‘The Acolyte’ Episode Six Recap: “Teach/Corrupt”

*Warning: the following article contains spoilers for episode six of The Acolyte*

After one of the most incredible lightsaber battles we’ve ever seen from this side of the galaxy, The Acolyte slows things down and begins to develop the arcs that will predominantly be a part of the final two episodes, one with Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) and Mae (Amandla Stenberg), and the other with Osha (Amandla Stenberg) and Qimir (Manny Jacinto).

The episode also cuts to Coruscant, where Sol’s distress signal reaches Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson), who learns that all of Sol’s team have perished in the wake of the battle against Qimir. With two other Jedis, they travel to Khofar to investigate, where they find the bodies of Jecki (Dafne Keen), Yord (Charlie Barnett), and other Jedis who have fallen on the battlefield. Vernestra and the others suspect a fallen Jedi is responsible for this, but have no clue on Sol’s whereabouts. This C-storyline in the episode feels more tacked on than the other arcs, which only begin to reveal something more compelling but frequently stall for time.

Consider the Sol/Mae storyline, where the crux of the time is spent on Sol realizing that the person he’s with on his ship is not Osha. It takes a while, but he begins to have this realization when she acts slightly strange towards him, and sedates her before she can make any strong movements that jeopardize his position. I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest fan of Jung-jae’s portrayal of Sol, but he’s certainly the most compelling Jedi of the show thus far, only because he has the most screentime and is the only one who didn’t get killed.

But I was more enamored with his turn in this episode than in the previous ones, since he’s slowly beginning to peel himself and reveal a dark part of his past (Sol probably trained Qimir, check it) to Mae, which he is eager to talk to. But that comprises the episode’s cliffhanger ending, which means the show only goes so far with a 25-to-28-minute runtime before wrapping up with little to no fanfare. However, we get to see where this show is taking shape, and a massive reveal is bound to occur next week (if we understand the Disney+ show structures, the penultimate episode always pulls back the curtain).

And what about Osha and Qimir? Well, I wouldn’t ship them yet, but they were definitely the most intriguing parts of the episode. Stenberg’s mastery at playing to distinct protagonists, each diametrically opposed to one another, is in full effect here, as Osha is slowly being drawn into Qimir’s corrupted mind. Qimir tells his side of the story to Osha, stating he was a former Jedi who was betrayed by his master (Sol? Probably), which led him to a darker path.

At first, Osha is weary of his trust, even if there is some tension boiling between the two (Jacinto’s heel turn is another show-saver after he was badly introduced as Mae’s bumbling sidekick), but that gets barely explored since the runtime of the episodes are cataclysmically short, allowing very little character growth. However, a shift in Osha’s arc is apparent as she gets drawn to try out Qimir’s helmet, made of cortosis, which blocks the mind and destroys lightsabers. Your only connection is the Force.

This scene, which gives a first-person point of view of Osha trying it on, marks a turning point in the protagonist’s arc, and we may even get a story that flips to its head, with Mae being drawn to the light when Sol speaks his truth, and Osha being seduced by Qimir, without any knowledge of him doing so until it’s too late (hence the episode’s title, Teach/Corrupt). Osha may get corrupted by Qimir’s teachings, whilst Sol’s corrupted psyche may, in turn, redeem Mae. It’s an interesting conceit that should be developed at full length, but we shouldn’t judge it too harshly before seeing its story fully-realized, with only two episodes to go.

The sixth episode of The Acolyte is now available to stream on Disney+.