I tried to give The Acolyte the benefit of the doubt. Despite the plethora of piss-poor Star Wars content released by the Walt Disney Company over the past decade, I was willing to accept the show on its own terms, without preconceptions. I defended it against popular criticisms I thought were unfair or irrational, and commended it when it surpassed my expectations. But after watching the last three episodes of The Acolyte and seeing where this story ultimately went, it's clear that this whole production was amateur hour from beginning to end, starting off thoroughly mediocre if inoffensive and ending up the goofiest clown show you've ever seen.
Episode 8 of The Acolyte, unhelpfully titled "The Acolyte," makes only the barest attempt at tying up its many loose ends, resolving the central narrative in the most unsatisfying way possible while ignoring the questions that stoked the most fan speculation. Is Mother Koril dead or not? What is Qimir's Sith name? Was he acting under the instruction of his briefly glimpsed Sith Master or was he rebelling like an edgy teenager? How did he discover and recruit Mae? Was she working for him for the full sixteen years since her coven was destroyed? If not, what was she doing the rest of the time? Why did he task her with killing a Jedi without a weapon? Where did he get that idea and what did he think it would prove? What happened between Vernestra Rwoh and Qimir when he was her Padawan? Where on Brendok is the vergence that the Jedi were looking for? Is it in the giant chasm the witches held their ceremony around? If so, what exactly is it? What did the magic tattoo that appeared on Mae's head signify? What was the process that Mother Aniseya used to create the twins and how did she discover it? Why did that process result in "one soul split into two bodies" or whatever mumbo-jumbo they used to describe Mae and Osha, and why was it relevant that it did? And what connection, if any, does that process have to Darth Plagueis and his fabled ability to create life?
None of these questions are answered, presumably either saved for a potential second season or just completely forgotten, but the main question I was left wondering as the final credits rolled over a cringe-inducing reprise of "The Power of Two" was what was the point of any of this? What was The Acolyte trying to say? What message did its writers and showrunner intend it to convey? Did they even have one? Given its haphazard structure and tenuous grasp on the relationship between cause and effect, maybe this show really was just a series of things that happened, characters and situations and plot points thrown together in combinations the writers thought would be cool, and discarded once their novelty was exhausted. To be honest, I would find this reductive artlessness preferable to the alternative.
In Episode 8, Master Sol, the most likable character on the show, played by its most talented actor, allows himself to be Force-choked to death by Osha, without even trying to defend himself or explain that he killed her mother in self-defense and in defense of Mae (who he even thought was Osha at the time), and his final words as she strangles the life out of him, having turned into a violent murderer on the flimsiest pretext, are to forgive her. Mae allows Qimir to wipe all memory of the last sixteen years from her mind without any hesitation, then allows herself to be arrested by the Jedi while her two accomplices escape.
Master Vernestra cooks up a cover story and scapegoats Sol for the deaths of Indara, Torbin, Kelnacca, and himself, even though Mae killed Indara in front of dozens of eyewitnesses and just as many witnesses could place Sol on Coruscant at the time. There were also witnesses to his whereabouts when Torbin died. Also I guess he murdered Yord, Jecki, and the five Jedi redshirts that Qimir killed on Khofar as well? It's not clear why Vernestra would lie about this, why anyone would believe her, or what she intended to say to Yoda in his two-second cameo before the wipe to credits. Maybe Yoda just gullibly believes her lie as well, or maybe she tells him the truth and he helps cover it up. Who knows how deep this conspiracy goes!
Meanwhile Osha and Qimir hold hands back at the Sith stronghold where Qimir showed her his dick in Episode 6. It must have been quite the sight because she's just fully committed to evil now. She was telling him off a few hours earlier for murdering her friend and the nice alien chick she was gonna score with someday maybe, but her demonstrably evil, psychotic, homicidal sister, who admitted to setting the fire that destroyed their home and almost killed Osha as a child, told her that Sol killed their mother so her entire characterization just goes out the window apparently. Darth Plagueis is still creeping around back in that cave somewhere, does she even know he's there? Does she think she's Qimir's apprentice or did he tell her that always two there are and she's a third wheel?
I assume that's Darth Plagueis, anyway. My prediction was that the show would end with the revelation that this had all been a test for Qimir, that he was the Acolyte of the title and Osha's story never mattered, she was just a misdirect. Qimir's Sith Master would come out and tell him, "Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth... Plagueis." Yeah it's true he was a Muun in Legends continuity, but they threw that out for a reason! Making Palpatine's Master in the Disney Canon a character we had already met and (kind of) liked would have been a change I could get behind, because it would have directly cemented The Acolyte's significance in relation to the main film saga. Then any future seasons could have followed Qimir's growth from apprentice to Master, developing a character who was monumentally important to the backstory of the movies but had never been seen on-screen.
