I Never Became A Jedi

The Acolyte Episode 8 "The Acolyte"

SPOILERS WILL SEE YOU IN HELL, JEDI

Before I get into the response, I would like to report that The Acolyte taught me patience.

I am someone who is literally refreshing my Apple TV or whatever to wait for the new episode to appear and watch it immediately. I get a little excited about Star Wars (gestures to Substack), obviously. But for 24 hours before The Acolyte’s Season 1 Finale appeared online, there was a thunderstorm that knocked out the internet near my home in the Western Catskills. I had to wait 90 minutes to watch the show. It was a very long ninety minutes.

But, lo and behold, I did in fact watch it at 10:30 pm and nothing exploded and no one died. My compulsiveness was not indulged and all was well. It’s almost as if, and hear me out, I was able to survive not having everything instantly.

The Acolyte, as a series, believes that patience is a virtue. Almost everything satisfying about the show reveals itself like an origami swan being unfolded. Watching it week to week is one experience, and now, there’s The Acolyte’s complete thought, which is a different experience. That’s very much to my personal taste. It’s rich and layered.

“The Acolyte,” the eighth episode of The Acolyte, tantalizes as much as it reveals, showing us that there’s so much more to come, even as it gives us a clear conclusion to its initial story arc. Who has targeted these four Jedi and why? Who is the eponymous Acolyte? All is revealed, mercilessly.

In Revenge of the Sith, we see Anakin Skywalker fall from grace, and it’s tragic. But we also know everything will basically be all right. We know, in the end, Anakin will become himself again. Redemption is already on the horizon.

The Acolyte, though, offers no such solace. It brings Jedi Master Sol to an end without the promise of redemption. He returns to the scene of his greatest mistake, haunted and flailing, wishing only he could make Osha understand that he thought he was doing the right thing. He dies without being forgiven. Worse, he dies as an example to Osha of the Jedi’s failings. And then, to protect the larger reputation of the Jedi Order, he’s blamed for everything. It would be one thing if he chose this, like Batman at the end of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. But it’s, instead, Venestra Ro’s decision. She apologizes to his corpse.

That’s bleak. This is about as bleak as Star Wars gets. It’s bleaker than Andor, which has moral ambiguity but is basically about the cost of idealism. It’s a hopeful show, at its core. But as I watched Sol helplessly repeat that he did the right thing, and then have his breath stopped in the middle of the words “I love y-” I mean, that’s as cold as Hoth.

But it’s not played, entirely, as bleak. One of the masterstrokes of the series is how it treats Osha’s journey to the Dark Side. Yes, she murders Sol. Yes, she loses her family twice over and even lets go of her sister. But this isn’t played, purely, as corruption. It’s presented as acceptance of herself. Ben Solo’s true self is subsumed by the Dark Side. Darth Vader literally says that he killed Anakin Skywalker. But Osha's fury comes from a recognizable place. When she spectacularly turns Sol’s lightsaber red in her hands, it seems like we’re seeing her true self emerge.

The Acolyte spares no one. Venestra Ro? Just trying to manage the terrible things she’s found, as she feels political and personal challenge from an ambitious politician….who also happens to have very founded concerns. And, what’s worse, her own pupil is the true perpetrator of the crimes.

Sol, of course, dies objecting to the end, asserting that he only did what he thought was right, never once relenting or admitting that what he did could have been wrong. He knows there were tragic consequences, but instead of gaining a kind of insight into his younger self, he keeps justifying and rationalizing. You never doubt his love, his sweetness, and his good intentions. But he also never once apologizes, even to the end.

The Stranger who brings Osha into the fold? I mean, perhaps there’s an anti-hero in there somewhere, but his brutal murder of the Jedi, the way he calls Jecki Lon “it” undercuts all of that. You can see why Osha chooses him - he’s offering her a path away from the Jedi who lied to her - but is he going to make her kinder or crueler? I think the answer is very clear.

