Online Series: Star Wars: The Acolyte on Disney+

[HanSolo]

So that was probably the best episode of the bunch, but it's still not exactly saying much. The expanded backstory is reasonably satisfying even if the truth of a certain origin is a little...lame. At least it feels like the show sort of walked back a fair amount of stuff that people were bellyaching about

Spoiler

Anakin's immaculate conception being cheapened, to me was never a big deal to begin with. The implication was always that Plagueis already knew how to create life. But regardless, it seems Osha and Mae were created under very unique circumstances. The explanation for it is borderline batshit but I suppose it's better than an extended explanation about manipulation of midichlorians.

The Jedi order being bad, more or less walked back, since the council was trying to get the Jedi on the ground to stop interfering. This particular group of jedi conspiring to conceal the true events of what happened is morally questionable but it did give the Jedi who have been Mae's targets a bit more nuance. And it helps make Mae's motivations make more sense since all we had to go off of was that Mae started a fire and probably blamed the Jedi for putting her in a situation to do.

Not exactly sure what to make of Indara breaking the possession of Kelnaca and how it knocked out all of those witches. Did the break in the connection kill them all instantly or where they knocked unconscious? Cause if it's the former, yikes. In a kind of good way. A jedi being pushed into a situation like that, save her fellow jedi at the cost of a lot of lives or finding another way to subdue Kelnaca...pretty ballsy to have her go with the former.

Still, to me, if this is the peak this show can achieve...I mean I'd still put it squarely below Kenobi, which I have under Ashoka. But probably above Book of Boba Fett and Mando S3 (which wasn't bad, it was just unrelentingly dull).

 

[MadDevil]

They spent 6 episodes teasing what actually happened on Brendok and then we get there and it just kind of fell flat for me. The fight sequences in the show are good, but I just don't care enough about the story to really get invested.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Yeah, I was underwhelmed with the Brendok "reveal".

 

[Very Stable Genius]

Torbin poisoned himself over that?

 

[Osprey]

The first half of the episode was a bit boring, as it was just scenes that we'd already seen and information that we already knew, without much new context. It felt like re-watching Episode 3. The second half was underwhelming and nonsensical.

Spoiler

All but one of the witches died (or were knocked unconscious and died in the fire) because a single Jedi broke their mind control? How does that work, and that was the long-awaited reveal, that it was their own fault that they all died?

Sol felt that he had a connection with Osha after meeting and talking to her one time and was even able to listen to her thoughts from a distance, but then confused Mae for her when she was in front of him. Also, later, on the bridge, the script needed them to shout their names at each other so that he could tell them apart.

Torbin returned to the temple to take the girls away and use them to prove the vergence to the Council, but they already had the girls' blood, which was obviously enough to prove it to them. He's even the one who analyzed the samples. If he wanted to go home so badly, he should've proposed leaving right then and there, since they had enough evidence.

Sol went after Torbin to stop him and then suddenly decided to join him, instead, marking the umpteenth time that a character has flip flopped in this show. It's explained by the aforementioned listening to Osha's thoughts, but that felt contrived, not just because it's something that came out of nowhere, but because Torbin assumed that the elevator was disabled to keep the girls in, instead of the more natural assumption that they were trying to keep the Jedi out. Either way, it felt like flimsy justification to break in for a second time. Speaking of which, in the middle of the episode, Sol convinced Indara that they should enter the temple as a team, even though he previously entered alone and then, later, entered with only Torbin.

Speaking of Torbin, as Very Stable Genius just brought up, he didn't do anything that could explain why he eventually put himself into a Force coma and committed suicide. He only defended himself against the witches' arrows and the possessed Kelnacca. You might argue that he took responsibility for initiating the events that led to the witches dying, but he also had plenty of reasons to feel justified. If a girl was being held captive in a house and I broke in to rescue her and succeeded, but not before her captors attacked me and died, and not even by my hand, I would not feel guilty about it.

After Episode 3, I didn't join the chorus of complaints about how Mae's fire spread so quickly (or at all) throughout the temple, since we didn't have the whole story yet and I wanted to give the writing the benefit of the doubt. Well, it turns out that Mae really did burn down the temple, and it happened in under 10 minutes, despite the structure being made of stone. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise in a universe in which fire can burn without oxygen, though.

Another early complaint is that it didn't make sense for Mae to track down and kill the Jedi when she was the one responsible for setting the fire that killed nearly everyone. That, too, seemed like something that might eventually be explained, but now we know that it's mostly accurate.

