The Acolyte Spoiler Recap: Lost/Found & Revenge/Justice
It’s been a while hasn’t it? Just over a year to be precise since the last time I did a recap on The Geeky Waffle, but if anything was going to draw me back in, you knew it was going to be The Acolyte.
It’s hardly a secret - indeed, I think I’ve been pretty loud about it - that I am a hardcore High Republic fan. I was already a (canon) Star Wars book fan when the initiative was first announced way back in 2020, and the idea of a new era, a new story, and new characters was beyond intriguing. Cut to four years later and we have a publishing initiative so wide-ranging and full of so many stories I am now on my third tracking spreadsheet (this is not a critique, I love a tracking spreadsheet). The High Republic is also the first thing that got me officially published in the Star Wars space. So it’s no exaggeration to say it changed my life.
The announcement of the new series The Acolyte, created by Leslye Headland, was met with equal excitement from me. A series set in the High Republic and run by a creative who has a love and appreciation for every era of Star Wars, not just a narrow nostalgia meant to appeal to a very specific demographic. With each new development for the series, my excitement grew.
Now that it’s finally here, what did I think? In a word, I loved it. The Acolye is by far the most exciting Star Wars series we have ever had. With this series, Headland has created something that feels both intimately familiar and startlingly fresh. This world has elements of the things we know and love: aliens, Jedi, alien Jedi, remote planets and adorable droids. But it engages in character work to a degree I haven’t seen for years outside of the books - appropriate, considering the era.
This is a world that feels real and lived in, and not just because the sets and locations actually feel tangible. These characters are imperfect and messy in a way that feels relatable, in a way that you cannot help but root for them. It’s so clear that the writers drew inspiration from other stories, other genres, other ways of doing things, rather than endlessly iterating on Star Wars and only on Star Wars to the point of incoherence and inaccessibility. Yes, we all love this galaxy far, far away, but there are stories beyond it that also speak to us, and it’s clear the show hasn’t forgotten that.
But you know I want to get into the nitty-gritty so let’s dive in. Spoilers, obviously.
Episode 1, “Lost/Found”, opens with a not-quite title crawl - that is to say, text in space - that sets the context for our story: 100 years before the Empire, there are groups of non-Jedi Force users (which if you’ve read the books comes as no surprise) and one such user is an assassin out for revenge.
We meet the assassin in question, Mae (Amandla Stenberg), on Ueda and in search of a Jedi. Those who saw The Phantom Menace in theaters will recognize this scene as the preview they showed after the movie. Mae finds the Jedi she’s looking for, Master Indara (Carie-Ann Moss), in a noodle shop, and challenges her to a fight. Indara tries to refuse, calmly telling Mae that the Jedi don’t attack the unarmed, to which Mae replies that they do.
Though I’m sure the Jedi definitely don’t see it that way, what Mae says is likely true from a certain point of view, depending on who in the galaxy you ask. What constitutes an “attack”? What constitutes “unarmed”? All relative truths defined by the victors, unless of course someone comes seeking revenge, in which case the two truths battle it out for dominance.
Mae provokes Inara into a fight by going after other patrons in the noodle shop, and it becomes clear to Inara that whoever this assassin is, she has some sort of training in the Force. Inara deflects Mae’s knife attacks with the combined use of martial arts and the Force until she finally gets the upper hand and unmasks Mae. Inara is surprised to find she recognizes the girl - and spots a distinctive white tattoo on her forehead that doesn’t exactly come back in these two episodes but let’s go ahead and put a pin in it anyway since the camera lingered. Mae says she’s there to kill Inara, and her next attack prompts the Master to at last draw her saber. Inara hesitates to make a killing blow, and in the hesitation the two find the bartender hasn’t left the premises with the rest of the patrons. Mae throws a knife at his head and uses Inara’s distraction in saving the man’s life to kill Inara instead, with a single key stab to the chest. She’s about to finish off the bartender as well, when she realizes he’s got a small child with him. At that, she opts instead to leave, and for that I’m glad because I’m all for revenge on the Jedi Order, but I would have had a really hard time bouncing back from that.
Less than 10 minutes into the series, and we already have our first surprise, namely: I cannot believe they just killed off Master Inara? Maybe this isn’t the right mentality to go into something with, but I kind of assumed given how prominent she is in the marketing - and the fact that she’s getting her own action figure - that she’d be around for a while. Perhaps that’s part of the trick, as I now know that absolutely no one here is truly safe, and that certainly ups the stakes. Perhaps she’ll also be back in flashbacks. Either way, we’re off to a shocking start.
