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This Star Wars: The Acolyte review contains spoilers.
While The Acolyte struggled across its first seven episodes, its finale is surprisingly coherent, fast-moving, and even riveting on occasion. The episode is undermined by the crumbly narrative foundation it’s built on, but there’s a lot to like here. Is it good enough to warrant a second season? Probably not. But judging by the number of loose ends the first season leaves dangling, the door seems open to continue the Mae/Osha saga.
This is one of the best episodes of the season. Maybe the best. It picks up where episode 6 left off, with the Stranger saving Osha from suffocating in his comically evil-looking sensory deprivation cortosis helmet. These two still don’t have much chemistry, but at least we’ve had time to repress the off-putting romance novel bunk we saw two weeks ago.
It’s really astounding how much more enjoyable Qimir was to watch than the Stranger is. Manny Jacinto was charming and funny as the former, and there was even a little pathos mixed in there, too. The Stranger, on the other hand, is personality-less and flat-voiced, and if we’re in for even more of he and Osha’s low-energy convos in the future as this episode would have us believe…may the Force be with us.
The glimpse of Darth Plagueis the Wise we see as Osha and The Stranger depart is a neat tease of what might be coming if the show continues. The Sith Rule of Two should come into play in an interesting way considering how the season ends, and Plagueis’ presence gives the story more weight, too, especially when you consider how his ability to create life via midi-chlorians might connect to Osha and Mae’s origins.
Mae’s escape from Sol’s ship and the ensuing asteroid belt chase was one of the highlights of the episode. The lighting, the camera angles, the movement…this thing was spectacular. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the chase. It’s Star Wars 101 in a lot of ways. Big ship. Little ship. High speed. Deadly detritus dodging. But in a show that’s so freaking broody all the time, pops of action-movie energy like this are delightful.
What was just as delightful and utterly out of left field was the confrontation between Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) and Senator Rayencourt (David Harewood). This scene was fantastic! The actors created palpable tension in no time at all, and the Senate’s growing skepticism towards the Jedi Order was laid out clearly and poignantly. Jedi “bad seeds” are a long-running motif for the franchise, and all of that is foreshadowed here nicely. The bit about the Jedi controlling emotions seems like a tacked-on way to tie the scene into the main story, but otherwise it’s a win.
To the show’s credit, all of the characters converging on Brendok does feel more like a natural development than a contrived full-circle moment. Okay, maybe it’s a little stage-y, but there are cinematic touches that sell the poignancy of it all, like the female choir chants that invoke the dead witches who once lived in these now scorched halls.
The hand-to-hand combat between Osha and Mae is lightning fast and atypical of what we typically see in Star Wars movies and shows, and what’s really impressive is the technical feat of making it look like Amandla Stenberg is fighting a mirror image of herself. Because the effect is so convincing, it allows us to enjoy the frenetic fight choreography without distraction.
As if that fight wasn’t good enough, the lightsaber duel between Sol and The Stranger is the coolest thing to happen on the show. The close-quarters stuff is intense, the slow-mo shots are suspenseful, the choreography is unpredictable. And having Mae and Osha break up and ultimately end a fight between their respective masters just makes sense.
So now that this long, rocky, unbelievably incoherent tale of two “sisters” has reached the end of its first volume, where do we find ourselves? We’re actually in a surprisingly intriguing place. Mae sacrifices her memory to finally get out of Osha’s way and let her reach her full potential. Osha’s path to self-fulfillment has led her to the dark side, and while she’s devastated to have taken Sol’s life, she also finds a way to be her true self free of constraints. Stenberg finally gets to break out of the stoic trance she’s been in all season here, and the results are powerful.
Vernestra requests a mind-wiped Mae’s aid in tracking down her sister and her former pupil The Stranger, and as we see in the final shot of the show, Master Yoda could potentially be making a return to the franchise. It would be nice to see Vern and Yoda in the main-event mix with Mae, Osha, The Stranger, and Plagueis should a second season happen.
That is the question. Does this show deserve a season 2? The Acolyte’s finale leaves us with a lot to look forward to. But getting to this point has frankly been a slog. Maybe a second season could remedy some of the show’s worst qualities, but even if the series doesn’t get renewed, it at least went out with its head held high in the finale.
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