I have no idea what Mother Aniseya was doing to Mae just before she died. It seemed so unnecessary, except to give Sol a reason to kill her.

I also have no idea why Sol tried to hold up both ends of bridge, which were undoubtedly heavy, instead of simply holding up both of the girls, who weighed significantly less, even combined.

The episode ended with Sol telling Osha that Mae started a fire, which she already knew. How did Sol know that, though? Mae told everyone that there was a fire, not that she started it. The only other person that he could've learned it from is Osha, but he was telling her, not the other way around. It would've made for more sense for Sol to be the one to ask her what happened and Osha to tell him that Mae started a fire. I think that the writers wanted to hint that Sol was going along with Indara's plan to tell "truth," but didn't realize or care that they hadn't established how he and Indara even knew what that was.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Hide ya kids hide ya wife these Jedis is climbing through your windows snatching your peoples up

 

[Sad People]

I'll be honest, i have no idea whats going on anymore. Whats this show even about now? lol I really dont know why im still watching.

I dislike this show because of the bad writing and bad acting.

 

[matt trick]

The big Bredok reveal is really more of 'what if we re-wrote episode three so instead of it being a 0, we earn a D-' It makes more sense, but it's not like it's a brilliant twist, it's just marginally less dumb. It actually slightly bums me out in that I see some interesting ideas but the execution, writing, and directing have been awful.

I'll finish it, but oh well. Andor and the animated stuff have been world's better.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

What dumb mark or clueless schmuck is Headlamp gonna con into getting a job from next?

 

[Osprey]

I'll be honest, i have no idea whats going on anymore. Whats this show even about now? lol I really dont know why im still watching.

While watching the episode, I was thinking about how the show feels like it has two somewhat distinct plots instead of one coherent one. There's the plot about what happened on Brendok 16 years ago and how it shaped the twins' destinies. Then, there's the plot about the master having a beef towards the Jedi and grooming Mae to kill them. The two don't seem to have a lot to do with one another because the master doesn't have a connection to or interest in what happened on Brendok, and Mae has more reason to blame herself than the Jedi. Now, if the master had turned out to be Mother Aniseya, then that would've tied the two plots together well and given her solid motivation for training Mae to seek vengeance against the Jedi. Instead, the master doesn't care about these particular Jedi and is training someone that he has no connection to because he feels oppressed by people that don't even realize that he exists.

 

[Stylizer1]

Trespassing, Breaking and entering, Murder, and Kidnapping children?

Jedi are assholes.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

So that was probably the best episode of the bunch, but it's still not exactly saying much. The expanded backstory is reasonably satisfying even if the truth of a certain origin is a little...lame. At least it feels like the show sort of walked back a fair amount of stuff that people were bellyaching about

Spoiler

Anakin's immaculate r very unique circumstances. The explanation for it is borderline batshit but I suppose it's better thaconception being cheapened, to me was never a big deal to begin with. The implication was always that Plagueis already knew how to create life. But regardless, it seems Osha and Mae were created unden an extended explanation about manipulation of midichlorians.

The Jedi order being bad, more or less walked back, since the council was trying to get the Jedi on the ground to stop interfering. This particular group of jedi conspiring to conceal the true events of what happened is morally questionable but it did give the Jedi who have been Mae's targets a bit more nuance. And it helps make Mae's motivations make more sense since all we had to go off of was that Mae started a fire and probably blamed the Jedi for putting her in a situation to do.

Not exactly sure what to make of Indara breaking the possession of Kelnaca and how it knocked out all of those witches. Did the break in the connection kill them all instantly or where they knocked unconscious? Cause if it's the former, yikes. In a kind of good way. A jedi being pushed into a situation like that, save her fellow jedi at the cost of a lot of lives or finding another way to subdue Kelnaca...pretty ballsy to have her go with the former.

Still, to me, if this is the peak this show can achieve...I mean I'd still put it squarely below Kenobi, which I have under Ashoka. But probably above Book of Boba Fett and Mando S3 (which wasn't bad, it was just unrelentingly dull).

I thought this episode sucked, hah. Glad we finally were given the answer to what happened even though it seemed kinda obvious.

Now I'm just waiting for them to tell me Qimir was the padawan of the whipsaber Jedi,

Huge credit to the show for making cool lightsaber scenes. However the way this story is written...being flashbacks, then flash forwards...it's exhausting. I hate it. It's like they're outsmarting themselves by trying to outsmart the viewer.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

I know people love to hate on The Acolyte, but this guy in particular is a great listen...verbalizes frustrations I don't think I can so eloquently (and I have like 50K subscribers on YouTube where I yap about sci fi/fantasty topics..so that's something)

 

[HanSolo]

I thought this episode sucked, hah. Glad we finally were given the answer to what happened even though it seemed kinda obvious.