We then cut to…Mae, again? Only now with shorter hair and much less of a “vengeful assassin” vibe. Of course, if you’re reading this, then you know this is not Mae but Osha - insert “Star Wars needs OSHA regulations” joke here. I know it’s such a small thing but part of what really makes this show feel so lived in is the fact that Osha woke up in her bunk on a ship wearing what are clearly pajamas: shorts and a t-shirt she obviously only uses to sleep. The prequels gave us Padme’s gorgeous nightgowns but beyond that everyone on-screen seems to sleep in the same outfit they do everything else in.
Osha and her adorable droid Pip, who is like a sentient, smartphone sized Swiss army knife, are summoned out for a job. She and her friend Fillik are mekneks - outer-hull mechanic - on a Trade Federation ship. Repairs are going fine until a valve catches fire, and for a moment Osha is too obviously traumatized to address it. The moment doesn’t last long, as a Jedi ship pulls up on board and catches Osha’s attention.
The ship brings with it Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and his Padawan Tasi Lowa (). Yord tells the Nemoidians running the ship that he’s looking for Osha Aniseya and they claim to not know who he means, as mekneks are against Republic regulations. Yord, however, has zero chill and immediately attempts to enter the Nemoidian’s mind to get the answers he seeks. The other Nemoidian on the bridge quickly supplies him with the information instead, if only to get him to stop.
Yord is such an asshole. I love him already.
Osha is excited to see Yord at first, not having seen her old friend in years. But it’s clear something is different this time, and he doesn’t trust her anymore, since her reaching for Pip to plug him in prompts Yord to drop his hand to his lightsaber. He asks her some very pointed question, reminding her that she was brought into the Jedi Order by Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) when she was 8 years old - too old to begin training, according to some - and grieving the loss of her whole family. Tasi then tells Osha that Master Indara was killed by someone who matches her description, and that they are there to bring her in. We don’t get the full story, but it seems Indara had something to do with why Osha left the order, giving her that much-needed motive to kill her. Yord and Tasi load Osha up on a prison transport to Coruscant to face justice.
Meanwhile on Coruscant, Master Sol is teaching a class of Younglings with the kind of patience needed from anyone who seeks to teach young children. This becomes clearer and clearer through these first two episodes but Sol is really such an example of the warmth and kindness of what Jedi can and should be when they’re not lost in their own nonsense. He bridges the gap between the more spiritual elements of their practice with the reality of living in the galaxy as it is - balance you might say.
He wraps up his class when he’s joined by Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson), who tells him that they’ve arrested Osha for Indara’s murder, and he’s horrified to learn his former Padawan has been accused of the crime. He doesn’t believe it was her, despite the evidence, while Vernestra maintains the evidence is too strong, and that they have to make an example of her to keep their political enemies at bay, before they find out that a Jedi Master can be killed by a former student. Sol agrees to support her, but he definitely doesn’t seem happy about it.
We’re still 100 years out from the fall of the Republic, and while the books have touched on this a bit, its alarming to see how the Jedi Order is getting increasingly entwined in politics. They’ve gone from being a support arm to the Republic during the time of the Great Disaster and beyond, and are now so entrenched that they have political enemies of their own. For book readers, the shift in dogma is also so clear in Vernestra, who came of age in an era of reflection and investigation, and around adults who would not have been as quick to judge as she is now. Even with the Nihil threat in the books, we see the Jedi playing things out much slower, to gain more information, to uncover the truth. None of this swift, decisive justice. The worst kind of downfall to watch is an inevitable one happening in slow, slow motion.
Meanwhile, Osha is on-board her prison transport staffed entirely by droid pilots and guards. The only other living beings are her fellow prisoners, including one convict being subdued by a parasite that affects the brain. Lovely. The others tell Osha they’re planning a prison break and she points out that on a droid-run ship in hyperspace, there’s a strong chance they’ll all die and she prefers to put her faith in the Jedi. Whatever drove her away from the order, then, wasn’t mistrust.
Everyone else manages to break out, leaving Osha and the parasite-infected prisoner to their fates. Osha gets her hands on Pip and frees herself, but guilt overtakes her and she goes back for the other prisoner as well, freeing him from the parasite. The decision winds up biting her in the ass as he leaves her behind and takes the last escape pod without her. Again, such a small thing, but I love when Star Wars does enough character work that it allows for things like a scream of pure rage and frustration. Osha’s best chance of survival then, is to strap herself in and hope she survives when the ship crashes.
