The Acolyte — Star Wars but Vicious (SPOILERS!)
Not for the kids
(This was originally posted here on my site: https://noadshere.com/tv/the-acolyte-star-wars-but-vicious-spoilers)
MAJOR SPOILERS follow for the Acolyte, the new Star Wars tv series on Disney+, up to episode 5, so if you don’t want to know, hop on the next Jedi ship out of here.
We’re actually going to say it again — SPOILERS! Like seriously, we’re about to discuss things that may blow your mind!
Ok — we warned you! When the Acolyte started off we thought it kind of like standard Star Wars fare — lightsabers, young Jedis, older Jedis, wannabe Jedis, and we liked it. Set about 100 years before the original movies, we knew we’d be meeting all new characters, and thought it pretty cool that Carrie-Anne Moss (AKA Trinity in the Matrix) was starring as a Jedi. That was of course, until she was killed in the first episode, followed by a couple more deaths over the next few episodes. Fair enough we thought, the show was setting out its “we’re serious like Andor” stall early, but it also was introducing us to new characters like Jecki, Yord and Master Sol, that we figured would be the main characters of the show that we would know and love.
How naive we were! In Episode 5 they pretty much all get butchered! Yord gets his neck snapped in a classic “Bad guy savagely kills a guy by twisting his head around” move, and Jecki — the young Jedi who earlier in the episode was kicking ass, gets brutally stabbed and dies! Like dead dead! Like us, Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) can’t believe it, exclaiming “she was a child” to which our new fave Sith bad guy points out “you brought her here”, which to be honest, is a fair point. We’ve realised that this isn’t a show to portray Jedis as the all powerful and wise good guys, it’s aiming for something more nuanced — and darker.
Where the show goes from here, we’re not sure. We still have our main protagonists alive — Mae & Osha, both played by Amandla Stenberg, Qimir The Sith (Manny Jacinto) and the wise but shocked Master Sol — but with so many of the accompanying cast now dead in a jungle, we’re beginning to suspect that this isn’t a Happy Ever After series like the Mandalorian, it’s going to be more of a tragedy where everyone else will end up as Jedi ghosts aswell. However it ends up — we know one thing, this is not for kids. So, if you’re thinking that it’d be a nice family tv night, think again, as the 6 year old will be asking what just happened to Yord’s neck!
One thing the blood-letting reminded us of was the last Dr. Strange movie where the Scarlett Witch AKA Elizabeth Olson goes to town on some superheroes in an alternative universe, killing them rather more easily than usually happens in the Marvel movies. At the time we felt this scene was a bit cheap and in bad taste — that because it was an alternative reality they could just knock off some good guys with no actual repercussions for anyone. Likewise with the Acolyte — as the series is set so far back from everything else, maybe they just couldn’t resist eliminating folks left and right.
In summary — it’s worth watching, don’t get too attached to anyone.
Rating: 4 stars
All images courtesy of: https://press.disneyplus.com/media-kits/star-wars-the-acolyte
