The Acolyte: Spoilery Thoughts on “Choice”

*Here there be spoilers.*

I’ve been rewatching all the live-action Star Wars stuff in in-universe chronological order (Andor season 1 my beloved!), and I wanted to talk some more about The Acolyte, looking at the pivotal revisiting of the Brendok flashback in “Choice.”

In this episode, I can't say enough about how much I like the specific way everything falls apart. Like many, I'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop on what the Jedi really did on Brendok, but I was expecting an institutional conflict, the Order bringing their weight down on the coven, with horrible bloodshed as a result. Once the dust settled, the Council's reaction might have ranged anywhere from, "This is a stain on our conscience—it didn't have to be this way," to, "They should not have meddled in the Force in dangerous ways." Regardless, I expected the fight to come from the top down, with the individual Jedi on the ground somewhat caught in the middle, acting at the behest of the Council despite whatever misgivings they might have.

Instead, it's the Council who says, "You've interfered enough, get back to your survey work for the good of everyone involved," and the ultimate clash is less about ideology/institutions and more about individual fears, mistakes, and misunderstandings. Not that the institutional thinking of the Order plays no role—we see it come out in Sol's automatic assumption that this unknown culture is a dangerous one and Indara's assertion that testing children is their right. But I find it so interesting that this is led so much by individual flaws and screw-ups.

Sol gets so caught up in his attachment to Osha that he makes increasingly reckless decisions, distrusting the witches more and more based on his gut rather than any hard evidence or genuine guidance from the Force. Torbin is understandably restless and homesick, but those feelings make him vulnerable to being taken over by Mother Aniseya, which just unbalances him even more. He too starts acting even more rashly. Even Indara, the main voice of reason in the group, makes important miscalculations. Being less forthcoming with Torbin might be her teaching style, but in this case, it ignores how genuinely distressed he is until, again, those mental pressure points are used against him by the coven. And in her determination to free Kelnacca from the witches' control, she underestimates what that will do to them.

And for all that, the coven makes significant mistakes too. Mother Aniseya possess Torbin to demonstrate their power, trying to get the Jedi to leave them alone, but that comes back to bite them when he tries to take the girls in his desperation to leave. Mother Koril is more than ready to fight, and she's the one who tells Mae to tap into her power by getting angry. Lighting Osha's Jedi booklet on fire is a heated, reckless act on Mae's part, but even though she almost immediately regrets it, the fire quickly spirals out of control.

The whole episode is about people who are variously afraid, angry, and obsessed. They let those feelings guide them, and their distrust of the opposing group continually leads them to take an action that makes the situation worse. By and large, they're not behaving rationally, and like Mae with the fire, many of them recognize their errors within seconds of making them, but being sorry can't fix the damage that's already been done.

Favorite Characters: Qimir (The Acolyte)

*Qimir-related spoilers.*

When news about The Acolyte was first coming out, I remember being intrigued by the cast list. And of that interesting mix of names, Manny Jacinto was the one that caught my eye the most. I always enjoyed him as Jason on The Good Place, where he did a great, hilarious job playing a very particular character type. I was really curious to see what sort of role Star Wars had in store for him.

To that end, in the early episodes of the show, I immediately sat up and took notice when Qimir first appeared onscreen. A smuggler who’s working with Mae, Qimir presents right away as an intriguing presence. He talks with Mae about her masked Master, helping her talk through ideas for how to get revenge on the Jedi who upended her life as a child while also fulfilling the seemingly impossible assignment her Master has given her. He seems a little shiftless, pretty self-serving, and from his introduction, more thoughtful than he lets on.

I know I wasn’t the only one who speculated that Qimir was really Mae’s Master under the mask, but one of The Acolyte’s major coups is in its ability to reveal this fairly unsurprising twist in an absolutely stunning way. Episode 5 is a key turning point in the season, the moment where the final element of the series clicked into place, and that was Qimir unveiling himself as the Stranger. (Since we haven’t heard a true name for him, I’m going to keep calling him Qimir, just because I like it better than “the Stranger.”)

In the first half of the season, Mae’s Master feels a bit like a standard creepy/evil Dark Side baddie to me. I thought the teeth on the helmet looked silly—although I did love the nickname “Smilo Ren”! In these episodes, I was most interested in his insistence that Mae kill one of these four Jedi without a weapon as her final “lesson.”  But in episode 5, even before the unmasking, I went all in on this guy. I’m obsessed with his raw, badass, no-rules lightsaber fighting, and I made my peace with the helmet when I realized it was made of material that could temporarily short out lightsabers. Headbutting a Jedi’s lightsaber with your Cortosis helmet is so freaking metal, I love it!

