After bearing Sol’s sins in the penultimate episode, The Acolyte Season 1 finale did what this Star Wars series does best: Took everyone to the Manny Jacinto gun show. And some other plot stuff happened, too, I guess. What do you want from me, a recap? Oh right.
Let’s break it down and then get to the questions, so many questions: While wearing Qimir’s Darth Grillz helmet, Osha has a vision of Mae murdering Sol. But as this franchise has repeatedly shown us, visions of the future are not to be trusted because the future is always changing. This vision locks Osha and Qimir on a collision course with Sol and Mae, who are waiting in Brendok’s orbit for the Jedi to pick up Mae. That goes south when Mae escapes.
After a brief space chase where Sol almost blasts Mae out of the sky until Bazil intervenes — Our Jedi boy is going through some things — the two find themselves back in the coven’s temple where this whole mess started. As Sol is haunted by the sins of his past, the finale wastes no time playing to the crowd by giving everyone what they want to see here: Qimir whipping ass.
At this point, I should note that the official Lucasfilm name for Jacinto’s character is “The Stranger,” and considering the absolute furor over his arms, that is a freaking hilarious name. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, what’s it like having normal thoughts?
Anyway, we finally get a rematch between Sol and Qimir, and this fight is unabashed in paying homage to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Which is neat! It works. Their duel is pretty damn electric even though it falls short of matching the thrills of Darth Teeth mowing through the Jedi in Episode 5. What does help is this show has actual stakes by not being afraid to drop bodies. (RIP Jecki Lon.)
After just barely besting Qimir, Sol has his adversary at lightsaber point, but this time, he’s stopped by Mae. However, Mae defies Qimir by refusing to kill Sol. Instead, she wants him to reveal his crimes to the Jedi Council and the Republic Senate. Osha, on the other hand, has gone bye-bye. She’s now fully aware that Sol killed Aniseya and lied to her for years by blaming Mae, which fuels Osha with so much anger that she Force chokes her master to death. She does so while holding his discarded saber, and we see the Kyber crystal turn red inside.
As Vernestra Rwoh and a team of Jedi arrive at the temple, Qimir, Osha, and Mae make a run for it. Realizing they needed a way to hold off the Jedi, Mae volunteers to stay back to finally give Osha a chance to live her own life. She also agrees to sacrifice her mind so the Jedi can’t use her to track down Osha.
Qimir wipes all memory of himself and Osha from Mae’s memory. (A move we’re told is permanent.) The Jedi capture her, Sol is used by Vernestra as a tidy scapegoat for everything, and oh hey, there’s Yoda. The End.
“This is where the fun begins.” — Anakin Skywalker
First off, huge props to Austin Goslin over at Polygon, who accurately predicted all the way back in Episode 4 that The Acolyte would be a Force choke origin story. It sure as shit was! Enjoy a well-earned victory lap, bud.
Second, to everyone who guessed that Vernestra was Qimir’s Jedi master, also take a bow! I did not subscribe to that theory based on the marks on his back — which I still don’t think are from her lightsaber whip — but that speculation was on the freaking money. Well done.
Finally, there’s been a recurring sentiment that Osha and Mae are the weakest part of this show, and well, yeah, I have to agree. Much like Cassian in Andor, they are nowhere near as captivating as everything happening around them, which fortunately, was rad as hell. Sol: Awesome. Qimir: Awesome. The complex look at the Jedi: Awesome. I definitely didn’t hate Osha and Mae like the neckbeards out there, but they were just kinda… there. Hopefully, Season 2 can remedy that.
Alright, now, let’s hit one of the bigger questions: What the hell was that thing in Qimir’s cave? As he and Osha made their way to his ship, a creepy looking alien watched them leave. An alien that is almost definitely Darth Plagueis, the former Sith master who trained Emperor Palpatine. In an interview with Nerdist that I cannot recommend enough, Leslye Headland teased that the show would eventually connect with Plagueis, but it would be very “messy.” Clearly, that happened sooner rather than later, and raises another big question.
Is Qimir really Palpatine? God, I hope not, but also… maybe? “But, Mike, Manny Jacinto looks absolutely nothing like Ian McDiarmid!” Yup, yup, this is true. Especially in the arms region. Have I mentioned the arms? But we’re also talking about powerful Sith users who have transferred their bodies into clones, so all kinds of wild shit is on the table. Do I really hope we aren’t going down that road? More than anything in the world, but I’m willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt. It’s been a neat little Star Wars through and through that has more than earned my trust. Case in point…
The tragedy of Sol. I’m going to direct everyone to the Headland interview with Nerdist again because she said some interesting things about last week’s episode where we watched Sol and Torbin get Osha and Mae’s coven killed. For starters, she tamped down all the weird takes about the Jedi being “colonizers” by highlighting that the episode took great pains to show a whole lot of moral complexity. The Jedi Council’s instructions were to leave the coven alone and not take the girls. That was never the mission.
Where things went sideways is Sol felt a strong compulsion that he must train Osha, which Headland equated with Qui-Gon’s compulsion to train Anakin. The Force was choosing a padawan for him, but it significantly clouded his judgment in the process. We know that Aniseya was prepared to let Osha be trained, so it would’ve worked out if Sol didn’t go all True Believer and become absolutely certain that he was acting righteously. A belief he held to his grave.
Triggered by Mae misquoting her mother and suggesting that she and Osha would be sacrificed, Sol cocked everything up by escalating a powder keg situation. As for killing Aniseya, yes, he thought she was killing Mae with her magic, but none of that wouldn’t have happened if he had chilled the hell out. He thought he was acting honorably, and the fallout from that belief clearly haunted him for the rest of his life. The dude was a complex character that this franchise is sorely lacking, and it was great seeing Lee Jung-jae bring him to such tortured life.
Speaking of the Jedi…
Was I thrilled with the Yoda stinger? Nope, not at all. The Marvel-ization of this franchise is its worse quality under Disney. That being said, I’m enough of a dork to know that Yoda is floating around The High Republic books. His presence is legit canon, and I’m curious to see how he factors into the Jedi getting so high on their supply that Palpatine topples the Republic while practically waving his ass in their faces.
In case you didn’t pick up on it, Yoda is who Vernestra was requesting an audience with before heading off to Brendok. The show did a nice little headfake to make it look like she was secretly communicating with Qimir or Plagueis or some evil dude. As for what her game is? I don’t know!
As has been the case with this show, not everything is cut and dry. Is Vernestra bald-head deep in some corruption? You bet. While I don’t think she’s actively plotting atrocities or enacting some sort of overarching scheme, she is wholly devoted to protecting the image of the Jedi in the eyes of the Senate. She readily offers up Sol as a scapegoat while conveniently hiding that her fallen pupil is a crazy powerful Sith who murdered a whole bunch of Jedi and now has Sol’s former padawan as his apprentice. Like any self-righteous religion, no need for anyone to know about our massive screw-ups! Nothing to see here. Everything is fine. What do you mean the Clone Army we just made has secret orders in their brain, and I’m sorry, did you just say murdered younglings?
Good talk. Renew The Acolyte for Season 2, Disney, you cowards.