Back on Coruscant, Vernestra sends Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) to bring Sol to the detention level. Jecki finds Sol looking at an old holo of Osha and asks why he’s dwelling on the past when this sort of attachment is not something the Jedi teach. The two are a perfect fit as Master and Apprentice, since I can already tell she needs to chill out a bit, and Sol’s the perfect person for that.
On the detention level, the escaped prisoners have all been apprehended. The one who left Osha behind admits she was trying to help him, and in exchange he left her behind. That kind of act doesn’t scream “Jedi Killer” to Sol, but it’s still not enough for Vernestra. He requests permission to go to Carlac in search of Osha, as he feels responsible for whatever is happening with her. Though hesitant she grants him permission to go with only Jecki and Yord as assistance. Jecki is excited to go on the mission, but is skeptical at the news that Yord is going too. She and Sol walk in on a shirtless Yord doing laundry in the common area, and this seems to confirm everything Jecki suspected, though what that is I’m not quite sure yet.
Osha wakes up on Carlac, ostensibly alone in the crashed ship until a hooded figure appears in the doorway. She chases the figure, only to realize that it’s Mae. Or Mae as she was when she was a child. A Force vision - that’s what I’m calling it for now - pulls the two back to the Brendok of their childhood, and a cryptic poem reveals that the two are twins. Little Mae admits she killed Indara and that she plans on killing “them all”. The revelation startles Osha awake, and she’s left to process what she just saw.
On the Jedi ship, Sol explains how he knows Osha to Jecki, telling her that he was posted to her homeworld when Mae started a fire that killed her whole family. With Osha as the only survivor, Sol took her in and eventually to Coruscant. The news that Osha has a sister, and a twin sister at that, startles Yord and Jecki, as the information isn’t on file. I appreciate Sol thinking Mae is dead and this is irrelevant, but knowing Osha was in mourning, would it not have been helpful to know who she was mourning? Jecki suggests that Mae might be behind the murder, but Sol insists she’s dead.
The group arrives on Carlac and immediately go in search of Osha, while Osha herself looks for a way to escape the incoming ship. Though Yord and Jecki disagree about her chances of survival, Sol senses something and they chase her to the edge of a cliff. Osha proclaims her innocence, but is reluctant to come any closer until she slips and falls of the edge, saved only by Sol catching her on time. She tells him Mae is alive, and he believes her. She agrees to return. I’m glad we aren’t spending several episodes in a prolonged chase, and are instead letting these characters piece the mystery together, especially since we, the audience, already know it wasn’t her. This way, we get to examine the different dynamics at play as we observe them working together.
Elsewhere, we finally catch up with Mae on a rocky outcropping. There she meets that baddie with the tooth-mask we saw in the trailer, who has an awful lot to say about killing Jedi, and how an “Acolyte” does so without a weapon, before drawing a red lightsaber of his own. Though short, the speech does bring up some interesting points. The Jedi live in a “dream” or a bubble of their own making, one that isn’t necessarily a dream for everyone they interact with, obviously causing tension. We already know Mae feels this way, and we can start assuming that this has something to do with her twin being taken away to live with the Jedi Order. Justifiable anger to be sure, but one that seemingly pushed Mae right into the arms of the Sith. At least, I’m assuming Sith at this point.
Tooth-mask guy is so snarly. I love him already.
This launches us right into Episode 2, “Revenge/Justice”, which opens on a Jedi Temple on Olega. Mae bribes a local kid to distract the sentry droid long enough to help her break in. This attempt goes almost too well, and is a little too easy, and between this and the droid prison ship, this is starting to feel like a commentary on our overreliance on technology and how fallible it is.
Mae enters the temple in search of another Jedi. She finds Master Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman) lost in meditation, floating a couple of feet off the ground, eyes closed. She repeats the speech she gave Indara, challenging him to a fight, but unlike Indara he doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s there. Mae tries to attack him anyway, but can’t make contact as there’s a forcefield (a Force-Field? Heh) around him that keeps him safe. Mae’s break-in is discovered, and she flees into the night.
Back on Carlac, the Jedi ship is preparing to leave. Osha finds Jecki messing with the controls and helps her figure out her technological hurdle. Jecki looks like she’s not really sure what to make of this former Padawan of Sol’s but Yord knows exactly what to make of his former friend: namely, she should be restrained to prevent escape. He doesn’t believe Mae killed Indara but suggests that if that were the case then maybe Osha helped her. If the three High Republic book phases are called Light of the Jedi, Quest of the Jedi and Trials of the Jedi, then petition for this series and the corresponding era to be subtitled Paranoia of the Jedi.
