Well, we’re here. 

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve seen the finale to “Star Wars: The Acolyte.” It’s been a busy July here in Massachusetts, as my girlfriend and I have been on vacation. While this meant little content for the site, it also let me organize and process my thoughts more than usual. 

This finale is better than previous “Acolyte” episodes, but it’s not good. Like I’ve written and said before, this series has a great outline that has been executed horrendously. Something just feels off about the whole thing; it’s very similar to the “Star Wars” prequels, which suffered from franchise creator George Lucas having near absolute power to tell the stories he wanted, with far too little oversight. 

Overall, the scripts seem to be this show’s Achilles’ heel. Its cast is great, leading strongly with the likes of Squid Games’ Lee Jung-jae and The Matrix’s Carrie Anne Moss, but it wastes them with stilted, uninspiring dialogue and overall story construction that is far inferior to many “Star Wars” fan films. 

Who is responsible for this? Disney first and foremost, but also its showrunner, Leslye Headland, who presumably greenlit every script and director and even wrote and directed a few episodes herself. 

Episode 8 sees the “thrilling” conclusion to Osha and Mae’s (both played by Amandla Stenberg) story, as well as the reveal of Sol’s (Jung-jae) big secret. Without spoiling it, it’s not a bad ending, but the show takes major leaps in terms of Osha and Mae’s character development in order to get there. 

Basically, the cat is out of the bag that Sol killed their mother in the flashback we saw in Episode 7. Mae has all but given up her pursuit of the Dark Side, and apparently Osha has always struggled to control it naturally, so much so that she’s decided to embrace it now.

This could have made Osha a more interesting character, but it’s just was not set up; at no point do we see her struggle with this side of the Force or make any morally ambiguous decisions prior to her turn. It feels like a bad twist written by an amateur writer for shock value.

We do apparently see Darth Pageuis for a moment, but it’s too little, too late. “The Acolyte” does not work on a structural level, despite its flashy fight scenes and interesting ideas. It feels like a product that was rushed to marketplace, that forewent the usual means of quality control in order to make sure Disney had something fresh for its streaming platform. 

Episode 8 is better than most of the show because it pays off the mystery of the night Osha and Mae were separated, while finding a way to cleverly keep the emergence of the Sith under wraps (spoilers, the Jedi cover it up), preserving canon. But it’s still clunky and suffers from a lack of focus that has plagued the entire production.

It’s a shame, because I doubt this is the best version of the story Headland wanted to tell. Maybe it is — I have no way of knowing what it was like working behind the scenes of this. 

I think there is a great show buried beneath the forced character interactions between Osha, Mae and especially all the Jedi characters. This series could have been an edit or two away from greatness. 

Instead, it delivered mediocrity. 

“Star Wars: The Acolyte” Episode 8 gets a 5/10