But if Darth Plagueis is already around and Qimir is just Qimir, then his story can't really go anywhere. He and Osha are just doomed to eventually fail and die so Plagueis can take Palpatine as his apprentice in 50 years.
So if The Acolyte was supposed to have a message, to Say Something beyond "what if we had hot guys take their shirts off while every woman remains fully clothed," what was it? "Don't trust institutions," I guess? They do awkwardly call the Jedi Order an "institution" at one point, and the show ends with all the heroes' deaths being swept under the rug for PR reasons, presumably. But Jecki, Yord, Kelnacca, Indara, and especially Sol are mostly portrayed as good people and sympathetic characters, and they are the show's main representatives of the Jedi.
The only Jedi of questionable moral character is Vernestra Rwoh, a boss-bitch who lost a Padawan to the dark side after scarring him with a whip and pins the murders of ten of her fellow Jedi on "a kind, brilliant, compassionate man" for no real reason. After watching the Jedi do absolutely nothing wrong throughout the show, are we really supposed to take Vernestra's independent actions at the very end as a condemnation of the order as a whole? Seems a little farfetched.
But given the general incompetence of the writing, editing, and story structure throughout the show, I could sadly see that being the intended point. Maybe we're supposed to think that the Jedi got what they deserved, that Torbin was responsible for the massacre of the coven (even though his actions were precipitated by Aniseya violently invading his mind without provocation), that Sol was wrong to kill Aniseya (even though he only struck her down because she appeared to be dissolving Osha into black mist at the time), that Indara deserved to be stabbed in the heart by Mae for her role in the death of Mae's mother (even though she had nothing to do with the death of Mae's mother), that Kelnacca deserved to die just for being there. Maybe we're supposed to be happy that Osha escaped justice and is living her best life with fuckboi Jason Mendoza.
It's almost inconceivable to me that anyone would legitimately arrive at those conclusions, let alone that the people making the show would intend for them to do so. But there's precious little indication that we're meant to feel otherwise. Osha is our main character. She's mostly likable, if a bit bland, and appears to have a strong moral center. Then on a dime she murders the only father she's ever known without even asking him to explain himself first. A murder committed not in a fit of passion, but deliberately, remorselessly. It's as if a switch flips inside her and she goes "*click* I'm evil now, time to become a Sith and take over the galaxy, why not?" People said that Anakin's fall in Revenge of the Sith was abrupt but he's got nothing on this bitch.
Was the point of Osha and Mae being "one person in two bodies" to show that, despite one sister apparently being a psychotic murderer and the other apparently being generally decent, there really was no difference between them after all? That Osha being raised by a loving father figure while Mae fell under the tutelage of an evil sorcerer didn't make any difference? That no matter our striving and our accomplishments, how we resist temptation or succumb to it, ultimately we can never escape our births?
Or did they just think it would be cool to have the bad guys win because they're sexier?
I have no idea what Leslye Headland et al. intended us to take away from this show. I've intentionally avoided seeking out interviews where she may have talked about it, mostly because I don't care, but I do know that she called The Acolyte "the most important piece of art [she's] ever made." Okay, but why? What is it supposed to be saying? "Don't trust institutions, because they can be good 99% of the time but still have one loony ruin it for everyone"? "Don't revere heroes, because they might have good intentions but they'll end up stabbing your evil mother for abusing you and you'll never get over it"? "Evil is cooler than good because good is dumb and never gets laid"?
Evil wins all the time, in real life and in fiction. Sometimes evil even wins in Star Wars. I'm no fan of Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane novels, but there's a trilogy all about evil people screwing over good people in the most horrible ways and getting away with it. I may not like the books, but the premise works because they don't pretend that that isn't their premise. Darth Bane is fucking evil and he loves it. He takes advantage of a wounded little girl, twisting and perverting her pain to fully corrupt her to the dark side, then when she grows up she loves being evil too. Bane and his apprentice are protagonists, but the books never mistake them for heroes.
The Acolyte never seems to admit that it allows evil to win. Maybe it just assumes that that fact is self-evident and undeserving of comment, but I don't think so. I think it's afraid to take a stance. "What if the Jedi aren't as great as everyone thinks? What if these weird witches who practice dark magic and sacrifice children to Satan are really just misunderstood outcasts minding their own business? What if the guy you thought was good has actually been lying to you your whole life, and the guy you thought was evil is actually really hot?" Thought-provoking questions, to be sure, but because I'm not twelve the only thought they provoked from me was "Why did I watch this?"
