What the heck with that ending, man?
Look, I’m sorry, but a real cliffhanger needs a series of events that make it an actual cliffhanger. Just because you stop before an event happens, or right at the crux of one, that doesn’t make it a cliffhanger. You had me. I was with you. And then, bam, you end it.
I’ve got a couple of gripes, but overall this isn’t a bad episode of The Acolyte. It’s Episode 4, and after last week’s episode, which was extraordinarily divisive, a few things came out that I want to clear up first.
When it comes to the twins, it’s been more than established for me over the last week that the two girls are in fact sisters, and that’s great. They’re fraternal twins. That means they’re not identical twins. I’ve had more than one insensitive person tell me they’re totally identical. You sound dumb. Please stop, because you’re only making things worse for yourselves.
As for the rest of the gripes: listen, I’m here. You guys compelled me to keep watching, and I’m going to keep watching. If you were all about me being negative last week, you’re probably not going to like some of what I’ve got to say this week. I don’t know why you would be, because I hate being negative. I’m all about people loving stuff. If you love this show, chef’s kiss, I’m here for it. I think we as Star Wars fans need to appreciate and love the things we love, hands down. We also shouldn’t be afraid to look at them with a genuine critical eye.
Now, if your genuine critical eye is that there are women and lesbians and witches and it’s woke and whatever, let me stop you. I’m not in your camp. Absolutely not in your camp. I’m a Star Wars fan. My wife’s a Star Wars fan, she’s pulled me in, and I’m really starting to enjoy the fandom. I love the people. I had to go online last week and watch real hardcore Star Wars fans get heartbroken, because they love this show. There are a lot of good things the show is doing, and I’m not against any of it.
If you’re looking for a step by step, inch by inch recap, I’m not going to do that. Hopefully you’ve watched the episode.
The Acting, Once, and Then the Writing
I’m going to get this out of the way and we’re not going to talk about it again, because it’s still the same. The acting is still atrocious. It’s very stiff. The actor who plays Sol is doing an amazing job, trying his hardest when English obviously isn’t his first language, and he’s emoting just great. Beyond him there isn’t a lot of good acting happening here.
Oh, that’s not true. The actor who plays Qimir is doing a really good job as that character, and I’ll come back to him. But overall I’m not a fan of the acting on this thing, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.
The writing was better this week. Still stiff in parts, and by stiff I mean it feels like we’re shoehorning some thoughts into this whole thing. This feels like a second or third draft, and it feels as if the notes that were given, by whomever, got wedged in instead of smoothly worked through, because there are places where things just feel stuck.
There’s an interaction between Jecki and Osha that feels genuine, but it also felt very obtuse. They needed to give us the fact that she was leaving so that Sol could come back, catch her and pull her back in, and that made the moment feel a little clunky. It’s just the transition between those things. That’s me speaking as a writer who’s actually worked in a Hollywood writers’ room before.
But that’s really it. Overall this was a much better episode. Except for the fact that it’s half an episode.
Stopping Is Not a Cliffhanger
Everybody online is saying it’s a cliffhanger, it’s great, greatest cliffhanger. No. I’m a Star Trek fan. We know something about cliffhangers, okay? Cliffhangers have to do a certain thing. I just saw Doctor Who last week, and Doctor Who was a wonderful cliffhanger. A little fall in areas, but you set things up to pay them off, and right as you’re leading up to that payoff, then you have your cliffhanger.
We should have gotten into this fight. Getting into the fight would have paid off all the slow burn at the beginning of the episode. And by the way, in a 30-minute episode you don’t have a whole lot of slow burn to give. The episode was actually 24 minutes if you count all the credits and everything else, because we watched it, and at 24 minutes this thing was done, and we went, what?
So you have them get into the fight. If whoever the Sith guy is is going to wipe the floor with them, fine. You start with that big explosion. Maybe they’re running around. He’s going after Mae, her sister wants to protect her, they run, and now Osha is faced with something big that has to happen. The other Jedi are stumbling over themselves. Sol barely makes it. And then maybe you kill Sol. You have him face the Sith and you kill him. You want Osha to be the hero, that’s clearly what’s being set up, or you want this backtrack that Mae does to pay off somehow. You want the two sisters working together. That’s where you ultimately want to take this moment.
Before that happens is where your cliffhanger comes in. Something has to happen where a decision has to be made. The point of a cliffhanger is to question what’s going to happen next.
Instead you’ve got Sith dude who shows up, blows them all back, and then what? Now you’re stuck there, and you already know what comes next. It’s going to be a fight. All we’re looking forward to now is the fight, which is probably only going to take the first few minutes of the next episode.
