Consider the ingredients of The Acolyte to be its characters, premise, initial relationships, and lightsaber duels. The oven is its execution and its glaze is the finale. In our case, the ingredients started out tasty but went rotten the longer they were blended. Then, the oven burned the mixture and gave us something that was at least edible – until it was covered with viscous cooking grease mistaken for icing.
Does the metaphor hold up?
The Acolyte’s original premise was this: a show centered on Jedi from a hundred years ago investigating the murders of their own. This sounded like a simple, interesting enough concept, and even the gradual addition of the Sith’s origins fit in. This made The Acolyte a perfect sandbox for exploring the light and dark sides of the Force among new characters.
And the characters! In the opening episodes, we received master-apprentice dynamics we hadn’t seen since the Clone Wars. Sol portrayed a Jedi master with a level of care for his Padawans not approved by the Council. And the promised elaboration of twin sisters drawn to opposite sides of the Force foreshadowed a greater depth into the duality of the Force.
And then… the show kept going.
Oh, the potential
Looking back, I’m still disappointed over where the show ended given its beginnings. I was genuinely invested in the tenuousness of Sol and Osha’s relationship, and her struggle with the Order was a solid driving force. I wanted both her and Mae to delve into their relationships with the Force itself, finding out where their places were in the universe, Jedi or Sith or neither.
But oh man, I haven’t seen two characters so terribly handled since Laura Neal was handed the pen for Killing Eve.
From the start of The Acolyte, Osha was aligned with the Jedi and Mae with the Sith. As the show progressed, Osha became more desperate to rejoin the Jedi while Mae fought to escape from the clutches of the Sith. I enjoyed their characterizations best in episode 5, where they both stayed true to their perceived natures: Osha claimed the Jedi as her family and Mae lashed out at her in anger.
But my enjoyment was to be short-lived. Despite this clear implication of where each sister wanted to be, I was in for a rude awakening. Episode 7 gave us the same backstory as episode 3, but this time from the Jedi’s perspectives. And oh man, I don’t think I can properly convey how much of a let-down that episode was.
Well, I can try.
Twisting the plot too far
The show clearly prided itself on flipping the script. Ha, you thought Mae started the fire and caused the death of Aniseya? Silly viewer, it was Sol who killed her! Mae was just an innocent child (who tortured a butterfly and probably hated her sister) who was the victim all along! Aren’t you impressed by our crazy plot twist?
I really want to scream into a pillow.
Clearly, the writers of The Acolyte couldn’t see that a smug subversion doesn’t work in a character-driven show. If we can’t understand who Mae is until the finale, how are we supposed to care about her? If Osha tried to leave Mae in episode 3, why should we believe her sudden faithfulness to Mae now? And from a narrative perspective, we’ve spent the whole show caring about Sol – if you’re even changing his characterization right in the seventh episode, who’s left to get attached to?
We were never given a solid arc for Osha. From her childhood to the present day, she never showed hints of darkness. Mae, on the other hand, gave off dark side energy from the beginning. How, then, are we supposed to understand Osha’s partnership with Qimir at the series’ end? It doesn’t read like Osha is sacrificially choosing this path to save Mae – Mae even tells Osha “I won’t stand in your way this time” as if this is Osha’s true purpose! And if that’s the case, why were we never shown any of this? Osha longed to be a Jedi and help people all season long. Sol’s betrayal certainly shouldn’t have fully driven her away from that urge. And Qimir killed her Jedi friends, after all!
Losing the best dynamics far too soon
As I’ve said before, my ideal outcome of this finale ended with Qimir training Osha and Sol training Mae, flipping their original roles. I can’t begin to list all the ways I would’ve changed this show, but that’s the largest one. Mae finding her inner light concurrently with Osha embracing her inner darkness would’ve been great. We’d get an angsty unfinished bond between Sol and Osha, a hesitant master-apprentice dynamic with Sol and Mae, and a darkly seductive one with Osha and Qimir. The stage would be wonderfully set for a second season. We’d get sister-sister duels, former ally match-ups, that deliciously painful pull to the light side that can’t be ignored… the potential was boundless!
Also, I know Manny Jacinto is a fantastic actor and a big name for the show, but I want Osha to kill him. Killing her master would make her a “true Sith” and solidify her fall into the dark side. And then she could hunt for an acolyte of her own!
As the show currently stands, we could get something along these lines. Mae’s been taken in by Vernestra, so maybe she’ll be trained by a Jedi after all. But the poignancy of the Osha-Sol dynamic has been lost, so this parallel wouldn’t hit nearly as hard. And the twins technically fixed their whole relationship, so why bother exploring it further?
Not “too woke,” just disappointing
There is a chance, however slim, that The Acolyte can come back from this. All the issues I mentioned can be addressed – and if Sol returns as a Force ghost to try and reach Osha, we’ll be golden. Despite snarky reviews complaining about the show’s “lesbian witches” and “obvious pandering,” the issue never was The Acolyte’s “wokeness.” It was never the black, Asian, or gay characters. Star Wars should have more of all of those, after all! It was the failure to deliver both the story promised and the story deserved.
Hopefully, we’ll hear more about The Acolyte’s future soon. But so far, the show doesn’t bear rewatchabiity. Let’s go turn on Rebels until then, yeah?
