Review: The Acolyte, "Lost / Found" & "Revenge / Justice" | Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2
The Force! What a concept!
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of The Acolyte, the latest installment in Disney+’s expansion of the Star Wars universe. As always, this review is free for all, with subsequent reviews exclusively for paid subscribers. For more information on our schedule for June and what your subscription gets you, check out our About Page in the meantime for more information.
“Jedi? Ugh.”
We are rapidly approaching the five-year anniversary of the last time a new Star Wars movie was released in theaters. Since the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm, that long of a gap has seemed next to impossible to fathom. Disney did not buy the vast empire of Star Wars so that it could die on the vine, although what started out as a massively successful sequel trilogy petered out into something in which…well, somehow, Palpatine returned. Star Wars remains a big part of Disney’s creative atmosphere, and even though 2019 brought us The Rise of Skywalker, it also introduced us to The Mandalorian, a series that is among the few true breakout hits from Disney+.
It’s easy to watch the other Star Wars series—ranging from the very complex and entertaining Andor to the definitely-existing The Book of Boba Fett—and see a company trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle of a masked bounty hunter and his infant charge with a nearly supernatural control of the Force. It’s not that the follow-up series have all aped The Mandalorian, but they can’t shake the vibe of “franchise management,” whether they’re hailing passionate and die-hard fans or serving the casual viewers among us.1
The Acolyte is clear from the get-go that it is attempting to be different from the other Disney+ series. If we’re being honest with each other, what has compelled me most about this show from creator Leslye Headland is mentioned in the opening titles: that the series takes place “a hundred years before the rise of the Empire.” I won’t be so foolish as to assume that this story will end up with no connection to the prequels, let alone the original trilogy or the recent sequels. But The Acolyte does not exist within the timelines of those nine films, and so it arguably does not have to be intensely beholden to the specifics of the Skywalker Saga. Yes, the idea of being a Jedi seems very much at the center of the show, but there is a potential kernel of creative freedom at the core that at least means we don’t have to imagine how The Acolyte will directly tie into the story of Anakin or Luke or Rey Skywalker.
For now, we have a murder mystery of sorts, and one that so far makes me think of my favorite of the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi.2 That 2017 film, among other choices, suggested that it was possible for anyone to wield the Force, not just the select few who call themselves Jedi or Sith. The opening scene of “Lost / Found,” the first of a two-episode premiere, depicts a powerful young woman (Amandla Stenberg) who is so gifted with Force powers that she not only holds her own against the Jedi Knight Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss), but she kills Indara while barely batting an eye. For a brief moment or two, it sure seems like Stenberg’s character is Osha, an ex-Padawan who now works as a “meknek” on a Trade Federation ship. Though it’s not clear why Osha would have killed a Jedi, she was once trained by Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae) and clearly has some grief and anger issues, due to having lost her mother and her sister years ago.
But I imagine that I was not the only one here who very quickly presumed that Osha’s quickly mentioned sister was a) not dead at all and b) probably a twin. Credit to Headland (who directed both parts of the premiere, and wrote the first episode) for not waiting too long to confirm these presumptions. Osha’s sister Mae is alive, well, and out for revenge against a particular group of Jedi, including Indara. Considering that much of “Lost / Found” is fairly simple and direct in its storytelling, with Osha trying to avoid being imprisoned and sent to Coruscant to be tried for a murder she didn’t commit, I found myself thinking a lot about when the show would confirm what felt fairly obvious, so the quick confirmation was appreciated.
That detail aside, “Lost / Found” benefits from two solid lead performances from Stenberg and Lee, as well as fairly crisp action sequences. It is a bit of a surprise that Moss’ character gets offed so quickly in the series, especially since her casting is such a direct nod to the world of The Matrix. (The opening fight scene is not remotely as visually arresting as any of the fights in the Wachowski franchise, but that’s a pretty high bar to meet or clear.) But Headland does an effective job of capturing the action and making it clear that Jedi training doesn’t guarantee a victory in any battle.
Perhaps the most curious aspect of these two episodes—particularly in “Revenge / Justice”—is that it often depicts the Jedi as, essentially, space cops. When we first meet the overly officious and puffed-up Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), he arrogantly gets Osha’s location out of two Trade Federation leaders by using the Force as a weaponized threat. And in “Revenge / Justice,” Sol is joined by both Yord and Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) just as you would envision the cops on a show like Law & Order, interrogating witnesses and pulling off a sting operation by using Osha to impersonate Mae.
In the era of the three trilogies, it’s a bit easier to understand why the Jedi might function as space cops because there is a tangible and existential threat to the High Republic in the form of the Sith. But as noted above, The Acolyte takes place before the Sith are an established antagonistic power, which is why the Jedi take on an air of power-hungry officials. (The notion in the first episode that the Jedi have to be careful to keep their political enemies from using Indara’s death against them feels like something the show will, or should, revisit before it concludes.) The Last Jedi touched on the idea of the Jedi (as a concept) being flawed or damaged, but the glimpses we get of the Jedi here suggest that concept had a lot of imperfections from the start.
I hesitate to side fully with Mae, who kills her second Jedi in “Revenge / Justice.” (Technically, she just gives the meditating Master Torbin the poison; he drinks it and kills himself willingly.) The scant details we know about Osha and Mae’s past feel murky at best; there was a fire and some people died, though each of the twin sisters thought their counterpart had perished. Osha says Mae started the fire, but did she? And if so, did she have good reason? The elliptical dialogue we hear from Mae and Torbin—who breaks a decade-long silence before dying—implies that the Jedi screwed up and wanted to shield his fellow Jedi Masters from his own mistake.
