‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ Premiere | Review

The two-episode premiere of Star Wars: The Acolyte starts the new series on a fast-paced, inquisitive tone. With many of the questions set up by the trailers already answered, The Acolyte stands to take audiences in unexpected directions.

The rest of this article contains spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of The Acolyte

“Our memories are lessons,” Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae) reminds his young Padawan, Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) in the first episode. “If we don’t meditate on the past, we’re doomed to repeat it.”

This piece of wisdom, an opposite of sorts to Qui-Gon Jinn’s warning in The Phantom Menace of not minding the future at the expense of the present, perfectly encapsulates the theme of these first two episodes. A theme that we might call “The Theme of Two.”

Always One, Born as Two

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of “Lost/Found” and “Justice/Revenge,” and certainly the aspect the episodes highlight the most, is the soft revelation of Amandla Stenberg’s twin characters. Though audiences already knew about the knife-wielding Mae, we had little to no introduction to her twin sister Osha until we meet her in the middle of a Trade Federation ship.

Stenberg’s talents as an actor shine through Mae and Osha, as they never feel like the same character. Stenberg fully engrosses whichever twin they are playing in ways that clearly show what drives Mae and Osha apart and what pulls them together. Indeed, everything we learn about the two sisters only works to add intrigue to a plot we might only have the barest understandings of.

Mae’s and Osha’s tragic pasts are also revealed to be stories split in two. Both sisters have lived the past sixteen years believing the other was dead. Osha is under the impression that Mae herself lit the fire that consumed their family and home. Mae is set on revenge against the Jedi she presumably blames for her tragedy.

What really happened that night on Brendok? What did Jedi Master Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman), lured into suicide by Mae’s poison, mean when he said “We thought we were doing the right thing”?

It seems that Mae’s and Osha’s pasts hold the answers to something the Jedi would rather forget.

But if “our memories are lessons” then the Jedi should know that the past cannot – and should not – stay hidden forever.

I Give You You

The fiery night on Brendok is not the only mystery these first two episodes have set up, though. With Mae feeding her desire for revenge through the teachings and promptings of a masked Master who carries a red lightsaber, audiences are left with yet another mysterious antagonist to theorize about.

Could they be Qimir (Manny Jacinto), Mae’s partner-in-crime of sorts? Though he appears bumbling and relatively harmless at first glance, his slippery conversation with Osha and the way he easily countered Mae’s attacks indicates there’s more to him than we know.

Could they be another character we’ve already met, hiding behind the mask and adding to my “Theme of Two”?

Or are they a new character altogether, hiding in the shadows and waiting for the perfect moment to make themselves known?

Whoever the mysterious figure is, their use of Mae’s thirst for revenge makes them a serious threat. Both to the Jedi Order and to Mae herself.

“An Acolyte… kills the dream,” they say to Mae on the cliffs of an unknown planet. The dream Jedi hold of peace and prosperity. No weapon can kill them, they claim, but the death of the dream can.

But what happens if Mae doesn’t follow through with her murderous plans?

Or worse, what happens if she does?

You Give Me Me

While Mae fights her way through the Jedi, we learn rather quickly that her own sister was once a Jedi, too. Taken in by the Order and trained by Master Sol, Osha stayed ten years before leaving for good. Though she insists to former friend, Jedi Knight Yord (Charlie Barnett) that she left on her own terms, there’s an untold secret there, too. Evident when Yord reminds her that Jedi Master Indara, who Mae took as her first killing, told the Jedi Council to discontinue Osha’s training.

Later, when Osha has a private moment with Sol, the discussion of her leaving resurfaces alongside their memories of Brendok. Sol says that he has learned to accept what happened that night and to move on. Osha tells him it was never as easy for her. “Perhaps I wasn’t a very good teacher,” Sol admits. It’s a sweet moment, tinted a bit by suspicion that maybe Sol hasn’t moved on quite as much as he claims.

Jung-Jae’s performance as Sol keys us in once more to the “Theme of Two” at play both in this scene and throughout the two episodes. There are two sides to every story, but maybe there are two sides to every person as well. The one we show to other people, and the one we’re afraid of them discovering.

There’s an intricate link between those two sides for the characters here. A link slowly becoming more visible that ties together what happened on Brendok, Osha leaving the Order, and Mae’s revenge against the Jedi.

If Mae’s mysterious Master reveals themselves to be a character we’ve already met, the link will only grow. When it grows taught and is visible for everyone to finally see, the resulting effects might just be what this show is all about.

New episodes of The Acolyte air every Tuesday at 9pm (EST) / 6pm (PST) on Disney+.