The Acolyte episod 5: Night

The Acolyte is a new series streaming on Disney+. It is set in the Star Wars universe and occurs 100 years before the fall of the Jedi and subsequent rise of the Empire.

What happened: Osha wakes up in the forest. She stumbles back from whence she was flung and comes across a dead Jedi. She heads toward the sound of fighting. There's losts of fighting. The apparent Sith has beskar-style armor that deflects lightsabers and some sort of Force trick that causes the Jedi lightsabers to malfunction and deactivate for extended periods. One by one, the Jedi go down. Yord is wounded on the leg and knocked out of the fight. The Sith is about to kill him when Osha blasts him with a stun gun... which does absolutely nothing other than piss him off and attract his attention. He chases Osha. Back at the wookie hut, Mae watches the fight unfold with growing alarm. She knows the Sith is out to get her and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Jedi can't do squat to protect her. She grabs Kelnacca's lightsaber and tries to flee, only to be intercepted by Jecki. After an extended battle by the two Force-apprentices, Jecki bests Mae and cuffs her. Nearby, the Sith catches up to Osha, Yord and Sol intervene to save her. Sol orders Yord to get Osha to the ship. The Sith fights Sol for a bit before going after Mae. Jecki and Sol battle him in a pretty intense running lightsaber battle until Jecki unmasks him. It is, no surprise, Qimir from the previous episodes, although he is decidedly less goofy and much more menacing this time around. Yord and Osha make it as far as the isopod forest before Osha gets a Force premonition that they must go back or everyone will die. Yord reluctantly goes along with it, and they use lights to attract the flying isopods to follow them. In the surprisingly brutal fight that follows Jecki is stabbed three times in the chest by Qimir, killing her very dead, and Yord has his neck snapped. Sol, knocked unconscious, and Mae are next on the list but Osha puts her handheld robot, Pip, in flashlight mode and slaps it on Qimir's back, attracting the isopods who carry him off into the night. Mae and Osha have a reunion, but Mae wants them to run off together while Osha tries to arrest her for the murder of Jedi. They fight and Mae kicks Osha's ass, knocks her out and steals Osha's identity, returning to the ship with Sol. Qimir returns to the battlefield having fought off the isopods and claims Osha as his new apprentice.

Disturbances in the Force: Wow, where to begin. This episode has got to be the most brutal incarnation of Star Wars ever. Luke getting his hand chopped off? Han Solo frozen in carbonite? Sorry, Empire, that's only good enough for second place. As expected, the other Jedi on the task force--who got a grand total of zero character development--were killed off almost as fast as the task force that tried to arrest Chancellor Palpatine. I saw that coming. They telegraphed it from a lightyear away. What I didnot see coming was the death of Jecki. Look, hers was a character that could've been Ahsoka-circa-Clone Wars-pilot annoying. But she wasn't. Of all the characters, she got the most development and had several nice bonding moments with Osha. If anyone was to survive, it was her. And Yord, geeze, he was the noble jerk type who the story seemed to be flirting with as an atagonistic love interest for Osha. Both of those characters contributed to a friend insisting this series was being written as a YA adventure. Nope, that was more misdirection. This harkens back to episode 1, where Indara was unceremoniously killed off in the first five minutes. Literally nobody is safe.

This was easily the best episode of the series up to this point. It was one long fight, or rather series of fights, and each fight had its own plot of sorts, whith a beginning, middle and end. The action was clear and well-choreographed. When Osha woke up far from the fighting I was afraid the show was going to cop out on the cliffhanger and only show the aftermath. Nope, that was more misdirection. Qimir went from being the annoying/goofy sidekick to probably the most menacing Star Wars villains since Darth Vader first set foot on Princess Leia's blockade runner back in the very first film. His helmet is simple and nightmarish--a far better use of a mask that Kylo Ren's pretentious silver-and-black fetishwear. And Qimir's mixture of anger, determination and taunting... very well done. When he taunts Mae "Didn't you know it was me?" he might as well have been taunting the audience. When he says he wore the mask to hide his identity, but since everyone has now seen his face everyone must die--it doesn't sound like a threat or bragging, but rather a statement of fact. Sith or not, this is not a bad guy to trifle with.

That said, the episode is not without flaws. The isopods are attracted to light--we've seen them specifically go after lightsabers--but they don't rush the battlefield until Osha turns on flashlight Pip, despite plenty of flashing sabers up to that point. The nameless Jedi are so much canon fodder and taken out far too easily. That's a well-worn cliche (not just in Star Wars I'd be happy to never see again). Speaking of cliches, at one point Sol is about to execute a disarmed Qimir, but Osha talks him out of it because "Jedi don't kill unarmed people" or somesuch and naturally Qimir gets free and kills more of their party. At least Osha didn't chop Sol's arm off in the process. Qimir is pretty badass and ruthless as a fighter, but I'm not 100% on board with him being a Sith. Something seems off, and we still don't know why he's got a beef with these particular Jedi. Both Mae and Qimir give little mini-sermons on how terrible Sol is and that if Mae knew what he'd done she'd want him and the other Jedi dead as well, but neither get around to actually saying what this terrible crime is. There's such a teasing buildup here that I can't help but think it'll be a disappointment if we ever do find out what it was.

Finally, I'm not sure what Mae's plan is--kill Sol when he's not looking or merely use him as an escape vector? Bazil, the alien woodchuck scout/tracker, returned to the ship sniffing the air pretty hard, so even if Sol is thick and doesn't pick up on Mae's switcheroo, she'll likely be outed by Bazil sooner rather than later. As for Osha, Qimir seemed amused at finding her left behind and it's pretty clear he recognized her for who she is. The main cast just got a lot smaller, so unless they hit us with another flashback episode (which I still think is coming in episode 7, but again, this show confounds expectations) I think we're going to start getting some realtime revelations with episode 6.

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