This evening saw the debut of the fifth episode of Lucasfilm’s live-action series Star Wars: The Acolyte on Disney+, entitled “Night,” and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
“Night” begins with Osha (played by Amandla Stenberg) waking up on the ground of the planet Khofar after having been knocked unconscious by the dark-side Master at the end of the previous episode. It takes her a moment to get her bearings, but eventually she wanders back to Kelnacca’s hut to find the Jedi still battling the Master in the woods. But one unnamed Jedi Knight is already dead on the ground, and more are falling rapidly. Osha attempts to use her stun blaster to bring down the Master, but the villain walks it off immediately. Meanwhile in Kelnacca’s hut, Mae (also Stenberg) grabs the deceased Wookiee Jedi’s lightsaber, while outside Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) orders Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) to take Osha back to the ship after another particularly impressive display of the Master’s dark-side powers. Osha tries to convince Yord to turn back, but the Jedi insists the continue onward back into the woods for her safety, while the Master drops some hints about his past to Sol, who says he senses something familiar in the Force user.
As Mae attempts to sneak out of the hut she is ambushed by Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), and the two fight hand-to-hand– not to mention Force-to-Force– as the former attempts to arrest the latter for the recent murders of the Jedi Masters. But Jecki and Mae appear to be fairly evenly matched, much like the Master and Sol, who tries to get his foe to remove his helmet and reveal his identity. But the Master doesn’t want to have his thoughts read– apparently his helmet prevents that like Magneto’s in X-Men?– and both battles continue. Yord tells Osha about how the Master had the ability to get into his head, and Osha says that her mother was once able to do that with another Jedi. Jecki finally manages to overpower Mae and get binders onto her wrists, grabbing Kelnacca’s saber in the process and chastising Mae for stealing it. Then Jecki fights the Master with both lightsabers as the dark-sider tells Mae she could learn something from the Padawan.
Out in the woods, Osha and Yord pass through the place where they encountered the enormous bugs last week, and sensing that their allies are in danger, Osha gets an idea from the fact that the light from Yord’s lightsaber attracts the flying insects, and she finally convinces him to return and help. On the other side of the forest, the Master confronts Mae, slicing her binders from her wrists and calling her “weak.” But Sol and Jecki intervene, and this part of the fight ends with Jecki elbowing the Master’s helmet off and then succumbing to multiple wounds from his second, detachable lightsaber blade. As Jecki falls to her death, the Master’s face is revealed to be that of Qimir (the character played by Manny Jacinto in two previous episodes– no surprise there), and Sol is devastated by the loss of the Padawan. But Qimir at long last drops the word “Sith,” whips his cloak at Sol, covering him, while he pulls Mae toward him with the Force, choking her. Sol surrenders his lightsaber to save Mae’s life, but Qimir says he still has to kill every last one of them to protect the secret of his existence. Fortunately Yord and Osha arrive to enact their plan, which works, but not before poor Yord has his neck snapped by Qimir, killing him as well.
So Qimir literally gets carried away by the bugs, Osha stuns Mae, and Sol once again promises to tell the truth about what happened during that fateful night on Brendok long ago. Sadly before that can happen, Mae awakens, stuns Sol in turn, and switches places with her twin sister Parent Trap-style after Osha makes another arrest attempt, cutting her hair to more closely resemble her. Sol (the literal sole survivor among the Jedi on the planet) returns to the ship with Mae, unaware that she’s not really Osha, and they are joined by the tracker Bazil (Hassan Taj), who begins to suspect something is up immediately thanks to his sense of smell. We also see Qimir reclaim his helmet and come across an unconscious Osha in the woods, and the implication is that he may take her under his wing as his next “acolyte” in the wake of Mae’s betrayal. I thought this was a really exciting episode with a lot of great action, and I wasn’t even that disappointed about the Qimir reveal because Manny Jacinto is doing such a wonderful job so far as the alternate version of his character.
But beyond the twin-swap thing being a little on the silly side, my only major problem with this installment was that I didn’t buy why Yord had to take Osha back to the ship– I understand the plot reasoning behind them needing to reintroduce the insects, but it would have made more sense in the moment if Sol had ordered her to take shelter in Kelnacca’s hut or elsewhere during the battle. The Jedi obviously needed as many hands as possible in combating this enemy, and even once they were reunited their combined skills weren’t enough to take him down without the help of the environment. So maybe the Force does provide after all. Otherwise this was an extremely dark chapter for The Acolyte and the Jedi Order within, and I’m anticipating a sizable fan outcry over the deaths of Jecki and Yord. But stakes are necessary in order to make an antagonist feel like a genuine threat, and I’m intrigued by how the cast of the show has been whittled down to just its most essential players. I will say that showrunner Leslye Headland and her creative team did a great job in getting the audience to like those characters before offing them, and based on what has come before I’m thinking we will see more Jedi become one with the Force before this season is over.
New episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are released on Tuesday evenings, exclusively via Disney+.’