Now I'm just waiting for them to tell me Qimir was the padawan of the whipsaber Jedi,

Huge credit to the show for making cool lightsaber scenes. However the way this story is written...being flashbacks, then flash forwards...it's exhausting. I hate it. It's like they're outsmarting themselves by trying to outsmart the viewer.

The more I thought about it the less I liked it. It was more like, it wasn't as offensively bad as some of the other episodes.

 

[MadDevil]

While watching the episode, I was thinking about how the show feels like it has two somewhat distinct plots instead of one coherent one. There's the plot about what happened on Brendok 16 years ago and how it shaped the twins' destinies. Then, there's the plot about the master having a beef towards the Jedi and grooming Mae to kill them. The two don't seem to have a lot to do with one another because the master doesn't have a connection to or interest in what happened on Brendok, and Mae has more reason to blame herself than the Jedi. Now, if the master had turned out to be Mother Aniseya, then that would've tied the two plots together well and given her solid motivation for training Mae to seek vengeance against the Jedi. Instead, the master doesn't care about these particular Jedi and is training someone that he has no connection to because he feels oppressed by people that don't even realize that he exists.

I think they could have done a straight up revenge story with Mae, without even needing to involve the Master at all. Have her be so consumed by her grief and anger that she turns to the dark side herself, without being manipulated by another. She wouldn't have gotten the training in the "Jedi arts" from the Master, but have her do a Rocky training montage with a Mandalorian or somebody else who has fought Jedi before. Then have her hunt down the 4 Jedi one at a time, eventually its revealed who she is, Sol finds Osha to help deal with her sister, etc.

As it is, I actually find myself being more interested in Qimir and his story than I am with the twins, who are supposed to be the focal point of the story.

 

[Osprey]

I know people love to hate on The Acolyte, but this guy in particular is a great listen...verbalizes frustrations I don't think I can so eloquently (and I have like 50K subscribers on YouTube where I yap about sci fi/fantasty topics..so that's something)

I watched that yesterday and agree that it's a good video essay. I've also been enjoying Jeremy Jahns' reviews. His one on this episode was particularly entertaining.

 

[kingsfan28]

The first half of the episode was a bit boring, as it was just scenes that we'd already seen and information that we already knew, without much new context. It felt like re-watching Episode 3. The second half was underwhelming and nonsensical.

Spoiler

All but one of the witches died (or were knocked unconscious and died in the fire) because a single Jedi broke their mind control? How does that work, and that was the long-awaited reveal, that it was their own fault that they all died?

Sol felt that he had a connection with Osha after meeting and talking to her one time and was even able to listen to her thoughts from a distance, but then confused Mae for Osha when she was in front of him. Later, he needed them to shout their names at each other so that he could tell them apart.

Torbin returned to the temple to take the girls away and use them to prove the vergence to the Council, but they already had the girls' blood, which was obviously enough to prove it to them. He's even the one who analyzed the samples and knew what the data meant. If he wanted to go home that badly, he should've proposed leaving right then and there, since they had enough evidence.

Sol went after Torbin to stop him and then suddenly decided to join him, instead, marking the umpteenth time that a character has flip flopped in this show. It's explained by the aforementioned listening to Osha's thoughts, but that felt contrived, not just because it's something that came out of nowhere, but because Torbin assumed that the elevator was disabled to keep the girls in, instead of the more natural assumption that they were trying to keep the Jedi out. Either way, it felt like flimsy justification to break in for a second time. Speaking of which, in the middle of the episode, Sol convinced Indara that they should enter the temple as a team, even though he previously entered alone and then, later, entered with only Torbin.

Speaking of Torbin, as Very Stable Genius just brought up, he didn't do anything that could explain why he eventually put himself into a Force coma and committed suicide. He only defended himself against the witches' arrows and the possessed Kelnacca. You might argue that he took responsibility for initiating the events that led to the witches dying, but he also had plenty of reasons to feel justified. If a girl was being held captive in a house and I broke in to rescue her and succeeded, but not before her captors attacked me and died, and not even by my hand, I would not feel guilty about it.