Sol calls Vernestra to catch her up, and even Vern is surprised to hear that Osha has a twin. Damn Sol, way to not communicate anything at all when you brought this traumatized kid back to the Order. I know he meant well, and probably thought dwelling on a dead sibling would make it worse for her, but damn. And before anyone goes screaming “plot hole” please remember that all the best Jedi are also terrible at communication so this is the most on-brand he could have possibly been.
Vernestra at last agrees that Mae is the one behind the murders, if only because news has reached them of the break in on Olega. She orders them to go to Olega to investigate, taking Osha with them to help. Osha recognizes the name of the world, and more importantly recognizes that Torbin lives there. While the pieces of Mae’s plan are already forming in her mind and in Sol’s mind, Yord is still strongly against the idea of treating her as anything less than a prisoner. Is it me, or is this pain and mistrust running just a little too deep?
On Olega, Mae wanders into an apothecary in search of Qimir (Manny Jacinto) and finds him sleeping it off in the back. The two of them do at least appear to be friends - something more, maybe? I don’t know, but I am looking. They’re certainly close enough that he knows all about her plan to kill Torbin in the temple. Beyond that, he also knows she has a list of Jedi she wants to kill: Indara, Torbin, and two others, one of whom is a Wookiee. She asks him to make her a poison to kill Torbin with, and says she’ll have the opportunity to kill at least one of the others without a weapon, thus meeting the terms set by Tooth Mask Guy.
While I appreciate that most average people in the galaxy probably don’t think about the Jedi all that much in the day-to-day and certainly don’t harbor any great love for them, I don’t believe that Qimir is speaking out of a concerned-citizen level of frustration. That is to say, I don’t buy his “your cute pot dealer with a charming smile” act. I love the theory that he’s Tooth Mask Guy, but even if he isn’t, he’s definitely more than what he’s showing. Qimir encourages Mae to find Torbin’s weakness, saying everyone has one. He’s not a big fan of the Jedi’s approach to galactic dominance either. He makes Mae the poison she requested, and she heads out to try and kill Torbin again, but not before asking him to not tell Tooth Mask Guy about the poison.
Sol finds Osha working on Pip and asks her about the tattoo on her bicep. The tattoo, she tells him, is the result of a wild night out with some of her friends after she left the Jedi Order. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be so I’m going with my first instinct, which is that it’s a BTS tattoo, and that ARMY is so wide-reaching, we’re even in the galaxy far, far away. Osha agrees with Sol that Mae is likely behind the murder.
He tells her that he did want to save them both, and still blames himself, even though Osha doesn’t blame him. His claim that he did want to save them both hints that clearly the story of what happened that night isn’t as straightforward as he’s led anyone to believe, and he and Osha take a minute to acknowledge that they might not have been a good student and teacher respectively.
Because Star Wars is tragedy, I feel like we don’t often get the chance to see Jedi Masters in particular acknowledge that they couldn’t meet the emotional needs of their student. Obi-Wan loses both his master and apprentice to horrific circumstances, and they never get to talk it out. Luke tells Ben he failed him, but the two never converse after that and then Ben just up and dies, so they never reckon with that either. Even in The High Republic, for as much as I love Stellan Gios (RIP), his pushing Vernestra to knighthood so young did her no favors, as others tell her, and gives her a level of responsibility far beyond her years. They never get the chance to talk about the impact that had on her, for him to apologize. Maybe that’s in part why she’s like this now.
If this is set to end tragically too…well, I just don’t know what I’ll do really.
The Jedi arrive at the Olega temple to investigate. The temple Jedi have apprehended the kid who helped Mae, and she confesses to everything, revealing she helped a woman who looked like Osha. While they deal with the Jedi at the front door, Mae breaks into Torbin’s room and reveals she knows that he is haunted by the actions of his past, hence why he took the Barash Vow - a delightful reference back to the comics, and specifically to Phase II. The Vow is one of silence and isolation, meant to reforge a lost connection to the Force, however that is defined, and its clear whatever happened on Brendok is haunting him still.
This turns out to be the weakness Mae needs to break through Torbin’s Force-Field. She offers him a choice: to confess his crime to the council, or to receive her forgiveness right there on the spot by drinking the poison she offers. Wracked by guilt, he admits they thought they were doing the right thing and then takes the poison. Sol once again senses something is wrong and rushes toward Torbin’s room, just in time to find Osha kneeling over his dead body, having followed a shadowy figure in that direction.
