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The Acolyte is, for me, probably the most irritating piece of live-action Star Wars since Rogue One. From begin to end, I’ve loved the expertise of watching this collection, and like that movie, it really works in a moment-to-moment approach, with fascinating characters, a robust ambiance, and nice motion scenes, but it surely will get misplaced in its personal larger image. The storytelling construction on The Acolyte has been weird and left quite a few plot holes, and this finale now leaves us with no actual solutions about what truly occurred at Brendok with the witch coven. The story has barely moved for the reason that season started, even–The Acolyte has been setting the stage for one thing, however we by no means discovered what it was. Let’s hope they make Season 2.
Warning: This text comprises each spoiler from the season finale of Star Wars: The Acolyte. If you don’t need that, you must in all probability bail now.
Issues kick off this week with Qimir and Osha again on the planet of islands that in all probability is not Achc-To. Osha continues to be sporting Qimir’s cortosis helmet, and one thing is occurring to her whereas she’s in it. Qimir has to do some type of Power nonsense to avoid wasting her. Osha says she noticed a imaginative and prescient of Mae killing Sol. She was truly seeing herself, it seems, but it surely’s a bizarre scene–the clear implication was that the helmet was hurting her, however that merely is not mentioned. Impressed by a imaginative and prescient, they depart for Brendok. Whereas Darth Plagueis appears to be like on from a cave, for some reason–this appears like a brand new plot gap, since that is the one reference to Plagueis, direct or oblique, in your entire collection to this point. Extra on this later.
Grasp Sol additionally heads to Brendok with Mae. However Mae escapes by way of an escape craft. There is a enjoyable little house chase that ends when the little furry man, Bazil, sabotages Sol’s ship for causes which can be additionally by no means mentioned. However in the end all people makes it to the bottom, and we get two parallel battles: Sol vs. Qimir, and Mae vs. Osha. Each of those fights are superior, and everybody leads to the courtyard the place Sol killed Mom Aniseya. Sol and Osha have an emotional confrontation, after which Osha kills Sol by strangling him via the Power–making her an appropriate acolyte for Qimir, having killed a Jedi and not using a weapon.
In the meantime, Jedi Vernestra and her massive group of reinforcements are closing in. Mae and Osha flee into the woods, following the trail Mae says she took after the coven burned down 16 years earlier. Qimir catches as much as them. Osha agrees to be skilled, and Mae agrees to be reminiscence wiped to maintain them secure from the Jedi. Osha and Qimir depart, and Mae is discovered by the Jedi.
Vernestra, then, closes the e book on the entire thing by mendacity about it. She fairly clearly is ready to glean the entire story from the emotional imprint of the scene, and he or she studies that Sol was the dangerous man and he killed himself out of guilt. It is a clear political maneuver–claiming Sol because the baddie is for the good thing about Republic senators like Rayencourt, since it will imply that the risk was a recognized amount that is already been handled, and never a a lot higher and scarier concern.
On the identical time, nevertheless, Vernestra completely is aware of Qimir–she senses him when she arrives on Brendok, and will have been his Jedi trainer years earlier than. The season ends along with her assembly with Yoda after having known as him in close to the start of the episode from wherever he’d been meditating or no matter. Presumably, she’s telling him the true story–they actually do not want this Sith enterprise messing up their entire factor, so that they’ll hold it secret.
In the long run, Season 1 of The Acolyte jogs my memory of Westworld. That HBO collection all the time had an honest story, however was continually undermining itself with pointless tricks–using needlessly difficult narrative buildings to create plot twists for the viewers that the story does not truly warrant whenever you take a look at the main points. In different phrases, it will get in its personal approach as usually as attainable. So even whereas I loved most of it, I do not suppose The Acolyte actually provides as much as something proper now.
Fortuitously, as Osha notes on this episode, the longer term is not fastened. Season 2 might deliver the mandatory course corrections. Within the meantime, the finale episode has left us with some huge plot holes and massive questions, and the cameos by Yoda and Darth Plagueis are the largest Easter eggs in Star Wars TV since CGI Luke Skywalker popped up in The Mandalorian. Let’s talk about what there may be to debate.