Maxance Vincent
*Warning: The following article contains spoilers for episodes one and two of The Acolyte*
I’ve been fairly disillusioned by Star Wars lately. Minus Andor, I’ve been experiencing massive highs and crushing lows with Disney’s content dilution of the brand. No, not “because of woke” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), but simply because the storytelling and filmmaking have been incredibly subpar. Ahsoka was fairly good but had moments of egregious fan service that strayed away from what the first few episodes brilliantly established. When The Acolyte was formally announced at Disney’s Investor Day in 2020, and the cast ramped up in 2022, my interest was piqued, but I still had general reservations about the look and feel of the series, created by Leslye Headland of Russian Doll.
Having seen the first two episodes, “Lost/Found,” and “Revenge/Justice,” I will say that the show does entice promise, but some of my general reservations remain here. The first is how its martial arts action, clearly inspired by the work of King Hu and Ang Lee‘s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, isn’t as kinetic and flowing enough to be technically impressive. The first episode begins with a wuxia-inspired action scene, as Mae (Amandla Stenberg) challenges Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) to a fight.
The choreography itself is pretty damn good, but the constant cutaways from wide shots hamper its rhythmic momentum (while Hu shot A Touch of Zen in CinemaScope). Having Carrie-Anne Moss into the mix also references The Matrix trilogy, with its wuxia-inspired fight scenes choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping, who also worked on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and directed the sequel, Sword of Destiny (it’s all connected). Surprisingly, Indara gets killed by Mae (hopefully, Moss will have a much larger role through flashbacks, or perhaps she’s not dead since that would be a waste of talent) and sets our main plot in motion.
Suddenly, a woman who looks like Mae wakes up and is called upon to repair damage to the ship she lives in. Her name is Osha (also played by Amandla Stenberg), a meknek who was formerly a Jedi Padawan but left that life behind over six years ago. She receives the visit of Yord (Charlie Barnett, terrific), who tells her she has been identified as the person who killed Indara, not knowing that her twin sister Mae committed the crimes, and immediately professing her innocence.
On Coruscant, Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) is alerted by Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) that Osha has been apprehended by Yord and awaiting trial en route to the planet. Sol does not believe that she is capable of committing such a murder, as he and Indara were the ones who rescued her from the fire that killed her family. However, during her voyage to Coruscant, prisoners hijack the ship, use their escape pods, and leave her to crash on Carlac, where she hallucinates and finds out that Mae is still alive and the one who murdered Indara.
Meanwhile, Sol and his Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) travel with Yord to Carlac, where they receive word that Osha’s ship has crashed. Sol knows of her innocence and is determined to prove it, while Mae meets with a mysterious figure (a potential Sith lord) who tells her that she must kill Jedi masters without using weapons. This leads into the second episode, in which Mae attempts to kill Jedi master Torbin (Dean Charles-Chapman) without any weapons but is prevented from even attacking him by his forcefield, blocking her every move.
She reunites with Qimir (Manny Jacinto), a smuggler who helps her target the Jedi stationed on her planet when she lost her family in the fire (Mae also believes Osha is dead). She targets Indara, Torbin, Sol, and Wookie Jedi Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo). Based on what her Sith master told Mae in the first episode, she attempts to kill Torbin without a weapon. She does so by offering poison to Torbin, who willingly drinks it after she threatens to reveal what he had done to her (a political conspiracy? Interesting). Osha, Sol, Yord, and Jecki arrive at Torbin’s location and find his lifeless corpse, which raises once more suspicions about who exactly is killing the Jedi masters.
However, Yord believes Osha is innocent after spying on her and seeing that she found an already dead body when entering the room. The gang finds Qimir, who reveals that the unnamed (and still mysterious) master is behind it all and states that Mae will return during the night. Sol immediately confronts Mae, which leads to the second martial arts-inspired fight of the series, much better edited, though one cutaway dilutes its impact. During that fight, he reveals to Mae that Osha is still alive, but she does not believe him…until Osha appears and shoots a stun ray at her, but misses.
Mae escapes and threatens Qimir for feeding information to the Jedi until he reveals the whereabouts of Kelnacca, the next Jedi to kill on Mae’s list. The investigation is over, the Jedi (and, by extension, Osha) know now what they have to do, catch Mae before she kills Kalnecca. The conceit is pretty good, even if the episodes are too short, which doesn’t allow us to sit fully with the characters as we should (so far, the arcs feel rushed, even if Stenberg is unsurprisingly fantastic here). Still, The Acolyte inspires promise as an intriguing exploration into an era of Star Wars that currently hasn’t been treated on the screen before. Because of this, I have no choice but to see it through, hoping it will deliver on its high-stakes action and on-screen treatment of the High Republic era.
The first two episodes of The Acolyte are now available to stream on Disney+.
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