Where to start?
We’re now more than halfway through The Acolyte. I’ve enjoyed the show, but it hadn’t yet wowed me. And episode 5… okay, you win. I’m wowed, I’m hooked, I’m invested… I think I fully love this show now? How is it that everything I wanted is coming to fruition so fantastically?
Setting the board
We open in the midst of the battle that started at the end of the previous episode. Kelnacca is dead, Mae is scared, Osha is feeling the Force running through her… and all these Jedi redshirts are in for it.
I started watching this episode with my usual critiques, making fun of the episode titles and being unimpressed by the deaths of every excess Jedi. (Side note: did I really say “three or four” of these guys would die last week? I was kidding, right? Obviously none of them were getting off Khofar.) But I really didn’t expect so much to go down. Rereading my notes is hilarious – you can tell when I suddenly realized things were serious.
With all the redshirts dead at the hands of Mae’s master, Sol orders Yord to take Osha to safety and engages in combat. Meanwhile, Mae steals Kelnacca’s saber and tries to escape, but she is thwarted by Jecki. Tensions are rising in every corner, but at least we get a lot of lightsaber battles to make up for it!
I didn’t find this episode stressful, although I certainly should’ve in retrospect. I expected everyone to fight, escape to safety, and regroup for the next episode. Even with all the build-up around Mae’s master, I still had yet to understand how much of a threat he posed.
And he finally felt interesting as a character, too! While I liked just hearing about this guy from Mae’s fears, seeing him in action and in Mae’s mind was exceptionally unsettling. When Sol asked him “What kind of master hides his face from his apprentice?”, the response of “You tell me” gave me pause. Not only is it a good line, hinting at Sol’s untold secrets, but for this guy to say it speaks to an interesting depth in his personality.
And those shots of his mask in Mae’s mind as she tries to escape, ooh, so creepy.
Capturing
As Sol and Jecki fight the Master and Mae, Osha and Yord return to try and help – but not in time to prevent Jecki’s death.
This actually hit me hard. I hadn’t expected anyone named to die this episode, especially not the child! And I was reminded sharply of Osha and Jecki’s convo at the beginning of last episode, where they made plans to meet up and talk about Sol after everything… oh no, it hurts.
Mae’s master has the nerve to call Jecki “it,” but more importantly… we finally have a reveal!
And I guess I should’ve seen it coming.
I mean, when you look back on it, I think Qimir was one of like three other named characters in this show. No one else would’ve made sense as this guy, and him being an unknown would’ve been a very unsatisfying unmasking.
I just… man. I didn’t see it at all, and I was totally comfortable speculating on Mae and Qimir’s dynamic without even harboring this possibility. It looks obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it? And now I want to rewatch every past scene with these two. Mae trying to hide things from her master when she spoke with Qimir, his casual ability to get information out of her, even his recognition of Osha… there’s so much to look back on with fresh eyes.
But this scene was the best to remember: the one last episode, where Mae detained Qimir and revealed her entire plan to him. It’s not Mae’s naivete in confessing everything to someone she thought she could trust, but this part: when Mae said she was going to escape her master, Qimir said “He’ll kill you.” Now we know that his line wasn’t a warning, but a threat.
Castling
Anyhow! Let’s get back to the current episode! Jecki is dead and everything is terrible, but it’s still not over. We learn Qimir’s true motivations: he is Sith, and he wants an acolyte to join him in the darkness. He thought Mae could be that to him, but he was wrong.
Throughout this episode (and the last one) I kept complaining about how different Jedi said “What is that?” or “What are you?” about Qimir. He’s just a guy with armor and a lightsaber, after all, how inhuman is he? But the Sith reveal puts these lines in a new light. Since Qimir is Sith – the dark side incarnate – his Force presence must be something entirely unfamiliar to the Jedi. When the Jedi react to him in terror, it’s not just his visual appearance. There’s something more frightening them.
This realization surprised me, especially in its subtlety. I assumed these reactions were the result of an attempt to make Qimir seem threatening, but now it’s evident that there was another layer that was never explicitly defined. It’s impressive, really.
But, agh, we come to a break in the fascinating unravelling of this show’s build-up to arrive at… another death.
YORD. I mean, I saw it coming after Jecki, but that doesn’t mean I was happy about it! I think Yord was honestly my favorite character for a while (maybe up there with Sol and Mae), and having him get killed right when we saw his protection over Osha… ugh, I’m sad! I want these two back!
The literal only good thing to come from these deaths was the confirmation that Sol wouldn’t bite it (this episode), so I’ll take what we’re allowed!
And now we know the nature of Qimir. He calls himself Sith, even if this is a term unknown to the Jedi. Given the Jedi’s unfamiliarity with anything related to the Sith, it’s likely that Qimir is their first encounter with one of them. And with all this “acolyte” business, we’re seeing the origin of the Rule of Two as well.
(Side note: wow, does Manny Jacinto look good here. In this scene, I was torn between staring at his arms and mourning Yord’s death. My sister loved Jacinto in The Good Place, but I couldn’t get past his Jason Mendoza persona. Now, though… I mean, he’s still evil and I hate him for killing my children, but have you seen his arms??)