I’m hoping and praying to God that we’re not going to get another flashback bottle episode just to give us more context, because there are scenes from the trailers we haven’t seen yet. That may be because they’ve been cut, but I doubt it. You see that more in movies than you do with shows. There’s a series of shots of Kelnacca with a lightsaber, jumping and doing some things, and we haven’t seen that yet. We still have to see what happened. Sol name-drops it briefly: when this is all said and done, I’ll explain everything to you. You’re going to face your past, both of us will, and once we get safely to the ship, I’ll explain everything. So clearly there’s more information that needs to be explained to us. I’m hoping we don’t start the next episode in the past, in a bottle somewhere, only to come back to the fight toward the end and then get what would be a genuine stopping point.
I have a feeling that at the end of all this I’m going to need to rewatch everything straight through and do a series review then. Once we have the whole breadth of the story I’ll be able to process everything together. Because as it stands, the editing choices (I don’t mean the editing of each episode, I mean the choices of where to cut the episodes) have been up and down and up and down, just sort of running you ragged.
Just Make Them Part of the Story
Did I need the pronoun game with these creatures? Not really.
Listen, I get it. Star Wars is forward thinking. We want to be inclusive and diverse, and I agree, to a point. There comes a point when you start to wave it in everybody’s face over and over again, and it loses its efficacy and its genuineness as an in-story setup, and instead it becomes hey look, we’re diverse, hey look, we’re inclusive. Just make them part of the story.
Recently I heard another reviewer talk specifically about the Fallout show, and how Fallout has a female lead and a Black lead and all this other stuff, and why was there no pushback. It was Grace Randolph who brought it up. I think the answer is simple. They never made it a thing. Don’t make it a thing. Those of us who are enjoying this are enjoying it for what it is. You don’t have to keep telling us. I get it. I’m loving it. I see characters that look like me and I’m all for it. Now let’s get back to Star Wars-ing, please.
The Jedi Go Behind Their Own Council
So apparently the Jedi scheme behind the back of their own Council, which I thought was weird. Not weird in a bad way. This isn’t a canon thing or some nonsense like that. I’d just never really thought of it in that context. But sure. The green Jedi Master, and I can’t remember her name right this second, I’m sorry, has been saying over and over again that we need to be careful, our political enemies.
I’m guessing that’s a High Republic thing, because I haven’t read a whole lot of High Republic material. I tried. It felt very YA novel to me, and that may actually be the point. I’ve sort of shifted out of that YA mindset, so it’s a little difficult for me. The last YA series I read with any kind of seriousness was the Twilight series, because someone had dared me to read it, and I actually ended up enjoying the books.
Calm Down About Ki-Adi-Mundi
Our boy Ki-Adi-Mundi is there, and everyone seems to be losing their collective crap about him being there. It breaks canon, it’s this, it’s the other. Look, calm down. Everyone calm down.
I don’t know that it breaks canon that he’s there. Remember, this is a hundred years before the rise of the Empire. That’s before Revenge of the Sith, not Phantom Menace, and there are some years between Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. If you go by Revenge of the Sith as when the Empire rises, which I believe it is, then you’re actually not in a bad place. Also, dude’s got dark hair.
And everyone says, but he said the Sith haven’t been seen for a millennium. Yeah. What part of any of this changed that? Let’s be real for a second. I don’t think anything changed that. I’ve been answering those with this: what if the reason he doesn’t know is that nobody comes back? That’s a very viable circumstance. They send a bunch of Jedi and ain’t nobody making it out alive. For a series that’s gone to some dark places, nobody coming back is very plausible.
Qimir Is Dirtier Than We Think
We’re all in agreement that Qimir is the bad guy, right? Qimir is either the master or he’s the master’s apprentice of some kind, because they’ve clearly telegraphed that.
Normally I’d go, oh, they must be telegraphing it because it’s not going to be true. That takes smarter writers. I may be enjoying the ride, and I may be enjoying the way the universe is being expanded, but let’s be real for a moment. These aren’t the greatest writers in the world, and I don’t think they’re that deep or nuanced. I think they’re about as nuanced as a hammer to the head.
So I do firmly believe it’s Qimir. I said that to Mrs. Know-It-All back in Episode 2, mainly because there’s something about the way he carries himself. Everybody thinks that when he gestures and moves Osha out of the way, it looks like a gesture the masked guy might have made. That may or may not be the case, I don’t know. But I’m firmly of the mindset that Qimir is way more important and far dirtier than we think.
Mae’s Turn, and What Star Wars Is About
Considering how bad, how evil they played the child version of Mae, I found her turn to be abrupt. That isn’t a harsh criticism. That’s me as an observer, as a fan. Dude, we’re just pals geeking out here. It didn’t trip me up, but it made me go, really?
I’m all about a redemption arc. Star Wars is about redemption arcs. The only thing I think The Rise of Skywalker did well was that it gave Ben a redemption arc, and that’s very Star Wars, regardless of whether you thought it was messy how it happened. When you have space Hitler, Darth Vader, being redeemed at the end, trust me, redemption arcs are a thing in Star Wars.
