down over the planet Carlac. 

 

* Where the hell is that? The prisoners used the ship's escape pods over the same planet. In the original Star Wars when the droids use an escape pod over Tatooine they land on Tatooine. How did these guys get to Coruscant? 

* Green Lady says that the Republic sent probe droids to search for life on Carlac. How much time has passed??

* One of the prisoners says that Osha helped him and he betrayed her by taking the last escape pod and leaving her to die. Green Lady insists that despite this she's still an evil murderer.

* Squid Game wants to go look for her himself. Green Lady says no. Squid Game says come on. Green Lady says okay.

* Then Osha wakes up on the planet. Has she been asleep for a week? Who edited this?

* A ghost from a Japanese horror movie wanders outside through a big hole in the ship and Osha follows it into the frozen wastes.

* Squid Game and his new Padawan, a human girl wearing Halloween face paint, walk in on Haircut with his shirt off. I guess he's a heartthrob? Idk his ridiculous hairstyle is throwing me. They all board a ship together and take off for the ancient and famous planet of Carcosa.

* Meanwhile Osha catches up to the ghost and it's her twin sister Mae! But like a younger version of her sister. Initially I thought she was, like, only slightly younger, like a teenager, not like a dead eight-year-old, but I guess it really is supposed to be her as a little kid.

* Younger Ghost Mae says she killed Trinity and she "will kill them all" as her eyes fill with black CGI.

* Osha wakes up. It was all a dream!

* Squid Game delivers important exposition. Sixteen years ago on the planet Brendok, Osha's crazy twin sister started a fire that killed their entire family.

* Haircut and the Padawan are like "Whoa, that's super suspicious. Maybe this secret evil twin that isn't in the official Jedi dossier was the one who killed Trinity." But Squid Game is like "Nah, couldn't be" so they drop it.

* Hey, idiots, you accidentally solved this whole mystery plot halfway through the first episode! The suspense is over!

* Osha sees the Jedi's ship arriving on Carracosta and makes a run for it. The Jedi survey the crash, which Osha made it through without a scratch, and Haircut confidently decides "No one could have survived this."

* Squid Game is like "follow me!" and they all run into a cave and find Osha standing at the edge of an ice cliff. "Stop in the name of the law!" orders Haircut. Does he think she's going to like fly away or...?

* Osha falls to her doom but Squid Game TKs her back to safety. "Mae is alive," says Osha. "I believe you," says Squid Game. The other Padawan is like "what the hell, man."

* Elsewhere, a Sith Lord in a black helmet delivers some portentous dialogue about the death of the Jedi dream to Osha's sister.

* TO BE CONTINUED

* I can't say I particularly care about anything that's happening in this show but in terms of the direct-to-Disney+ Star Wars shows that I have seen I guess this is one of the better ones. Some goofy moments but nothing that made me want to slit my wrists. The highest praise I've given to any Star Wars product in almost a decade!

 

* I give it a 6/10.

* RIP Jedi Master Carrie-Anne Moss