I couldn't come up with an answer, so I decided not to do it anymore.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
* When Sol is pursuing Mae through the planetary ice rings, his ship appears to be catching up with hers. Then Bazil opens an electrical panel on the wall and messes with something inside. Sol turns to look at him, then the ship starts veering out of control. Did Bazil sabotage the ship? That seemed to be the implication, but why would he do that? He was on the Jedi's side; he told Sol that Mae was impersonating Osha. Why wouldn't Sol say like "What the hell are you doing, you stupid otter?!" But if he wasn't sabotaging the ship, what was he doing with that panel? Was it just a coincidence that the ship happened to crash at the same time? What was happening in this scene?
* So is Mother Koril dead or what? She teleported (I guess???) away from the battle before the rest of the coven was killed. Was she there with them off-screen and they just didn't show her body, or did she get away? The show never even mentions it as a possibility so I'm not sure if we're supposed to read anything into not seeing her die or if they just didn't think to show it.
* Why did Torbin feel so guilty that he committed suicide in Episode 2? He did literally nothing wrong (besides being a whiny little bitch).
* I don't know how it could be any more obvious that devoting two full episodes, one quarter of this eight-episode series, to flashbacks was a huge creative mistake. The point of the flashbacks seemed like it was supposed to be to recontextualize the things we'd been told and thought we knew about the events of sixteen years ago, but neither episode really accomplished that. The first came too early to present any significant twist or revelation, and the second didn't challenge or recontextualize anything established in the first one. It pretty much just showed us things we already knew or could have reasonably assumed. If anything, the biggest surprise was that the Jedi didn't actually do anything wrong and the witches brought about their own destruction by being an evil cult. What a twist!(?)
* Why did Qimir and Osha wipe Mae's memory and leave her behind instead of just taking her with them? I saw someone say that Qimir's ship only has two seats, but they couldn't have, like, squeezed her in for a little bit? Once they established that the twins were really one soul split into two bodies, I kept expecting someone to bring up the possibility of rejoining them into a single individual. Seems like they'd be a lot more powerful and of use to the Sith that way, but evidently not.
* For that matter, why was Mae totally cool with having her mind wiped and being left behind? Her whole purpose in life was to get revenge for her sister, then when she finds out Osha's alive it switches to reuniting with her sister. Then she just doesn't care that they're going to be separated forever and she won't even remember that Osha exists? Not even an eyebrow raised at the suggestion?
* Why did Mae impersonate Osha and leave Khofar with Sol? What was her motivation for doing this? Was she just going to kill him? She could have done that while he was still unconscious after she stunned him. What the hell was her plan here?
* When Osha puts on Qimir's sensory deprivation helmet she has a vision of Mae killing Sol without a weapon, thus fulfilling the charge Qimir gave her at the end of the first episode: "The Jedi live in a dream, a dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail; steel or laser are no threat to them. An Acolyte kills without a weapon. An Acolyte kills the dream." The vision comes true, except that it's actually Osha who does the deed, strangling Sol to death with the Force. Ummmm, isn't the Force still a weapon though? If that counts as not using a weapon then Mae getting Torbin to off himself definitely should have.
* So Osha just doesn't care about her droid anymore? She sees that Mae has him, why doesn't she take him back when she goes with Qimir? Did she ever find out that Mae "reset him to factory settings" like a fucking iPhone, erasing his individuality and essentially killing him? Did she care? Was I supposed to?
* After Osha murders Sol, she still isn't planning to run away with Qimir and become a Sith. She says she and Mae will turn themselves over to the Jedi and explain that it was actually Sol who was the evil one because he killed their Satanic mother while she gave every indication of attempting to kill a child with dark magic. They're sure to get off with just a slap on the wrist! Is she so deluded that she really thinks this is a fair account of what happened, and that the Jedi will see it that way? Is she like an idiot? Maybe the dark side was clouding her brain.
* Lee Jung-jae was great in this show. He gave his performance everything he had, even when the script had no idea how to do him justice. Manny Jacinto and Carrie-Anne Moss were also pretty good. I wish Star Wars was good enough to deserve them.
* Episodes 7 and 8 putting sung pop vocals over the end credits may be the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen in a live-action Star Wars production. Not because the song itself is cringe-inducing (although it is), but because it betrays a complete lack of regard for traditional Star Wars conventions. It's like the time Rian Johnson decided to break new ground by not including the Wilhelm scream or "I have a bad feeling about this" in The Last Jedi. What a bold auteurial vision!
* Star Wars consists of three primary parts: 1) three classic science fiction movies from the late 1970s and early 1980s, 2) several really good tie-in novels, comics, and video games, and 3) a whole bunch of the dumbest shit you ever saw. I've grown weary of the third category and won't be indulging in it any further.
"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken—and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."
—Margaret Mitchell, American author (canceled)
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