- An atrocity created by Leslye Headland
- Poorly based on Star Wars created by George Lucas
- June 4, 2024 to Present. Let’s hope not much longer
- Disney+ should be ashamed
Cast
- Osha, Mae Aniseya-Amandla Stenberg
- Young Mae and Osha-Leah and Lauren Brady respectively
- Garethan Sol-Lee Jung-jae
- Yord Fandar-Charlie Barnett
- Jecki Lon-Dafne Keen
- Vernestra Rwoh-Rebecca Henderson
- Mother Aniseya-Jodie Turner-Smith
- Indara-Carrie-Anne Moss
- Qimir-Manny Jacinto
- Torbin-Dean-Charles Chapman
- Kelnacca-Joonas Suotamo
Guest Cast
- Tasi Lowa-Thara Schöön
- Mother Koril-Margarita Levieva
- Eurus-Abigail Thorn
A group of Jedi investigate a series of murders by a mysterious assassin.
This show is just meandering around. So terrible that YouTube legend Space Ice mocked it (watch HERE).
————————————————————————————————————-
Night
- Directed by Alex Garcia Lopez
- Written by Kor Adana and Cameron Squires
- June 25, 2024
The Jedi finally confront Smilo Ren who goes out of his way to make it clear he is most certainly not Sith.
We finally get to see our Not Sith in action as this Not Sith takes out multiple main characters and a few redshirts. Not Sith Qimir (Manny Jacinto) gives this big lecture while everybody stands around and listens rather than attack that dresses down the Jedi if not making them into the villains of the show. I mean Qimir was willing to kill people to use his power. Maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to use it. But he does manage to introduce what I guess the true element of the show which is to distrust Sol (Lee Jung-jae) because Jedi are, well, bad. So I guess Sol does have a deep, dark secret. It’s not just bad writing. It is insufferably bad writing. It is as if they are telegraphing that Qimir was once Sol’s apprentice.
In the previous episode (and in a clip from that same episode played just before this episode started) Mae (Amandla Stenberg) states that she is going to turn herself over to the Jedi so then why does she fight arrest here? Usually in The Acolyte such abrupt changes occur in the same episode. At least they waited one and chose to highlight it in the recap reel.
This episode is an improvement over the first half of the series. How? It contains mostly action and avoids the atrocious characters doing stuff other than fighting. The combat we get is more of the traditional Jedi style the past several decades have featured than the kung-fu crap occurring in a world only a relatively short time before the original films. Considering there are long lived species in Star Wars, and some are Jedi, it makes no sense that there is no style holdover. Anywho…
This episode reveals the big plot is the evil twin infiltrates the Jedi Temple. I guess. Was that the plot all along. If it was why did Mae decide to turn herself over to the Jedi before she undecided? Sol could sense something familiar about this the Not Sith Qimir but couldn’t pick up that Mae had switch places with Osha (also Amandla Stenberg)? And he did not notice the missing spiral mark on her face?
What does this episode get right? As I said it focuses on action over the characters. These are quite possibly the most insufferable characters ever presented in Star Wars. Jar Jar Binks is far superior to them. It also apparently gets rid of deadweight. Yord (Charlie Barnett) and Jecki (Dafne Keen) both are taken off the table though how predictable this series has been and based off a line in Dark I am betting it is not permanent or even real.
What does this get wrong? It brings up once again that Osha’s mother can get into people’s heads and stay there. Which makes me think some if not all of what we have seen in this episode is a hallucination or dream of some sort created by one of the witches or even Mae’s mother herself which means all that deadweight may not be off the table.
We get Mae and Osha interacting on a significant level and honestly there’s no significant difference in portrayal between the two. Ever see Split? James McAvoy gave each personality inhabiting Kevin Wendell Crumb a distinct feel and presence. The difference between Osha and Mae is that the costume department of The Acolyte dresses Amandla Stenberg different.
There is a strong push of moral relativism in Night. Qimir is trying to make the case that the Jedi are as bad as him if not worse because they won’t let him do as he wishes. And the reaction from Sol seems to indicate him finding validity to there being no difference. Really? This guy kills people to get his way. That’s generally what the Sith do to get their way and accumulate power. Then again the theme of this series has been stated to be power and who gets to use it.
Character motivations are inconsistent. Yord is all dedicated to taking Osha back to the ship as he was ordered to get her away from Smilo Ren whom he is aware is going to kill everybody and then she says “But we gotta go back” and he decides they’ll do that. Huh?
But that’s not the only thing that’s inconsistent. The functioning of The Force for example. I am stuck on how Sol does not seem to realize that a moderately trained apprentice is not the good twin. He doesn’t sense even darkness like others have in other shows and movies. That aside from leaving dangerous weaponry lying around in the jungle along with the corpses of his friends and comrades. He is upset by their deaths but not enough to make sure some forest creature does not snack on their bodies?
I guess the way they get around the Sith not having been seen in 1000 years is that Smilo Ren does not seem to consider himself a Sith. Really? All it takes is self-identifying as something other and it makes it all okay? He certainly seems to pass the smell test of being a Sith but because he doesn’t call himself Sith he’s not actually one? That is a distinction without a difference
I have no hope given that we have three episodes left this will get better. If they focused more on action rather than trying to drive home the theme of power and who was allowed to use it amongst other themes this might be a better show. But as I said before it’s a message with a story attached.
————————————————————————————————————-
Teach/Corrupt
- Directed by Hanelle Culpepper
- Written by Leslye Headland and Jocelyn Bioh
- July 2, 2024
Sol radios the Jedi over what happened and not much else.
