The Acolyte: The Acolyte Thoughts
Osha and Mae’s journey comes to a tragic and unfulfilling end.
The Acolyte ended its eight-week run with some highs, but unfortunately, it is also the pinnacle example of why Disney Plus’ weekly release strategy fails its creative.
Trading Places
Despite the marketing of a mystery-thriller, The Acolyte never had much mystery as things unfolded fairly predictably. Once the Stranger took Osha, it was clear that she would become the Acolyte.
The episode starts where “Teach/ Corrupt” left off, with Osha breathing in the mask as the Stranger watches. She gets a vision that also affects the Stranger (his eyes turn black) before he removes the helmet. Osha has seen a future event, one where Mae kills Sol.
The Stranger, wanting to see if Mae completes this final lesson, agrees to take Osha to Brendok to confront her.
With what happened 16 years ago revealed in “Choice,” the viewers now have more information than Osha. With full context, Sol’s actions to return to Brendok are more of him justifying his actions to himself than looking for proof for the Jedi Council. Sol’s intentions are unclear enough that Bazil prevents Sol from what he believes is an attempt to shoot down Mae’s escape ship.
Things move quickly from here; the Stranger and Osha arrive on Brendok, and the former separates from the latter to find Sol for another epic fight sequence. More surprisingly, we get a twin fight between Osha and Mae.
The Acolyte has finally shown the full potential of Jedi in a lightsaber fight. The Stranger is no match for Sol, whose only weakness is Osha, which makes her final scene with him all the more tragic.
How do you kill a Jedi without a weapon? Force-choke. Turns out, it was never that complicated.
And here, we get another new live-action experience: the bleeding of a kyber crystal. When Osha lashes out at the Stranger after killing Sol with his lightsaber, it slowly turns red.
We have seen a bleeding of a crystal in a Star Wars Jedi: Survivor cut scene where Dagan Gera, a Jedi Master also from The High Republic, bleeds his kyber before fighting Cal Kestis.
Besides being a cool visual treat, it marks Osha’s complete transformation and an anti-climatic moment that would have more weight if it hadn’t felt so sudden. Mae and Osha’s character arcs are supposed to be the crux of this series, but they are the least compelling.
Having two full flashback episodes hurt their arcs, pulling focus from the point that these girls have never had a say in their lives. When Mother Aniseya tries to give Osha autonomy, Sol kills her due to a misunderstanding. Sol and Osha’s father/daughter relationship is built on a lie, and the series never provides that revelation with time to breathe before Osha kills Sol in anger.
Another reason their arc doesn’t completely work might simply be that one actress plays both parts, so we never truly see them together in the same frame. Chemistry does not always have to rely on being onscreen together, but it plays a significant part. Despite Amandla Stenberg’s talent, some obstacles are difficult to overcome.
Mae’s growth from wanting revenge to justice feels more grounded, but her ending (having the memories of her sister and everything that happened stripped from her) immediately erases that growth. It is one of the biggest grievances the writers have committed, even though most fan ire is on behalf of Sol’s character (more on that later).
Now Mae is with the Jedi, specifically Vernestra, who gives Sol a funeral on Brendok and then blames the entire series’ events on him to the Senators before (assumingly) confiding the truth to Yoda. Vernestra recruits Mae to help track down the Stranger, who is confirmed to be her former Padawan.
The Stranger is sincere about wanting a pupil; now he has Osha. With Plaguies keeping a close eye on things, we might never know how that turns out.
The twins do not get a happy ending-very few Star Wars characters do-and they do not get a satisfying ending.
And that is a good summation of this entire series.
The Return of Negative Character Arcs
The best part about The Acolyte has been Sol and the writers playing on fans’ tendencies to compare Jedi. Sol was immediately likened to Qui-Gon Jinn, a Jedi Master whom fans hold in high regard despite his questionable approach to bringing young Anakin Skywalker into the Jedi Order.
However, the comparisons to Qui-Gon are not the only thing The Acolyte shares with the Prequels.
Throughout the series, hints were given that Sol was still not in control of his emotional attachment to Osha. Ultimately, he still justified his actions on Brendok by protecting Osha and trying to prove that the twins are a vergence in the Force.
And while the actions were bad enough, the lie destroyed any chance of forgiveness from Osha.
Understandably, Sol’s fans would be upset by his character arc. Still, the discourse and accusation of “character assasination” remind us that Star Wars tends to have more negative character arcs than the average franchise. Per author K.M. Weiland’s Creating Character Arcs, three types of arcs fit into a negative character arc.
