Two more episode have aired of “Star Wars: The Acolyte.” Has it gotten any better? Let’s find out.
Episode 6
Well, where do we go from here?
After Qimir (Manny Jacinto) *spoilers* killed almost all of the Jedi assigned to protect Kelnacca from Mae (Amandla Stenberg), the titular acolyte swapped places with her twin sister, Osha (Stenberg).
As such, Osha spends some time with Qimir, who immediately recognizes her and tries to convince her to be his apprentice. It’s still unclear if Qimir himself has a master, but he nevertheless wants to share his knowledge and experiences with a successor.
Meanwhile, Mae catches a ride with Sol (Lee Jung-jae), the only Jedi survivor, who at least pretends to not know she’s impersonating her sister. He leads her on with the promise of coming clean about what happened 16 years ago when he and other Jedi visited their coven, but alas, he doesn’t confess this episode.
Varnestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) also departs the Jedi Temple to find Sol. If those two were to die, every Jedi who knows about Qimir would perish, keeping the franchise’s canon intact (a Sith was not seen for over a millennia prior to “Episode I — The Phantom Menace”).
Unfortunately, this episode also continues the show’s mediocrity. Dialogue still feels stilted and awkward and the show doesn’t quite know what to show us and when to keep us engaged. “The Acolyte” as a whole has a great concept executed horribly.
Maybe this era of “Star Wars” will be salvaged by an animated show, because it has some really interesting pieces, like its corrupt Jedi Order that suppresses other force users. If only “The Acolyte” had more polish, or better yet, was in the hands of a more competent showrunner.
“Star Wars: The Acolyte” Episode 6 gets a 6/10
Episode 7
It’s time to go back to the past … again!
This time around, we revisited Episode 3’s flashback episode, with it being told this time from the Jedi’s point of view. Spoilers ahead.
Apparently, the Jedi were interested in the planet the the Osha, Mae and their coven lived on because they believed a vergence of the Force — a phenomenon that can create life where there isn’t any — occurred there because the planet was previously barren.
Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman) proves to be the Jedi’s weak link, as his desire to go home after the half-year mission leads to bad blood developing between the witches and the Jedi. But the witches might not be entirely innocent, as it’s revealed this episode that they were teaching Mae dark side techniques and Sol believed that they planned to sacrifice the girls.
Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith), the coven’s leader, was going to let Osha join the Jedi Order, though the coven did not approve and the Jedi Council denied Sol’s request to take her on. This lead to a rift in the coven, in which Mother Koril (Margarita Levieva) prepares the witches for battle, though Aniseya starts by trying to attack Sol and Torbin through some magic/force technique that appears to hurt Mae.
We also get more nuance to how Mae lit the coven’s stronghold on fire, as she appears to drop the fire apparatus and immediately regrets her decision to pic it up in the first place.
The crown jewel of this episode, however, is Kelnacca’s fight with his fellow Jedi. Mind-controlled by the coven, the wookie Jedi displays ferocious strength and imposing physical power reminiscent of Chewbacca’s fight in “Solo” … except Kelnacca also has a lightsaber. The fight is really well choreographed and for some might make up for other areas where the episode falls short.
Unfortunately, it fails in almost every single way with its script. It’s just terrible, as it clunkily rams us through what is an otherwise fine outline for the show’s dramatic reveal with terrible dialogue, awful pacing and plotholes a mile wide, the largest of which is the Jedi’s unnecessary coverup of the coven incident. Mega spoilers.
After the ordeal, Osha and the Jedi are seemingly the only ones who survived. There is a pretty great scene where Sol is struggling to hold Osha and Mae up from a chasm with the force and ultimately can’t save them both, so he chooses Osha. It’s another gem in what is otherwise a painfully mediocre show.
The rest of the witches apparently died when Indara (Carrie-Ann Moss) broke their spell over Kelnacca. Why or how is not explained.
Indara, the group’s leader, decides to fudge the details to the Jedi Council after the incident so Osha can train as a Jedi … even though they previously rejected her and if anything, she’s much less stable than before.
The scripts for this show feel like they were written overnight. They’re somehow worse than the prequels, which had some good bones but was hindered by bad pacing, unnecessary clutter and some of the worst dialogue in cinema.
I can excuse the show’s terrible special effects if it had a great story to tell. I still think that there’s one hidden underneath the rushed, erratic scripts and nonsensical plot points than needed a few more editors’ eyes.
But as it stands, “The Acolyte” is middling at best, nonsensical and boring at worst.
“Star Wars: The Acolyte” Episode 6 gets a 6/10
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