After Episode 3, I didn't join the chorus of complaints about how Mae's fire spread so quickly (or at all) throughout the temple, since we didn't have the whole story yet and I wanted to give the writing the benefit of the doubt. Well, it turns out that Mae really did burn down the temple, and it happened in under 10 minutes, despite the structure being made of stone. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise in a universe in which fire can burn without oxygen, though.

Another early complaint is that it didn't make sense for Mae to track down and kill the Jedi when she was the one responsible for setting the fire that killed nearly everyone. That, too, seemed like something that might eventually be explained, but now we know that it's mostly accurate.

I have no idea what Mother Aniseya was doing to Mae just before she died. It seemed so unnecessary, except to give Sol a reason to kill her.

I also have no idea why Sol tried to hold up both ends of bridge, which were undoubtedly heavy, instead of simply holding up both of the girls, who weighed significantly less, even combined.

The episode ended with Sol telling Osha that Mae started a fire, which she already knew. How did Sol know that, though? Mae told everyone that there was a fire, not that she started it. The only other person that he could've learned it from is Osha, but he was telling her, not the other way around. It would've made for more sense for Sol to be the one to ask her what happened and Osha to tell him that Mae started a fire. I think that the writers wanted to hint that Sol was going along with Indara's plan to tell "truth," but didn't realize or care that they hadn't established how he and Indara even knew what that was.

If you're old enough to remember the late 70's-early eighties tv shows, they always had these types of episodes, all flashbacks with a few cast members walking you through it, with no real payoff at the end. That's what I felt like watching this episode, with a few good scenes, but a lot of poor dialog and acting along the way. I didn't find this episode good at all, even the reveal, and I'm starting to think the actor that plays Sol, wasn't the best choice.

 

[Osprey]

If you're old enough to remember the late 70's-early eighties tv shows, they always had these types of episodes, all flashbacks with a few cast members walking you through it, with no real payoff at the end. That's what I felt like watching this episode, with a few good scenes, but a lot of poor dialog and acting along the way. I didn't find this episode good at all, even the reveal, and I'm starting to think the actor that plays Sol, wasn't the best choice.

Yeah, I remember "clip shows," or episodes comprised mostly of clips from past episodes, stitched together with a little new narration and footage to create a "new" episode. Back then, shows tended to have around 26 episodes per season, so clip shows helped to reach that goal and were the "filler" episodes of the day. I remember them being disappointing (especially when they were listed as "New" in TV Guide), but at least we still got two dozen real episodes, not only 8 like today.

As for Lee, it felt to me like his acting was especially rough in this episode. It made me wonder if they filmed this one and Episode 3 first, before he improved his English a little. I like the guy and can see that he's trying harder than everyone else, but I agree that his casting was probably a mistake. That said, the writing and directing also do him no favors.

 

[kingsfan28]

Yeah, I remember "clip shows," or episodes comprised mostly of clips from past episodes, stitched together with narration and a little new footage to create a "new" episode. Back then, shows tended to have around 26 episodes per season, so clip shows helped to reach that goal. They were the "filler" episodes of the day. They were disappointing enough back then, but, now, seasons tend to be only 8 episodes (and, in this case, only half an hour long).

As for Sol, I felt that his acting was especially rough in this episode. It made me wonder if they filmed this one and Episode 3 first, before he improved his English. I like the guy and he's trying harder than everyone else in the show, but I agree that his casting was probably a mistake. That said, the writing and directing also do him no favors.

Don't know if you remember Buck Rodgers , but Gary Coleman would pop up twice a year doing one of these filler-shows.

 

[Osprey]

The memes are starting to trickle in.



I like the explanation for this scene that the Jedi misheard their instructions and thought that they were sent to Brendok to search for "metalchlorians."

 

[Scandale du Jour]

The only cool part of the episode was seeing a Wookie fight with a lightsaber. That was bad ass.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

I watched that yesterday and agree that it's a good video essay. I've also been enjoying Jeremy Jahns' reviews. His one on this episode was particularly entertaining.

Jahns is good people, I enjoy his stuff he isnt a sycophant like Stuckmann, a professional shill or dingus like Grace Randolf or an useless untalented slob like Erik Ross.

 

[Rob]

Torbin poisoned himself over that?

I originally thought he would have poisoned himself over some horrific guilt. I guess it is because he was spiritually violated by lesbian space witches.

 

[Jovavic]

Do we know they were lesbians? Some of them might have identified as men!




/s, if it wasn't obvious

 

[MadDevil]

Trespassing, Breaking and entering, Murder, and Kidnapping children?

Jedi are assholes.

#PalpatineWasRight