Mae, for her part, has a fascinating transformation. Her flip from darker sister to someone who just wants justice seems to come from what drives her. She believes, at the beginning of the series, that she is seeking revenge for the loss of her sister. Now, at the end of the season, she knows her sister is alive, and that seems to be enough for her to let go of her rampage and demand justice instead of death. Osha, though, has never dealth with any of this, winds up in a much darker place. Mae sacrifices her memory to protect her sister, which leaves her in the hands of the very Order she recently reduced by three.

The finale, though, isn’t just heavy: it’s also very much in the mode of Star Wars. The characters’ mode of speech, the blocking of the scenes, the approach to duels, themes, fit comfortably alongside the rest of the series, especially The Phantom Menace. It’s fresh but faithful, with rich overtones and myth, but also just plain fun lightsaber duels and cool shit.

It felt, to my eye, like the first of a trilogy. This is Osha becoming The Acolyte. But who is that dark figure on the Unknown Planet, lurking? What will Yoda contribute to the story? Will Osha and Mae be somehow reunited? See you back here for Part 2. (Whether that Part 2 becomes a second season of a series of books or comics has yet to be announced.)

In fact, I wondered if you presented this story to someone who had never seen Star Wars before, if it would function perfectly well as an introduction to the Star Wars universe. There’s nothing in the story that requires any other information or other movies to understand. Yes, it presupposes the reemergence of the Sith and the cracks in the Jedi Order that will lead to its downfall, but if you don’t know what’s to come, there’s an awful lot here to enjoy. Mae and Osha story, essentially, is just beginning.

The where does this leave the Jedi? It’s certainly true that the Jedi over the last few years of storytelling have seemed a little less than ideal. In the original trilogy becoming a Jedi is synonymous with becoming a transcendent hero. But these Jedi are fallible, to put it mildly.

I think there’s room for the Jedi to be an ideal that’s difficult to live up to. The Jedi are a light in the galaxy. But that light is, for a time, snuffed out. In Episode I, we see the reemergence of the Sith. Here, we look back a little further at the impurities of the Jedi that are exploited to bring them down. That fits into where Star Wars takes their story perfectly well, and leaves room for an Order to remerge that learns from the past. Perhaps a New Jedi Order, far in the future.

One thing we’re seeing all over the world is a broad skepticism about systems and institutions. Systems, governments, religions, institutions, are made up of people. People are imperfect. That doesn’t mean those systems need to be jettisoned or that they shouldn’t exist. In Attack of the Clones, the Queen of Naboo says “The day we stop believing Democracy can work, is the day we lose it.” I think that applies to the Jedi as well.

They become eroded by institutional self-protection and inertia, and become unable to counter the growing threat of the Dark Side. They’re imperfect. But is the Dark Side this sterling alternative? Osha watched The Stranger murder people she cares about, but holds Sol more accountable than The Stranger for murdering someone in the end.

Why? Because she expected better of Sol. The Stranger isn’t pretending to be noble or kind, and so he can’t let Osha down. Embracing him is embracing a kind of honesty, even if that honesty doesn’t leave her in a morally better place. And doesn’t that seem like what’s happening so often in our world? Noble people who mean well fall short, and we’re furious. People who don’t even pretend to be noble stand firm, and no one blinks an eye. The wicked are graded on a curve because, hey, even if they’re dangerous, at least they’re doing it right in front of our faces.

That’s why it’s far easier to break things down than to build them. The Dark Side offers a quick and easy path: let your emotions go, even if people die, strike back at those who wronged you. But it also offers catharsis, and that’s not just an indulgence, it’s something human beings need. The Jedi Order’s suppression of emotions maybe be well-intentioned - to control the powerful and keep them from doing harm - but it’s also a little inhuman. Emotions, as Senator Reyancourt notes, are harder to control than the Force itself.

What a series. This show has such a rare blend of ultra-fandom, sophistication, freedom and verve. It’s an alchemical mix of the old and the new. A heady brew. The kind that can only be cooked up in a cauldron, by a coven of creative witches, bringing all their magic to bear.

I cannot see what they serve up next.