And when the mask comes off, even though I was pretty much expecting it to be Qimir, it’s such a moment. Between the excellent writing, Jacinto’s superb performance, the cooooool design, and the incredible fight choreography, it’s immediately clear that this is a character to be reckoned with. Gone is the goofy/clumsy smuggler, replaced by a brutal Dark Side user who will calmly explain why he just killed all your friends. I love that he feels so entirely different from the character we met at the start of the series: the way he moves, the tone of his voice, his carriage and confidence. I love that he smiles when Sol is holding a lightsaber to his throat. And I love that, for all his danger and coldness, we still get these little moments of dark humor from him—humor that sounds/feels nothing like Smuggler!Qimir’s.

But the more we get to know Qimir, the more we understand how much of a chameleon he can be. The next time we see him, he’s tended to Osha’s wounds and presents an almost sympathetic figure as he attempts to draw her to the Dark Side. The franchise has always talked about the Dark Side’s seductive power, but we haven’t traditionally seen that with actual seduction, complete with abs, yearning looks, and domesticity.

There’s a lot we don’t know about Qimir, but I get the sense that he’s learned to be whatever he needs to survive. For all that, however, I don’t think any face he presents is entirely an act. He is cold and dangerous, just like he’s also warm and empathetic, just like he’s also angry and strategic. And yeah, I would bet that part of him is also clumsy and goofy—I love the speculation that that’s what he was like as a padawan! He’s almost always working an angle or an agenda, but within that, it somehow feels like there’s still a lot of honesty in how he relates to other characters.

He's so fascinating to me. Qimir definitely leapt onto my Favorite Antagonists list, and one of the major reasons fans were clamoring for a season 2 was so we can learn more about him (ugh, stupid Disney.) Everything about this character is just firing on all cylinders—I feel lucky that the actor I most wanted to see in the show wound up with such a compelling role!

The Acolyte (2024-Present)

*Premise spoilers.*

I went into The Acolyte curious and hopeful but not exactly amped. We of course knew very little about the show before it premiered, and I’m not up on any of the ancillary stories, so I had no idea what to expect from a show set in this period of the franchise’s history. But there were so many good folks in the cast and I was interested in seeing a series where the Jedi were still on top, so I was looking forward to it. While the show, for my money, gets off to kind of a show start, it definitely levels up—by the time we got to the season finale, I was positively seated, refreshing its Disney+ page waiting for the episode to drop. Some neat characters, great acting, positively sick fight choreography, and super interesting themes are all on the table here.

What’s It About?

A Jedi Master is murdered, and the culprit appears to be a former padawan who left the order. As Osha is brought in for questioning, she reunites with Sol, her old Master, and tries to convince him something deeper is going on here. The investigation tugs at the threads of old wounds, uncovering revelations about the tragedies of Osha’s past and hinting at long-hidden sins that the Jedi Order has tried to forget.

Who’s in It?

Lots of great people! Amandla Stenberg (who I’ll always remember as Rue in The Hunger Games) does double duty as Osha and her sister Mae. Their dual performance follows the two characters’ journeys to some fascinating places. I still haven’t seen Squid Game, but Lee Jung-jae gives a warm, complex performance as Master Sol. I loved Manny Jacinto as Jason on The Good Place, and he’s a standout here. Mae has taken a very different path in life than Osha, and Jacinto’s character Qimir has tried to help her further her goals. I’m always in favor of seeing Dafne Keen in stuff—she plays Sol’s current padawan Jecki—and Charlie Barnett does a nice job as Yord, an officious Jedi Knight who knew Osha during her time in the order.

What Do I Love About It?

·        First, I absolutely have to mention the action. This show brought me back into my fight choreography girlie era—I’m living for the incredible lightsaber duels and hand-to-hand combat! The fights are intense, visually stunning, and wonderfully varied, with different characters fighting in different styles. So cool!

·        Showrunner Leslye Headland gives us a story with rich, complex themes. At this point, it’s not exactly edgy to call the Jedi the “real” bad guys, but The Acolyte kind of rejects outright labels of good and bad. Different characters may assign a label to themselves or others, but everyone in this show is flawed, and we always examine the things they do within the context of what drives them. Their experiences inform their actions without justifying them.

·        I’ll be honest, the show didn’t grab me at the very start. I enjoyed it well enough, but I wasn’t excited to watch every week. It took a mid-season plot revelation for me to really sit up and take notice, recontexualizing one of the characters in an exhilarating way. For me, it’s a little like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pre- and post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s certainly not a bad show to start with, but after the reveal, you realize that it’s been holding part of itself back. With this reveal, the final element slots into place and the show is able to flex all that it is.

·        I’m sure I’ll get more into spoilery stuff in later posts, but for now I’ll just say that I really need a season 2! D23 is this weekend—fingers crossed that we’ll get some news!

Warnings

Violence, sensuality, mild language, and strong thematic elements.