One of the most popular examples is Anakin Skywalker’s corruption arc in Episodes I — III.
The path of a corruption arc is:
- Character sees truth
- Rejects truth
- Embraces lie
It is the most common use of the Negative Arc, but Sol’s arc is closer to the Fall Arc, which is more commonly associated with tragedies like Wuthering Heights.
The path of a Fall Arc is:
- Character believes lie
- Clings to lie
- Rejects new truth
- Believes worse lie
Even more impressive is that Osha follows the third Negative Arc, the Disillusionment Arc.
The path of a Fall Arc is:
- Character believes lie
- Overcomes lie
- New truth is tragic
Where Osha ends up could be viewed as positive by some. She better understands her powers and is reconnected to the Force, but it is not the light side.
I wish Sol and Osha had had a more extensive conversation before the latter killed him instead of overhearing Sol say he killed Mother Aniseya. However, Sol’s fear of facing Osha was his greatest weakness, fueling his arc.
I respect the ambition of Leslye Headland and the writing team on The Acolyte. The whole series was a big swing, and once the toxic dust settles, time passes, and bad-faith grifters move on, we’ll better understand its place in Star Wars fandom.
The Tragedy of The Acolyte
The character arcs are not the only tragic part of The Acolyte series. Facing an unprecedented level of online hate was bound to happen in a series whose two leads were non-white and whose showrunner was LGBQTA+, seem to draw out the worst corners of fandom.
But Disney did not do this show any favors with a weekly release given the script. Streaming services are proving to be more of a money pit than the cash cow studios had hoped for, and a weekly release is the primary way of preventing fast subscriber churn.
However, studio executives and creatives must also examine each show individually and decide whether a weekly release is the best strategy.
Andor would have benefited from a release strategy similar to Arcane on Netflix. Arcane was divided into three arcs (three episodes each), released one week apart.
Andor also had discernible arcs but was released weekly (aside from the first three episodes). Mirroring Arcane’s release strategy would have yielded a better viewership hold for Andor, which remains the least-watched Star Wars series behind The Acolyte. That makes this conversation more complicated as you cannot dismiss The Acolyte’s low viewership due to falling within a defined parameter of the culture wars.
Disney Plus is not HBO Max or HBO, whose shows can hold interest weekly as appointment television. Not many shows today can emulate The Last of Us, whose viewership grew weekly and ended on a series high.
None of this fixes some pacing issues within the episodes, but it is hard to argue that episodes like four and five could have been a single mid-season banger. Or that the weekly buildup to the mystery on Brendok made it more evident that The Acolyte was taking too long to answer questions.
The Future
Bob Iger already stated that reducing the number of shows on Disney Plus is on the horizon, but fans will better understand what this means for Star Wars until the Star Wars Celebration in April 2025.
Rightly, Disney has been pushing to get a Star Wars film into production and theaters as soon as possible. The Mandalorian and Grogu has started filming and is on track to be in theaters in May 2026, making another attempt to return Star Wars to summer blockbuster status.
Star Wars will still have a holiday presence in December with Skeleton Crew, which seems like a Lucas/Spielberg mash of Sci-Fi wonder (similar to Super-8), including a former Spielberg leading man in Jude Law. Then Andor season two in 2025 and Ahsoka season two likely in 2026. On the business side, this is better breathing room between series to give fans time to miss Star Wars live-action.
Creatively, the future is less clear. Will talent continue to want to work on Star Wars if it comes with the baggage of a fandom invested with misogyny and racism? As mentioned, Star Wars is not the only fandom dealing with that, but it is the one most associated with it.
The Acolyte is the first live-action representation of The High Republic, a new era in which Disney/Lucasfilm has invested heavily. That alone means we could see a second season (do you leave a tease of Plagueis out there to dry?). Or perhaps once The High Republic Phase Three wraps up, that whole story will be adapted either theatrically or as a series.
For now, The Acolyte viewership shows that perhaps Star Wars fans, like Sol, are still holding on to the past.
Watching The Acolyte has been quite an experience similar to watching The Last Jedi. The series was a big swing for Lucasfilm, which is encouraging creatively. Still, given that The Last Jedi was followed by Rise of Skywalker (a misstep in a “course correction” attempt), I can only imagine the wrong lessons they will take post- The Acolyte.
Originally published at http://creditsandcanon.com on August 16, 2024.