Of the Jedi we’ve gotten to know well enough so far, it’s just Sol who seems to be as pure of heart as these knights purport to be. Sol’s heart seems to sink at the idea that Osha may have murdered Indara, and he’s equally struck by the reality that he wasn’t able to effectively teach Osha to move past her grief. Lee does a fine job of bringing Sol to life here, imbuing the Jedi with multi-dimensionality and building a strong connection with Stenberg early on.
The mirror image of the revived mentorship between Sol and Osha is the much shakier relationship between Mae and her man on the inside, Qimir (Manny Jacinto). Qimir does not appear to be malevolent, but he’s got just as few qualms about killing Jedi as Mae does; he provides Mae with the poison even as he hopes that she doesn’t have to use it to kill Torbin, and is as adept at figuring out the location of her next quarry, a Wookiee Jedi named Kelnacca. But Qimir is pretty quick at giving up some crucial details when he realizes the Jedi have his recorded confession. It’s to Jacinto’s credit that he quickly establishes himself as a presence to watch here.
For now, at least, I will say that The Acolyte is more intriguing than anything else. The simplicity of a Star Wars story can be its greatest blessing or curse; the series began with a pretty straightforward story of good vs. evil, even as some of its most captivating characters either changed allegiances over time or were more skeptical of the power of the Force. (I’m thinking specifically of Darth Vader and Han Solo, to be clear.) Right now, The Acolyte is a murder mystery where the only mystery is how righteous Mae’s plot may be. We know the Jedi to be the truest embodiment of light and goodness in the world, but (to paraphrase a non-Star Wars movie) this show may be saying…maybe they aren’t? If this show can push that notion further, we might have something special here.
Stray Observations
After these two episodes, there’s really just one outstanding mystery: the identity of Mae’s mysterious Master, one that she apparently (and conveniently) doesn’t know herself. The obvious guess is that it’s someone we have indeed met—why else keep their identity a secret?—but I’m open to any and all theories at this point.
I am screener-free for this show (at least for now), so when I noticed Jodie Turner-Smith in the end credits for “Lost / Found,” I did a quick Wikipedia search to learn that she played Osha and Mae’s mother in a brief aural flashback. I also learned that the official Star Wars site is giving a lot more detail away now about her character than I would have expected. So…if you’re spoiler-wary, be warned about digging even a little.
Two specific movies kept coming to mind as I watched these episodes. First, The Fugitive, seeing as “Lost / Found” has a hero falsely accused of a crime, an explosive escape with other convicts, and the hero nearly falling off a high cliff while protesting their innocence. Second (and a lot more loosely), the twin/doppelganger depiction with Stenberg playing both Osha and Mae made me think of Jordan Peele’s Us, compounded by this show sharing that film’s composer, Michael Abels.
Dean-Charles Chapman plays Torbin, and I’m only noting it here because if I found anything truly hard to believe in this episode, it’s that Torbin is a Jedi Master of many years. (As noted above, he’s been in a Jedi temple for a decade, keeping silent.) Fun fact: Chapman is a year older than Stenberg.
I really hope we get more of Manny Jacinto in the weeks to come, because Jason Mendoza deserves far more now that we’re removed from The Good Place.
I also love the idea of a Wookiee Jedi, even though I am also aware that Kelnacca is not the first such character. (A Google search informs me there’s a Wookiee Jedi in The Bad Batch, a show I have yet to watch.) We only get a brief glimpse of Kelnacca at the (admittedly very abrupt) end of the second episode, but considering the martial-arts-infused fight scenes in the two-part premiere…I kind of want to see that fighting style in Wookiee form.
If you have read my previous reviews here in the Star Wars series, we both know I belong to the latter camp.
He said while wearing a “Written and Directed by Rian Johnson” T-shirt.
I am disappointed at Moss' quick exit, but definitely intrigued by the show. Jacinto in particular is great, even if I do find it difficult to see him as a character other than Jason Mendoza; it was jarring to hear him use phrases like "galactic dominance."
I also really appreciate the economy of storytelling on display so far; it was very funny how quickly her fellow prisoner went from "we have an escape plan" to "we are escaping."
A very promising launch to this show. I would already put it as among the better live-action Disney+ Star Wars titles -- which is to say, about on par with the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, though not (yet) as good as Andor. But certainly much more confident and engaging than The Book of Boba Fett, Mando season 3, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Ahsoka.
I don't think Mae's master will be anyone we've met so far, since that bench is so slim. It's really just Vernestra who's old enough and not one of her stated targets, right? And so far, that's not a mystery I particularly care about, while these episodes have swiftly gotten me on-board with the effort to stop Mae's vengeance in the moment and the open questions surrounding her motivations and backstory. I'm loving the Jedi as space cops AND the implication that at least some of them are involved in a shameful conspiracy. Looking forward to seeing that angle play out and whatever reckoning comes of it as the season unfolds.
Were there any connections to the High Republic novels that anyone caught? I tried a couple of those and got bored, but I feel like I heard there would be some references in this show to what had already been established for the era. Meanwhile, I loved getting a look at the Trade Federation already chafing against Jedi rules, in a nod to the eventual start of The Phantom Menace that didn't need to be belabored. And if anyone is irritated over the soap-opera twist that the real killer was Osha's identical twin, I do need to point out that the original Star Wars trilogy famously had a big twin reveal as well! But I agree with Josh that that element is played just right here, keeping audiences uncertain at first but not dragging out the obvious for too long after that.