(Wait, there’s still a battle scene going on, right?)
Stalemate
The remaining Jedis’ battle with Qimir ends how I expected – using these death moths – but with another unforeseen loss. Up until this point, I hadn’t cared much for Pip, Osha’s lil robot friend. Every SW show tries to include some new cute droid, and I wrote Pip off as just another one of these. But Osha purposefully sacrificing him to detain Qimir and save Sol… it was another unexpected death, one last kick while I was down.
Briefly, Sol tries to confess something to Osha, but he is unable to do so. This surprised me – like many events in this episode – as, since episode 3, I believed Sol to be innocent in whatever actions his Jedi friends took on Brendok. Now, though, it seems he played a larger role in the past than I anticipated. I’ll stand by my theory that Sol was less culpable – after all, he didn’t isolate himself like everyone else – but the lack of resolution on this plot point left me ravenous for it.
And then we come to the scene that’s been anticipated since the first episode – the Osha-Mae confrontation. And again, wow. Once more, this show surprised me – but so much more pleasantly.
Given that this face-to-face was happening around the show’s halfway point, I had my predictions. I assumed the truth of Mae’s past would be revealed, making Sol largely to blame. Mae would feed Osha some line like “You think the Jedi are good, but Sol and his friends tried to kill me and accidentally killed our mother! The Sith are the true path!” And then Osha would be torn between the dark and the light, unable to choose a side.
This was my guess, and I really didn’t like it. There’s no arguing that Mae set that fire and tried to kill Osha, after all, we saw it happen! I was sure, however, that Mae would try to blame the Jedi for everything and present Osha with a weak moral dilemma.
But… that’s not what we got.
Until now, I was unconvinced by Osha and Mae’s relationship. They didn’t seem to have much love for each other in episode 3, and lines like Yord’s “Mae has always been your wound” made me roll my eyes. I couldn’t see a path for Mae to be redeemed by Osha’s love.
And maybe that was always the point.
Because – for the third time, wow. I expected Mae to reveal Sol’s secret, but she didn’t. Instead, we got a tense, fraught argument between the sisters. Mae accuses the Jedi of stealing Osha away, whereas Osha claims that the Jedi have been a truer family to her than Mae. Their argument is so much better than I could’ve imagined. Given Mae’s wild words and refusal of compromise, it genuinely seems like this show is embracing Dark Mae – and I’m so here for it.
This was also the scene where I felt like I finally understood Mae as a character – and became fascinated by her. Previously, given her penchant for revenge and interest in Osha, I read her character as someone who believed they lost their family and was fighting hard for vengeance. In episode 4, however, when Mae said she wanted to surrender to the Jedi, she told Qimir that her loyalty was to Osha now, not her master. I took this line as evidence that Mae was a desperate girl who missed her sister and would do anything to find her again – but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
In this episode, when Osha refuses to join her, Mae doesn’t cry or beg or plead. Instead, when she knows she’s lost Osha for good, Mae lashes out. She takes on Osha’s identity and leaves her sister behind, joining Sol in returning to Coruscant. Her current goal is unknown – but it certainly doesn’t involve Osha anymore.
And there’s my fascination. While Mae made a show last episode of telling Qimir that all she wanted was Osha, she was lying even to herself. In my interpretation, Mae doesn’t want Osha so much as she wants something to believe in. She followed her coven, then her master, then Osha – and now she’s lost all of them. Will her path on Coruscant lead her even further into her natural darkness? The last name on Mae’s hit list was Sol, but Mae hasn’t killed him. Does she want to take down as many Jedi as she can, or is there something more sinister – or more pure – currently at play?
(Side note: it makes total sense that Sol isn’t noticing this isn’t his kid. After all, his other two kids were just murdered in front of him, so his Force perception is probably a little shaken. That didn’t stop me from shouting “SOL, STOP, WRONG KID” at the screen, though.)
In the last episode, I critiqued the way Mae openly revealed her plan to Qimir. Here, though, her motivations are still shrouded in subtle mystery.
That line when Sol asks Mae “What happened to your sister?” and Mae answers “She’s gone”, now that was good.
And the twins’ positions have been fully swapped now! Mae is following Sol, and Osha has been found by Qimir – dark with light and light with dark.
The ending shot of episode 3 was its best part. I loved the final twist of the knife and the understated tragedy. Unlike that episode, number five blew me away at multiple points – but that ending scene… again, wow.
I’ve complained about on-the-nose dialogue before. It’s cluttery and feels patronizing to the audience. But there’s none of that here. Qimir finding Osha unconscious and saying such a haunting line to her, then gently covering her with his cloak… what a scene to end on. It’s shockingly tender and wonderfully compelling. I’m in awe.
Of course, it’s right when I catch up on this show that I become deeply invested. But hey, waiting one more week is a small price to pay.
Soon enough, Sol is definitely going to notice that Mae doesn’t have the same distinctive tattoo as Osha. But oh man, how long is that going to take? And how much is Sol going to freak out when he realizes he left his kid behind on a planet with a Sith wandering around?
Ooh, won’t that be fun. Look at me, finally taking this show seriously! And all it took was three deaths!
Ugh, Yord, don’t remind me…
Roll my live thoughts.
