The Acolyte: Season One – Review
The latest Star Wars series, The Acolyte has just completed its first season (we don’t know yet if there will be a second season). This series is unique in that it takes place during the High Republic era, thus making it chronologically the earliest stories, far earlier than Star Wars: Episode One.
The story revolves around two twins named Osha and Mae, daughters of a witch. Mae is killing Jedis for a reason that is left initially uncertain. This leads a Jedi master named Sol to investigate, bringing Osha, a former Padawan back into the picture.
The season continually looks back to the witch’s community and the childhood of Osha and Mae, for it is in that background we find the keys to the mystery.
Add to that is an attack by a Sith with a scary helmet that features an evil grin. This is a fearsome warrior that is able to take on a whole group of Jedis and be victorious.
There have been numerous critiques of the Acolyte. One is that it is “woke,” meaning most of the major characters are women or people of colour (or both). In fact, white males only play a minor role in the series. Plus there are some lesbian characters. I really did not see any of this as a problem. The actors they had were very good (I especially liked Sol) and there is no danger that white males are going to lose representation in Hollywood.
The other concern, which I can understand, is that it sometimes seemed uncertain as to what story they were trying to tell. Is this the story of Osha and Mae and the witch community? Is this the story of Sol investigating murders? Is this the story of Qimir, the evil Jedi/Sith, who is trying to bring on Mae as his Padawan?
Ultimately it is all of these. There are times that we wonder where we are in the story, but I thought the final episode wrapped it up fairly well. They may have tried to do too much but overall it ended up being a good story.
While not up to the quality of the Mandalorian, I do think the Acolyte was pretty good. I enjoyed it and looked forward to each episode. It is no where as bad as some of the critics make it out to be.
I do hope that we get more stories set in this era of the Star Wars mythology. There is so much more to explore. And that is without me spoiling some of the surprises that we get in this season.