Peak Jedi, Caught Sleeping
Kelnacca gets taken, by surprise or not, on a forest world, which by the way is awesome. I think it’s a great place and it looks really nice. And he comes from Kashyyyk, which is itself a forest world. Everyone’s saying that could never happen. No. This is how you show and don’t tell that the enemy is as powerful as they are. You show up and dude was caught sleeping at his station. Never even got an opportunity to get up and get his lightsaber out. This is a Jedi Master. I’m not going down the rabbit hole of how they could explain that, or that it’s impossible. What I’m going to say is, that’s how awesome this enemy is.
Did anyone else think this? Osha’s standing there looking so shell-shocked, and when the dude floats down behind her, I immediately got shades of Clone Wars Count Dooku, when he comes down. I loved that symmetry, and I thought it really showcased who this guy is.
Then there’s the Jedi being so clearly outmatched, and I’m okay with that. This many of them, how could it happen, how could it happen? Calm down. This is the High Republic. This is the peak of Jedi culture. In Phantom Menace, a little less than 100 years down the line, probably about 80, you get sitting-on-their-laurels, fat and lazy Jedi who’ve become blind to what the dark side is doing all around them. This is peak Jedi, at the height of their hubris, who can’t imagine anything can stop them. They’re used to dealing with thugs in bars, cutting off arms, or mind-tricking trade delegates into telling them the truth. They haven’t flexed these kinds of muscles in a long time.
So I don’t think it’s unrealistic that they show up thinking they can run it by the book. One of them even does the whole by order of the Jedi Council, turn yourself in. He thinks he’s talking to Mae, and he’s now realizing that what he’s really facing down is her master. They weren’t expecting it. It was a sneak attack, bottom line. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it actually feels really on brand for the Sith, if we’re going to call them that.
Who Is Under the Mask
I’ve heard speculation that this guy is an apprentice who becomes more powerful. I’ve also heard that he might be from a previous version of things, before the Rule of Two was put in place. In fact, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say we could very well be looking at the eventual creation of the Rule of Two coming out of this, because the position of acolyte isn’t often referenced. Honestly, I’ve seen it in the Star Wars role-playing game from back in the day, of which I’ve played my fair share. We’re talking a ton of Star Wars role-playing books. So I’m used to the concept of an acolyte, and I think it’s one that stems from many, many years before the Battle of Yavin. That’s getting into EU territory, so chances are a lot of it isn’t canon. That’s okay.
So who is Qimir? I’m of the mindset he’s one of two things. Either he’s a brand new character they invented, or he’s somebody we’ve heard of. I don’t think he’s the master himself. I don’t think he’s Plagueis, and a lot of people have been speculating that. He could be Darth Venamis, who trained alongside Plagueis under Tenebrous, or he’s Tenebrous. Chances are it’s going to be Venamis, somebody we know very little about from anything else, which would make it wide open canvas to play with. I’m totally here for it.
Somebody Cut the Back Half Off
Overall I enjoyed the half of an episode we got. Right as it got up to the part where it was starting to get good, they cut away, and it didn’t have the sense of completion a real one has. Even a part one has to have a beginning, a middle and an end, even if that end is leading us to something else.
Best example of that is The Empire Strikes Back. Empire lives wonderfully by itself, but it clearly ends with you knowing they must go on to something else. It isn’t a cliffhanger per se, but it’s enough that you know there has to be a part two, because the story isn’t over yet. The best cliffhangers tell you a complete story and then hinge on the next chapter.
This didn’t do that. This stopped. We got to the fight, the explosion happens, and the thing cut. Someone physically cut the back half off an episode, and that’s a cardinal editing sin.
I think that’s the biggest problem I’ve got with a lot of these Star Wars series, things like The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka. They don’t have enough material to make a full series out of, so they’re dicing up a big movie, and that’s not a good way to do things.
The Verdict
The Acolyte Episode 4 gets a 3 out of 5 on the Know-It-All Index, and yes, that’s out of five on purpose. I got half an episode, so you’re going to get half the Index. Instead of out of 10, we’re doing out of five.
I’m all about criticisms that are genuine, and mine are these: some of the writing ain’t great, and some of the acting isn’t wonderful. But overall I like what they’re adding to the universe. We’re seeing Jedi, and that’s all I ever wanted as a kid. We never got a lot of Jedi. It’s like I said in my first review.
I don’t like a lot of the hate stuff I’m hearing. So do me a favor, please. If you think I agree with you because of anything having to do with woke anything, you’re in the wrong place. This isn’t the classroom for you.
Was I right? Was I wrong? Do you take umbrage with some of it? Tell me who you think is under that mask, and keep it respectful and keep the discourse healthy. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. And never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
