With impressive performances and beautiful cinematography, The Acolyte attempts to challenge the set categories of heroes and villains.
Showrunner: Leslye Headland
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
Number of Episodes: 8
Release Date: June 4-July 16, 2024
Where to watch: Disney Plus
“When you are looking up to heroes, you don’t have to face what is in front of you,” says one of the characters in the last episode of The Acolyte. This line is very powerful not only in its context but also in the sense that it seems to sum up the entire show. In a series that asks us to reshape our idea of what we consider good or evil in the grand scheme of things and of what the Jedi Order really is.
Set during the High Republic era, The Acolyte starts approximately 100 years before the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace. The show follows Sol (Lee Jung-Jae), a respected Jedi Master, as he investigates a series of crimes that target the other Jedis who were with him on a mission to Brendok sixteen years before. All the cues seem to point to Osha (Amandla Stenberg), Sol’s former Padawan who had left the Order years before, and her twin sister Mae (Amandla Stenberg) whom Sol believed to have died. During his investigation, Sol is accompanied by his current Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) and Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), a Jedi Knight, as he faces the ghosts of his past and a new enemy, Qimir (Manny Jacinto).
The Acolyte is a particularly impressive production for the acting. Amandla Stenberg particularly shines in her layered performances as both Osha and Mae. The two characters are inherently different, and Stenberg truly manages to bring out the uniqueness of each of the twins. Equally, Manny Jacinto embodies two opposite sides of a character as the Sith master, on the one hand, and his disguise as a smuggler on the other. No matter which version of Qimir he is playing, Jacinto steals every single scene he is in with one of the best performances in the show. Lee Jung-Jae also deserves praise for his masterful acting: he makes the audience feel every single emotion Sol is going through.
The production design of The Acolyte is impressive as well. The lightsaber fights are especially fascinating to look at and always a joy to see on screen: if anything, I would have loved to see a lot more with their beautiful choreography and high stakes. The setting is also essential to the overall plot of the show, as the narrative takes us to multiple different places across the galaxy, introducing us to new planets and cities we have not seen before in the Star Wars saga. It does a good job at immediately creating a unique atmosphere for every place important for the story so that the audience can immediately become familiar with it and recognise every setting episode after episode.
Both of these elements truly come together in episode 5, which was my favourite of the entire show as everything seems to come together to deliver the best moment of the entire show: the reveal of who the Sith master really is. I particularly enjoyed how the episode uses the setting of the forest as a plot device for the narrative as a place where multiple strands of narratives come together after following three separate but mirroring couples in their respective fight of good against evil. But is it really a matter of good against evil? The Acolyte makes us question these fixed categories by introducing morally grey and incredibly compelling villains who the audience cannot help but root for by the end of the show.
Ultimately, what makes The Acolyte such a compelling show is its premise and the way it makes the audience reflect on who the Jedis are at the height of their powers. In this sense, the way the larger dynamics of Jedi politics were suggested in the show was especially fascinating to watch. However, I also wish this was shown more as the council seems to only be mentioned as a faceless entity off-screen. Similarly, the show introduces the question of the way the rest of the galaxy sees the Jedi, but this, too, is barely explored towards the end of the series, but not enough for the broad discussion that this could have raised.
I also really liked how The Acolyte explores the backstory of its main characters with two flashback episodes, which allow the audience to witness one of the most important events in the history of the show firsthand. However, there is so much that is left unsaid. By the time the show ended, I still had a lot of questions about the entire event that were never entirely addressed in the eight episodes of the first season. This is particularly evident as the pacing of the show significantly suffers in its second half with at least half of the episodes between the season premiere and the season finale, except the fifth one, feeling like nothing more than filler episodes that barely move the plot along.
I wish The Acolyte had explored the witches more, as we so rarely hear characters talk about them – or see them on screen at all – in the Star Wars franchise. This would have been interesting to see as the show seems to suggest a gender dynamic to be at play between the entirely female coven of witches on Brendok and the almost all-male team of Jedis that attacks them and is quick to jump to conclusions about their place in the galaxy.
Generally speaking, there is so much more that The Acolyte could have done with its characters’ backstories. While Mae and Osha’s childhood is the one that is explored the most, there is still a lot the audience does not know about their lives. If this applies to the protagonists, then it is even more true for the other characters. Both Jecki and Yord are barely explored, despite being very fascinating characters that could have been used to analyse the inherent contradictions within the Jedi Order. I would have also liked to see a lot more of Qimir’s story as he is undeniably one of the most fascinating characters in the entire show.
Overall, The Acolyte is a good show, perhaps even one of the best recent ones to come out of the Star Wars saga, but can it measure up with the original films of the franchise? Not really, but that would also not be a fair comparison, given the different format and the different media landscape now compared to when the original saga was made. The show’s odd pacing is ultimately its biggest weakness, but it remains a fascinating series that analyses important themes that seem to have always belonged to the Star Wars franchise.
The Acolyte is now available to watch on Disney Plus.
