The Acolyte Spoiler Recap: Night
As a rule, I don’t care for most action scenes. Generally speaking, they’re a lot of Noise, and Things Are Happening, but they don’t do much. The stakes of the fight are established before the fight even kicks off, and now I have to spend 20 agonizing minutes watching a cluttered frame scored by a whole lot of noise. The exception to this is when an action scene serves the story beyond those aforementioned stakes, specifically with regards to the characters actually involved.
Star Wars is full of scenes like this: Kylo and Rey’s duel on Starkiller, which then also becomes a beautiful counterpoint to the Throne Room fight — also buckle up we are getting way more than one reference this week. Luke and Vader’s duel in Return of the Jedi is also a good example of this, as is Obi-Wan and Anakin’s dual on Mustafar, and even the one between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Maul. I’m sure there are more that fit this character-centric theme, these are just my personal favourites. And if you’re noticing all these aforementioned action scenes are lightsaber duals…you’re right. There’s just something about that close contact when the fight is blade to blade — hence why Obi-Wan and Anakin works for me so well, but the simulatenous Yoda and Palpatine fight, where they yeet sentate chamber furniture at each other, does not.
Why do I bring this up? Because now, we can go ahead and add The Acolyte Episode 5 to that list. Just…the whole episode, since “Night” was for all intents and purposes a thirty-minute fight scene, and what a fight scene it was. I can’t remember the last time an episode of TV made me yell that loud, that many times. So let’s dive in.
Night picks up almost immediately where Episode 4, “Day,” ended. After Darth Teeth knocked everyone backwards, he seems to have disappeared into the woods. At least, that’s how things look to Osha, who wakes up alone in the bushes. Or mostly alone, anyway, as she finds Pip on the ground nearby, then quickly stumbles out onto the main path and comes face to lifeless face with one of the Jedi from the mission. She hears the sounds of lightsabers clashing in the distance and sees Darth Teeth duelling with Yord and two of the other Jedi from the mission.
He literally punches the blade out of two of their sabers, forcing Yord to face him alone while they wait for the blades to reengage. They switch back on — and not a minute too soon, as he injures Yord’s leg — but that moment of triumph doesn’t last long as Darth Teeth kills them both. He advances on Yord, but Osha draws his attention by firing her stun gun at him, and Darth Teeth gives chase. He sends his lightsaber flying after her like a boomerang, only for it to be stopped just in time by Sol. I need you to go ahead and capture this moment, it’s the last time we’re going to feel true happiness in this episode. Not all the other emotions are negative, per se, but there’s a different H word coming down the line if you catch my drift.
Sol’s presence is enough for Darth Teeth to retract his saber. Sol uses the lull to order Yord to take Osha back to the ship, since she’s a civilian. To Osha’s credit, she puts up a fight, but Yord hauls her away, leaving Sol alone to fight the unsettling Dark side user. Whoever they are, they recognize Sol right away, and Sol acknowledges something about him feels familiar, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on that as the fight is back on.
Outside Kelnacca’s house, and armed now with Kelnacca’s lightsaber, Mae finally ventures out into the night, only to be immediately drop-kicked by Jecki. The two tussle as Jecki tries to get Mae in handcuffs, charging her not only with the murder of the three Jedi, but also with starting the fire that killed the coven. There’s no reason for Jecki to not run with the official party line, since for all she knows that the truth, but I wonder if Mae knew before this that the Jedi hold her responsible for that too. Jecki and Mae fight their way into the forest as well, and Jecki’s scream alerts Yord and Osha to the fight.
Back in the woods, Sol tries to get Darth Teeth to show his face, asking him what kind of Master would hide their face from their student. Darth Teeth counters with a chilling “you tell me” which provokes Sol into charging again, and we’re going to put a pin in this moment, because this is the first of two suggestions that we get that whatever Osha thinks she knows about Sol, and whatever we, the audience, think we know, there’s more to the story. Darth Teeth drops Sol to the ground, and by the time the Jedi stands up, his foe is nowhere to be seen.
