Mini Series The Acolyte 1.05 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

How do you shift from I'll turn myself in to the jedi to I'm gonna expose the jedi. so quickly?

Not really consistant.

 

I don’t know what the heck Mae is doing and why. But it’s a mystery. So maybe it’ll make sense in the end.

 

Given that Qimir was trying to kill Mae I doubt that Mae is hoping Qimir does anything to benefit her. I think it's likely that Sol will tell Mae what really happened on Brendok, which will make her a bit conflicted, angry at the Jedi but also probably angry at one or both of her mothers and the coven. At the same time Qimir will convince Osha that the Jedi did some really awful stuff on Brendok including brainwashing her and she'll possibly turn on the Jedi and possibly to the dark side.

 

Im still going to be amazed if her mothers are made to look bad. But we will see. I feel like this has to be full Jedi did wrong here.

But we will see.

 

I would really like to see some force moves from Osha. How much training did she actually get? We see her try to use the Force in ep 1, and failed, and nothing even remotely since.

Come on! Use the force!

And I'm not convinced she's going to the dark side. Even if she's told the 'truth' about what happened in the past, I don't see that as being some light bulb switch to make her evil. She just doesn't seem that kind of person. I could see her being angry at Sol. But to the point of 'yeah, ok, I'm gonna join the Sith" now? I don't see it.

 

I wonder why they showed Kelnacca's broken lightsaber after Jecki threw it. Could it play an important role in the next episodes?

 

We’re not done with Kelnacca yet. We still don’t know why the camera and music was focusing on the witch symbols in his house in episode 4. And why there was an emphasis on his lightsaber in episode 5.

Also…wasn’t there a scene in one of the trailers of what looked like Wookiee hands choking someone?

 

Bor..... Mae is not a changeling, but she did want to turn herself in to Kelnacca.
I have to admit, though, I really enjoy reading it the way you wrote it.

 

I've watched it twice and I can't decide if I am seeing this right, or it is a trick of the shadows and/or bad CGI...

Does Qimir "Force heal" Osha? She has a small wound on her side.

I think that to this point, to the extent that Force Healing "is a thing", it was seen as a Light Side skill?

I mention that because I have heard some speculation that ACOLYTE intends to portray things as "more gray", and we do see Kelnacca drawing those symbols the witches use AND I thought a few looked very yin/yang.

But hey, as I said above, not sure if the Force Heal thing is there or not. It it is, it is fast and subtle.

 

That’s where all this mystery is going. She’s a werewookie. Explains everything.

 

That's largely how I feel too. I was more bummed at the squandered potential of Jecki and Yord more than anything. We barely got to know these characters. They were one step above being red shirts.

Totally agree. The only thing consistent is a how inconsistent Mae's motivations have been. As I mentioned before maybe Mae being rejected by Osha will be her motivation for exposing the Jedi because she blames them for turning Osha against her? Jeez, how many time is this going to happen with Mae? "I want revenge on the Jedi! I don't want revenge on the Jedi! I do want revenge on the Jedi!" What the hell?

I think the Wookie hand choking scene and a scene of Kelnacca attacking Torbin with a lightsaber will all be included as a flashback scene in a future episode, possible the next episode.

 

Maybe it’s as simple (and IMO, as dumb) as the Jedi having been mind-controlled into doing something horrible, including attacking themselves and killing the coven. I hope not.

 

Buckle up! I'm definitely thinking we're going to get some serious mind controlled Jedi on Jedi action.

 

Of course Qimir isn't going to try to turn Osha as a favor to Mae. But even you are predicting that Qimir will try to turn Osha against the Jedi, no? You don't see how Mae can benefit from that? How Osha might be more receptive to Mae's offer if she now believes she was betrayed by the Jedi?

 

It felt like a prologue to a macabre version of Das Doppelte Lottchen. I’m glad that the stiff plank Yord got snuffed out. Not happy about Jecki being turned into a colander. Slightly outraged to be honest.

Seems as though the Jedi have had to pay a high price for their aggravated trespass. Bazil’s on the case though. So there are some positives.

