By In what marks a welcome change from recent airings, the fifth episode of “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte” drew relatively minimal controversy as compared to the first four episodes of its airing.
In fact, the episode easily pulled in the best reaction yet in online polls with a 6.6/10 on IMDb so far – only 25% of reviews being 1/10s compared to the just over 60% of reviews being the same for the third episode.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE 5
Dubbed the darkest entry to date, the episode not only gave the big reveal as to who ‘The Master’ was, but also saw the dispatch of two key supporting characters so far – Charlie Barnett’s Yord Fandar and Dafne Keen’s Jecki Lon.
In the wake of the episode, social media has had various fixations – from Manny Jacinto’s Qimir going sleeveless and proving he doesn’t skip arm day, to other things such as a bit of Kylo Ren’s theme playing during a scene with the character which fans have given the nickname ‘Smilo Ren’.
Most have been commenting on the episode’s brutality, dubbing it the biggest Jedi genocide since ‘Order 66’ nearly twenty years go. EW spoke with the key people and showrunner Leslye Headland says doing the episode, which was essentially just a bunch of fighting, made the behind-the-scenes people nervous:
“I got some feedback when we were writing and prepping the episode that said, ‘Gosh, it’s just so much fighting. Don’t you think the audience will tune out at some point?’. And I said, ‘No, I feel really confident that they’re going to love this.’”
She adds that she was well-aware people would likely figure out it was Qimir before the reveal and made the path easy to follows as: “a good twist is telegraphing what’s going to happen, and then once it does, executing it without an ounce of pity or sentimentality.”
Instead, she wanted the focus to be on the carnage and that surprise – which is why the random background Jedi cannon fodder, the equivalent of “Star Trek redshits,” were killed off early:
“That’s what I loved about starting with the red shirts. You’re kind of like, ‘Oh, he’s just going to kill a bunch of red shirts, and everybody is going to be fine and… OH MY GOD, JECKI’S DEAD! Okay, I’m listening.”
Some of those deaths were relatively nasty for a Disney+ series, but Headland says: “I just figured someone would stop me and nobody did. I figured someone would say, ‘This is too far!’ But they didn’t.”
Barnett and Keen says they were made well aware of their demises when they took the jobs, Keen being told: “you might be playing an alien, and you die pretty early on”.
Jacinto meanwhile confirms he was under the mask for almost every shot, as the actor asked and was allowed to do the majority of his fight stunts.
Jacinto’s final line is meant to telegraph that the final three episodes are “going into completely different territory” with a “different world that we’re going to introduce you to, and not just a new story, but new motivations for all of the different characters.”
That could include lingering mysteries – what truly happened on Osha’s home planet Brendock that lead to the fire and mass death, what did Torbin want forgiveness for and what forced Kelnacca into hiding, and what was Sol going to say about his past.
It’s expected the seventh episode will reveal the truth about Brendock as Kogonada, who directed the third, also directs the seventh. For the full piece head to EW.
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