Osha asks Yord what Darth Teeth is, but Yord doesn’t have an answer for her, as he’s thrown off by the way Darth Teeth is an unpredictable fighter. Why do I feel like Yoda just went and erased the Nihil-related archives again? Yord adds that Darth Teeth is capable of getting into a persons head and just staying there, a quality Osha says her mother shared as well. While we don’t get an expansion on that particular bit of information this week, let’s go ahead and tuck that away for the future. Yord and Osha make it to the Winged Slug Grove again, and Osha reminds Yord that light attracts the giant bugs and for him to turn off the saber.
Meanwhile, Jecki manages to subdue Mae at last, fastening her hands behind her back, then takes Kelnacca’s lightsaber for herself. The moment of victory is short-lived as Darth Teeth charges in for Jecki next. He tells Mae to learn from Jecki, since she’s a loyal student — let’s tuck that one away too — and just as he seems to get the upper hand on the Padawan, she pulls out Kelnacca’s saber, and goes for the double blade approach. That victory is also short-lived, as Darth Teeth severs the hilt of Kelnacca’s saber and disappears, once he notices that Mae’s gone running into the woods.
He catches up with her in a clearing, and accuses her of wanting to betray him. Mae pivots right away, begging for his forgiveness, though he won’t let her chalk it up to a moment of weakness, telling her she was always weak anyway. He separates the handcuffs, presumably because killing her with her hands tied feels too easy, and he’s about to make the killing blow when Sol and Jecki catch up to them. Darth Teeth fights them both, while also pinning Mae to a rock, stopping her from running again. Osha’s twin connection — Dyad connection? — has her feeling Mae’s fear, and she tells Yord they’re going back to help, since now she has an idea to help. Using Pip’s flashlight, she catches the bugs attention and leads them out of the grove.
Back in the clearing, it’s a very Duel of the Fates moment, where Master and Padawan take on an unknown Dark Side Force User. Only this time, it’s the Master’s lightsaber that is disabled, and the Padawan who is killed. Jecki falls — RIP Jecki, you absolute sweetheart — but not before managing to break Darth Teeth’s mask revealing him to be…Qimir.
It’s at this point choirs began singing in my head because I love being right, but also at what cost. I know last week I was doubting my convictions because I let the internet convince me that “Qimir is the Sith” is just too easy an answer, but honestly, seeing that play out, I’m realizing it’s the only answer that would have been satisfying. If the big reveal had been that he was just…some guy…that becomes a proverbial “you’re a Palpatine” moment. It might get a gasp in the moment, but does it track with anything that came before it? Absolutely not.
Also on a purely superficial level, you’re gonna cast a man that hot, with arms like that, and the kind of hair that flops into his eyes and not make him the bad guy? Please, in a galaxy where both Marchion Ro and Kylo Ren meet that criteria, you can’t tell me Qimir wasn’t going to be next in that grandest of horny Star Wars traditions. Lina Soh’s greatest work was apparently installing a Planet Fitness on every planet and moon because damn.
Sol is distraught at Jecki’s death, especially considering how young she was, but Qimir points out that Sol was the one that brought her on the mission. The way Manny Jacinto flips in an instant from slow, serious (and really, Marchion Ro-like) menace of the Sith to Qimir’s upbeat, almost ditzy affect is frankly chilling, and this is just a wonderful performance from him all around. He distracts Sol long enough to pull Mae to him and hold her with his saber to her head, forcing the Jedi to lay down his weapon. He tells Qimir that while he has no name for what he is, the Jedi call someone like him “Sith” — and if the Jedi haven’t seen a Sith in a thousand years I’m betting the odds of Sol’s survival are NOT great. He tells Sol he wants freedom to use his power without answering to the Jedi, and wants to take on a student of his own. But because the Jedi say he can’t exist, them knowing of his existence has condemned them all to die.
This is one of the most interesting questions the show is asking, and something that the High Republic books also do extremely well, and that is interrogating the role of the Jedi as so-called arbiters of the Force. There are so many Force Users out there beyond the Jedi Order in the High Republic days, but we see the order as a collective fighting to control that. I’ve said before and I will say again that there are plenty of Jedi I love, whose intentions are good and who do the best they can within the scope they are given, but the Order as a whole, the actual system of it, is broken, and I’m so excited to see how the show will continue to explore that.