 

That's what I suspect. It makes sense to me that the real master is manipulating Qimir's "I just want to do what I want" personality for more traditional Sith purposes. It also occurs to me that "Sith" might just be a Jedi term they apply generically to any dark sider in this era. With the Sith being a species historically, perhaps the later meaning of the term was just adopted by the religion/cult based on it being what the Jedi referred to them as.

 

When it comes to the twins, I don't see them ever being on the same side. I think for one to switch sides the other has to die.

 

Mae has functioned as a main antagonist for most of the first episodes, but this is all in question and changes after she decides to quit being a Sith Acolyte.

We see that her desire for family turns out to be more powerful than her desire for revenge, so that effectively, at least for a time, changes her arc.

However, her current position is unclear. Does she still want to turn herself in? Does she plan to finish her revenge now that it seems her sister doesn't want to reunite? Does she think she killed her sister? Does she imagine her revenge now as revealing the Jedi as hypocrites?

I think this ambiguity is okay for now, but in the next episode we need to learn quickly what it is she has in mind -- because we need some desire to continue to drive the plot.

As for Osha, she's not driven the plot as a protagonist at all, I think. She's voiced some desire here and there, but they haven't been strong enough to take us anywhere. Once she mentioned she just wants to return to her life with Pip. But she also seemed, for a moment, to wish to possibly return as a Jedi when Sol asked her to come on the mission.

Depending on your POV, Mae has been both protagonist and antagonist, or we could even call her the protagonist since this show is about the Sith perspective, and that the Jedi have been the antagonist.

I like how someone before mentioned that Mae will eventually develop her desire and become the protagonist, and, I agree, that seems likely. She really hasn't been able to do this yet because she doesn't understand her past, and so this creates an interesting plot structure where knowledge towards the end of the show will create our main protagonist/antagonist.

I use both terms here for Osha because the show is subverting our notion of who the protagonist/antagonist of the show really is.

EDIT: I think it's okay, by the way, for character's motivations to change during the course of a plot, but the problem is when those motivations and reasons for changing motives is left unclear.

 

It's not inconsistent. Mae changes her tack once Osha rejects her and tries to arrest her. That's quite a slap in the face... especially as Mae feels like all she was doing was staying true to their upbringing/culture.

 

If she turned herself in to the jedi she would be arrested. What did she think that meant?

 

I haven’t been leaving my individual episode reviews so far, but my thoughts on Episodes 1-4 could probably be summed up as “interesting ideas hampered by dubious execution”, so by no means am I suggesting that it couldn’t have been handled better, just that the pieces are there and just because lurches in Mae’s behavior are perhaps too abrupt, they’re not random.

To me it’s as simple as, what other moves does she have? Not a lot, and I think you’ll find most of them have pretty obvious downsides.

 

Obviously, if Mae can find a way out of her situation so that she 1) isn't murdered by Qimir and 2) doesn't have to turn herself in, then she's going to take it.

Turning herself into Kelnacca seemed like the right move, but we can call it purely situational.

Once her master attacks and starts slaughtering Jedi, the only thing that makes sense to her is to escape.

Clearly, she learns very quickly that the Jedi cannot protect her. Even if she turns herself in, this Sith is so deadly he could probably still find a way to kill her.

EDIT: Honestly, what would have been good in the show would be to have a conversation between Qimir and Mae in E1 that establishes that he will kill her if she fails her mission. Then we know right from the start that she's in a complex situation. It's not merely an I want revenge situation, but also a "I'll get killed if I don't succeed" situation.

 

If this show has taught me anything it's that Mae is queen of the flipflops so I'm betting that if Osha turns on the Jedi Mae will have flipflopped again and will try to talk Osha out of going after the Jedi. I don't think this show ends with Osha and Mae both on the dark side teaming up to take down the Jedi that did them wrong.

 

Yeah, turning herself into Kelnecca would've been better but given the lack of time available she settled for turning herself into Osha.

 

Wait. What if Sol is Mae and Osha’s father, and the Jedi covered it up? Would explain him being so protective of them, and believing Mae is good at heart. Now I’m just throwing nonsense out there…but. Yeah. No.