The Acolyte – Choice Review

Well, so the truth as to what really went down on Brendock sixteen years ago wasn’t exactly what I predicted last week. For one, Vernestra doesn’t appear to have anything to do with that particular incident (although I suspect mine – and pretty much everyone else’s – prediction that she has a connection to Qimir, who was absent this week, will turn out to be true). And it wasn’t all Indara’s idea to take out the coven and take Osha – that was all Sol, even if Indara was the one to strike the killing blow to the witches (I assume she killed them and didn’t just knock them out – it wasn’t particularly clear, but Indara did appear to be shaken after, which seems to lean toward her killing them) in an attempt to save the other three from a battle royale. But was this particular explanation for all that pain and suffering satisfying? Honestly, not really.

Some of the extended flashback worked well and felt organic within the story. Indara being wholly against the entire “save Mae and Osha from the coven” plan from the get-go and warning both Torbin and Sol that they were projecting their own wants onto the situation made sense with what we’ve seen of her in the past. Considering how strong of a fighter she was in that opening scene of the series, I had suspected that she would be the clear aggressor here. Having her be cool and calculating – much like she was, temperament-wise in that opening fight sequence – made sense. Plus, it was nice to see someone in the Jedi Order wanting to genuinely keep the peace – and desperately try to stop the battle that was coming, even if she wasn’t able to control either her Padawan or Sol in the end. And the revelation that the potential deaths of the coven came from her mental attack also made sense within what we knew from the previous episode detailing these events from the twins’ perspective – the coven members appeared to have died without a scratch on them. So, that also tracked, and it gave Mae a clear reason to go after Indara first – she killed Mother Koril and the rest of the coven. I would love to know just how Mae got off Brendock. Did someone else survive and set her on the path to vengeance? Did Qimir stumble upon her there? That’s a piece of the puzzle we’re lacking.

As for what didn’t work nearly as well, that would be everything else. We still know precious little regarding Torbin, so his sudden desire to get off Brendock and head back to Coruscant was grounded in nothing except the narrative need for him to want to get the twins once he realized their existence would be his ticket home. Why did he want to leave? Was he just bored? Was there another reason? We needed to see and understand his motivations for his decision to run off at the end to really make sense of this plot point from a character perspective. All they needed to write was a simple exchange between him and another character, talking about why he didn’t want to be on a survey mission. Simply going with the amorphous “I want to go home” excuse just doesn’t cut it.

And then there’s the Sol of it all. Sol claims he feels a connection with Osha and that’s why he believes she should come with him. Indara warns him against interpreting what he wants as a Force connection.* And yet, when he continues to press the issue, even leading Osha into telling the truth in her test to pass – something Indara calls out when he rants against the order of the Jedi Council to leave the twins alone – Indara doesn’t do anything at all. She just lets Sol do what he wants. It’s negligence at best on her part. But why does she do this? And why is Sol so convinced he needs Osha to be his Padawan? That’s something we don’t get into. It just happens and that’s that. Perhaps we’ll learn more about Osha and Sol’s relationship in the finale next week, but I doubt we’ll get the fleshing out of this particular character beat. And that’s such a shame. Sure, we know what happened on Brendock – even though everyone watching deduced the Jedi were involved in the deaths and that it wasn’t Mae’s fault weeks ago – but very little of that information provided any deeper layers for Sol, our only remaining Jedi from that quest. Was he so afraid of the coven that he felt the need to attack? Or was he just angry he didn’t yet have a Padawan and felt “saving” Osha could solve that?

*Sol’s insistence on a Force connection between him and Osha calls to mind Qimir’s comment to Osha last week that she is the one with the incredible Force abilities, not Sol. We know the twins’ M-counts are off the charts, so they’re incredibly strong in the Force by that metric. So, perhaps Osha’s deep desire to join the Jedi made Sol think there was a Force connection when it was really her wants superimposing themselves on Sol? Which would track with Qimir’s comment – she’s the strong one, she’s the one who can impart her will on others through the force, even unconsciously.

The other big reveal of the episode was that Osha and Mae are not actually twins, but rather beings created from a single vergence in the Force. That event created a being – along with life on Brendock – that was split into two, creating the twins. One of the big questions surrounding Mae and Osha throughout the run of The Acolyte was just how they were born, and the answer is pretty much in line with the major theories. They were created through the Force, they aren’t really twins, and Mother Aniseya was responsible for their singular creation creating two children. You know who else was a vergence? Anakin Skywalker. And we know how that story turned out. So, two Anakins, strong in the Force, pitted against each other. No wonder Qimir wanted to get his hands on at least one of them – and now he appears to be wooing Osha to his side to be his Acolyte. That’s not troubling at all.

So, how does this set of revelations fit into the show’s larger narrative? Well, it confirms a lot of what the audience already deduced, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – you want a show’s narrative to follow a path that tracks with the clues laid out. However, as with most of the season, the narrative lacked the necessary character development to underpin the story. We know what Sol did, but we still don’t really understand why he did it – and simply saying “I felt a connection!” isn’t enough. We know what went down on Brendock, but the why is missing from so much of the story that even those necessary revelations feel hollow. And that’s been the case week in and week out for The Acolyte. As I said in my review last week, there’s an interesting story being told here, it’s just not being told well. I have little faith that next week’s finale will manage to right the ship – or that we’ll get enough answers to satisfy fans unless there’s another season. And that’s such a disappointment when there was such a cool concept at the heart of this series.