Damn it, Acolyte, why do you have to be so messy?
In theory, this episode’s approach was simple: show the events of this season’s earlier flashback episode from the Jedi’s perspective (plus a bit more of Mae’s side of things) rather than Osha’s, thus fully explaining exactly what occurred that left all the witches dead.
In a broad sense it did just that, with some strong touches along the way. But this episode also left a lot of those events feeling needlessly complicated or convoluted, with some strange moments that still feel unexplained – and not in a “that’s a cool plot thread for later” way. Instead it feels like the audience is being asked to do too much of the heavy lifting for it all to make sense.
The explanation of what exactly the Jedi’s goals were was, mostly, pretty satisfying and the best part of the episode. It gave these events a lot more weight as we came to learn that Indara was the one trying to avoid conflict. Ultimately she was trying to not interfere and leave Osha and Mae with the witches. And on the flipside, it was compelling to find out that Sol had become rather obsessed with trying to take the girls, convincing himself they were in danger in order to justify his intentions.
In the midst of all this though was stupid, dumb ass Torbin, who went all in on helping Sol not for interesting, complex reasons, but because he was just superduper homesick. Seriously, what a lame Jedi. Sure, he started out feeling this was an unimportant, boring mission, but then it actually turned out to be pretty freaking interesting, what with the witches and the rarity of a Vergence in the Force.
Aniseya’s death felt like it skipped over necessary beats. As is often the case with The Acolyte, the big picture idea is solid – Sol thinks Aniseya is doing something that may harm Mae and so instinctively cuts Aniseya down with his lightsaber.
Worse, the reveal of how all the other witches died felt so anticlimactic. Indara used her Force powers to break the hold the witches had over Kelnacca and that… just caused them all to drop dead?? These witches had some pretty crappy Force powers, apparently, if that was how it works for them.
It was also a great touch to reveal Mae and Osha aren’t simply identical twins, they are essentially the same exact being split into two. This gives a good retroactive explanation for Sol not realizing Mae was impersonating Osha. Showrunner Leslye Headland has talked about her hope for more seasons of The Acolyte and revelations such as this demonstrate that there are enough elements at play to explore in a future season.
Still, this episode helped bring more overall perspective to the Jedi during this era. In the big picture, The Acolyte has shown the danger of their rigid approach and why it’s understandable some would push back against them.
- One thing that felt less frustrating and more of a normal ‘laying the groundwork for the future’ touch in terms of unanswered questions is what happened to Koril, who isn’t seen again after she goes all black smoke. Clearly she’s still out there as a lingering threat and could possibly have had contact with Qimir. She’s also a possible explanation as to how Mae survived the big fall Sol thought had killed her.
- We learn the reason Brendok was previously devoid of life was because of a hyperspace disaster a century before, a nice reference to The High Republic novels and comics which covered that event in detail.
- Since they did make the choice to end this episode with a pop song, they should have gone full 1980s movie title theme with it and called the song ‘The Acolyte’ not ‘Power of Two.’ “I never wanted us to fight, but you’ve turned into The Acolyte!”