We open on some planet. This probably is nitpicking on my part but The Acolyte has frequently flashed the name of whatever planet the scene happens to be taking place on across the screen. The show opens by letting us know that they are on an ‘Unknown Planet’ when Osha (Amandla Stenberg) wakes up. Is that really necessary? At some point she’s going to encounter Qimir (Manny Jacinto) again-which obviously she does-and I would presume that such a statement could/would be covered in dialogue-which it eventually is.
Qimir does his usual empty-but-meant-to-be-deep dialogue in his interactions with Osha that feels as authentic as a $3 bill. Star Wars is known for weird dialogue but there is chemistry between the performers. Not here. Then again it becomes clear Jacinto outclasses Stenberg in ability. Not by leaps and bounds but noticeably so. But outclassing when you and others have given up is easy. The performances in this episode are lazy. All are going through the motions. Checking off the list of what needs to be done for the scene. They are there for the paycheck and to complete their contract.
They make it clear Sol (Lee Jung-jae) has some deep dark secret concerning the witch coven. Just like the last episode. They beat you over the head with it as the character wallows in self-pity. And now that I write that down, I’m thinking they killed the witches because of the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the force. Just spit balling there. Anywho…
Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) features much more prominently in this episode than she has before. And unfortunately in a series filled with bad acting she’s quite possibly the worst. No emotion. No inflection. Absolutely nothing to her performance you couldn’t get from reading it on your own for the first time. If you couldn’t guess it certainly sounds like she has a deep dark secret too. And it is not just that she got the part because she’s married to the producer.
Vernestra travels to Khofar to take a look at what happened. The conclusion that Sol went evil seems like a huge leap even with information about events only the audience has. He has been exceedingly meek and tepid with displays of concern rather than anger. But that is the conclusion they seem to reach. No Force powers to discern details. Just an idiot’s reading of the scene.
Teach/Corrupt does its best to drive home the theme of power and who gets to use it, but in presentation Qimir (C’mere? Really?) does not do himself any good to justify him being able to wield the force. They emphasize how he killed others just to be allowed to do what he wanted. That’s a case for the Jedi way and not Qimir’s.
So what exactly was the point of Qimir getting in the water and Osha watching him as she took unnecessarily long to get to his weapon and do nothing with it really? What was the point of the whole story of this episode? Was it to begin a romance between Osha and C’mere (I may start randomly switching the spelling now) based on physical attraction? I get that it was an attempt to add beefcake to the story but it was shoved in and made a little sense. Was this naked swim part of his daily routine? Was this part of his attempt to convert Osha to his side with his bod? No one really thought this through I bet as can be said of so much else in the show.
Once again, we are also confronted with the issue of consistency in the show. And specifically the consistency of the character of Mae. After infiltrating Sol’s ship by switching clothes and getting a lightsaber haircut, she slowly sneaks up behind him with a Kuni knife apparently to kill him yet later in the episode it looks like she’s trying to tease information out of him. What is the whole plot of Mae or Mae and C’mere again? Do the writers even know?
It’s clear that they turned off Sol’s Jedi perceptions just so the rest of the plot could happen. They didn’t come up with a creative way for Mae to get around Sol’s powers or anything. They just ignored them. Lazy writing maybe. Or are they trying to create the illusion of tension and stretch out which should’ve been a brief moment long enough to justify an episode? As was the case with Ahsoka I’m betting they are trying to stretch this out. They took a small idea and like the first Ewok movie padded it out to increase the runtime.
And in another example of unnecessary tension why does Bazil not just alert Sol? He’s an intelligent being and is aware that they were hunting a dangerous assassin mostly because he saw what Qimir could do yet rather than alert the surviving Jedi master of the danger there he takes the head of the robot of the PIP droid and plugged it in and there’s some silliness and bad comedy? How does that make sense? It is not clear when Sol FINALLY subdues Mae if the rodent told him or Sol figured it out. Did the writers even know?
It’s amazing how little this particular episode advances the narrative. Forty minutes and nothing moves this season’s story along more than microns. With two episodes left there is no feeling of building towards anything. No excitement or tension. A moment meant to connect to the prequels will be met with a shrug.
In the end Teach/Corrupt is not good. It has all the resonance of a clip show.
————————————————————————————————————-
With unlikable characters in a story that more often than not is plodding along there is nothing really to be engaged with in The Acolyte. By this point we should be on pins and needles but the best one can muster is a shrug. It’s because there’s nothing worthwhile in the show. Not the characters. And not the plot.
Why are they making the Jedi the bad guys? Star Wars is a good versus evil story. The Sith are bad. The Jedi are good. Flawed does not mean evil. In the prequel the Jedi were flawed because they didn’t see what was going on. But that doesn’t mean they’re evil. Maybe this is written by small people who don’t think others can be better than them. So everybody and everything must have some dark side to it.
They are fighting really hard to shoehorn this story into Star Wars canon and play semantics to not screw that canon or retcon certain information in the prequel trilogy. Such as Qimir not being a Sith because he does not identify as one. Or nothing Sith-like having been seen in 1,000 years because this incident is kept secret in the same way Michael Burnham is unknown in Star Trek despite being responsible for most everything. It’s a big secret!
And the series doesn’t seem to be heading anywhere. It can best be described as stringing together a random series of events with no ultimate storytelling goal. I will watch the final two to see what happens, but I can’t really recommend anyone else do that.
Warren Watched A Movie 