Yord actually steps in to defend her, saying he followed Osha when she separated from the group, and that Torbin was dead when they got there. Osha explains that she recognizes the poison as being one from Brendok. The potency also indicates that it was made nearby, so they scope out the local apothecary and find Qimir there, but the local Jedi don’t recognize him. Yord is ready to go full cop mode immediately, and wants to confront Qimir and haul him in for questioning. Jecki, however, suggests they take advantage of having a Mae lookalike with them by sending Osha in to see what she can sus out by talking to him.
Armed with Pip, a large shawl, and a weapon - to Yord’s dismay - Osha heads into the apothecary to confront Qimir. At first, it sounds like its going badly (read: awkwardly) but eventually she does get him talking. He references the poison directly, but Sol has everyone else wait to see if Qimir has anything else incriminating to add, which he does almost immediately, making reference to Tooth Mask Guy. But Qimir reveals that he knows Osha isn’t Mae, and it’s then that the Jedi arrive for the interrogation proper. He tries to play himself off as just a bumbling supplier, which is obviously a lie, but he does reveal that she wants revenge on four Jedi, and adds that she’ll be back later that night.
Sol and Osha camp out to wait for her, and Osha says she wants to be the one to confront her twin. Sol refuses, insisting on facing her alone. But Osha isn’t envisioning a happy family reunion, instead wanting justice for what Mae did to their family when they were kids. Sol insists that it’s not justice but rather revenge, and it will wind up destroying Osha too. Sol instead wants to try and save Mae, the way he couldn’t when she was a child.
A young person falling to the Dark side after justifiable anger tore their family apart sending them on a quest for vengeance? Oh Mae is so Ben Solo coded, and I love that someone that did her wrong is actively invested in helping her instead of writing her off.
Osha reminds Sol that Mae is out to kill the 4 Jedi who were stationed on Brendok all those years ago: Indara, Torbin, Kelnacca…and Sol. Sol tells Osha to at least trust him, if she can’t trust Mae. Things come to a head in the town square when Sol confronts her directly and the two fight. She attacks Sol without a weapon, which even he remarks upon, and he tries to get to the bottom of who’s been training her in the last 16 years. He peers into her mind and sees even she doesn’t know who Tooth Mask Guy is, but also learns that she believes Osha is dead. Sol and Yord try to tell her Osha is still alive though she obviously doesn’t believe them. Their attempt to get her to surrender fails when she causes a diversion and flees.
As Mae attempts to run, Osha finally decides to pursue her, and the two come face to face for the first time in 16 years. Mae is shocked to see her sister, more shocked still to see her pointing a weapon at her, but takes off again when Osha fires. Osha misses by a mile, and obviously on purpose - how Force Awakens-coded of them. Vernestra tells Sol that she’s convened a council to discuss their next steps and orders them all back to Coruscant. I feel like this IRL meeting could have been a zoom call en route to Mae’s next destination but what do I know? Vernestra, baby, what did the galaxy do to you.
Mae confronts Qimir for selling her out to the Jedi, but to make it up to her, he offers to take her to Khofar, where the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca is currently living. The episode ends on Khofar, where we meet Kelnacca scaring a couple of scavengers away from the ship he calls home. Knowing that Wookiee Jedi tend to wear tabards at least - but Chewbacca never wore anything - I can’t quite tell if Kelnacca has become the equivalent of “odd hermit running around naked” or not. I guess we’ll find out next week.
Only two episodes in, and The Acolyte has me utterly hooked in a way no Star Wars series ever has. This is far and away my favorite, and is the most interesting character work I’ve seen them do on the small screen. The murder mystery driving the plot is compelling, and it truly does feel like a High Republic novel brought to life. The ensemble cast is, of course, fantastic, with Lee Jung-jae’s Master Sol as an early standout for me. Having the choice to anchor the story with a set of twins, twins whose upbringing and circumstances, and relationship with the Force in different ways draw such compelling parallels with one another - represented even in the episode titles - is an inspired choice. I cannot wait for next week. I cannot wait for the rest of this series. I cannot wait to order this on Steelbook.
So what did you think? Who is your favourite? Will we be seeing our dearly departed Jedi Knights in flashback form? Who is the snarly tooth-mask guy? Is anyone on this show going to kiss? And just what is up with Qimir?
The Acolyte airs new episodes every Tuesday night. The first two episodes are streaming now.