Just as Qimir is about to kill Mae, Yord — who has been watching this unfold with Osha — attacks Qimir from behind, a decidedly non-Jedi move, but desperate times and all that. It throws the Sith off for about a second before he gains the upper hand and snaps Yord’s neck — RIP Yord. Osha sees Mae making yet another break for it and stuns her, but by now Sol has had enough and fights Qimir in hand-to-hand combat. He’s about to deliver a killing blow with his saber until Osha stops him.
Qimir then turns his attention to Osha, asking if she still trusts Sol after “everything he did to her.” When Sol dismisses this as Qimir being twisted by darkness, the Sith replies that he’s accepted his darkness, something Sol has yet to do. This marks the second hint that something else happened in the early days of Osha joining the Jedi Order, especially since this comment is enough to make Sol step back and let Qimir go. Osha draws Sol’s attention to the moths, and just as Qimir is about to attack again, she attaches Pip’s “head,” the bit with the flashlight attached, to Qimir’s back, drawing the moths to him. They pick him up and carry him away, and while things are never that easy, at least we get a bit of a breather.
Osha finally has a chance to ask Sol why Qimir would say she shouldn’t trust her former Master, and just as he’s about to explain, Mae wakes and stuns him in turn. Day breaks again as the two sisters finally have a conversation after 16 years apart. For all that Mae’s heel-turn felt abrupt to some, I knew it was never going to be as easy as siding with the Jedi all of a sudden. Mae maintains that everything she’s done thus far has been for Osha and their family, though Osha says that Mae’s motives have always been selfish.
As if the Anakin parallels in Mae weren’t strong enough with the way she loves Osha in such an all-consuming, possessive way, she tells her sister that the Jedi have turned Osha against her. Somewhere between Mae and Osha is a healthy way to love your sibling. Mae’s hurt is understandable, as she wants to be close to her sister and sees Osha’s desire for distance and their own separate lives as a rejection of their family. But on the other hand, Mae’s refusal to understand how or why Osha might even want an identity of her own is what’s smothering Osha in the first place, and it’s frustrating to see Osha’s desire for independance be steamrolled over by Mae every time she wants to express it. That said, I’ve felt that the Dark Side has had its hooks in Mae since the beginning, so I’d be surprised if this were completely personality-driven and not influenced by an external factor.
Mae embraces Osha, begging her to choose her this time, and though Mae thinks this is the end of their separation, Osha breaks their hug and tries to arrest Mae. The point of contention comes down to Sol and what he represents: a new life for Osha, a life without purpose to Mae. Out of options, Mae pushes Osha back off a ledge and knocks her out. She gives herself a nice little Mulan-style haircut to match Osha’s hairstyle, and takes Osha’s jumpsuit so she can join back up with Sol. She plays the role of Osha well enough to fool Sol, and tells him her sister is “gone,” and the two head back to the ship. Sol might be fooled, at least for now, but Bazil the tracker isn’t fooled in the slightest — and if anything happens to him, I will fight anything and anyone.
Back in the woods, Qimir escapes the moths in one piece, picks up his mask and cloak and finds Osha unconscious in the woods. He finds Osha unconscious, heals the wound in her side, and covers her with his cloak. With the tattoo on her arm showing, there’s no way he doesn’t know which twin this is, and that’s where the episode ends. I don’t want to sit here and just scream “Reylo” at the top of my lungs, but what else am I supposed to call it when a floppy-haired disillusioned Dark Side Force user joins forces with a scrappy, tech-savvy Light Side Force user. Especially when he heals her while the score plays the Kylo Ren Theme.
It’s very much a “what if Rey took Kylo’s hand” situation, except Osha didn’t really have a choice in the matter. But also, with the seeds of doubt already planted in her mind about Sol, how is it going to feel when she realizes he left her behind? That he couldn’t tell Mae wasn’t Osha? What is Qimir going to tell her? Are she and Qimir going to kiss (please let them kiss)? And are we looking at an Osha falls to the Dark while Mae goes to the light scenario? Is it next Tuesday yet?
The first five episodes of The Acolyte are streaming now on Disney+