The Acolyte: Season 1: Episode 2: Revenge / Justice
What is it ? : A young girl distracts a gatekeeper droid while Mae sabotages it to sneak inside the Jedi Temple on Olega. She sneaks through the compound making her way to a meditating Jedi Master who she attempts to kill, but as well as hovering in the air, he is surrounded by the Force which stops her attacks. When the alarm is raised, Mae sneaks out of an open window on the ceiling.
Meanwhile aboard their ship, Yord Fandar is doubtful of Osha's explanation that it's her twin that did the murder, but that is put to rest when Master Sol is contacted by Master Rwoh back on Coruscant that another murder attempt has been made and the description matches Osha, who obviously couldn't have attempted the murder as she is in custody many systems away. So Sol and his team depart for Olega.
On Olega, Mae enters a shop and speaks to the shopkeeper who has taken that role as he is an associate of hers, she asks for a poison to take out the Jedi Master. And while he is hesitant to help as Mae must kill a Jedi Master without using a weapon, Mae points out that there's three Jedi who must die, and she need only kill one without a weapon, so she has two other attempts to satisfy their masters command.
Sol and the others arrive at the Olega Jedi Temple, and the Jedi there have found the girl who distracted the Gatekeeper Droid, and she identifies Osha as the person who hired her. They enter the temple, but Osha senses something and breaks away from the group.
Meanwhile Mae has re-entered the Temple through the open window, and she speaks to the meditating Jedi Master, telling him he has a choice. He can confess his actions to the Jedi Council, or he can take the poison she has brought. He slowly lowers to the ground and takes the poison, begging for forgiveness and telling her they thought they were doing the right thing.
By the time Osha enters, Master Torbin is lying dead, and as everyone else enters they assume she has killed Torbin. However Yord reveals he followed her when she broke away from the group and she is innocent as Torbin was already dead when she arrived. Osha identifies the poison as coming from her homeworld, and it is usually used for hunting.
They ask the Jedi from the Temple where a poison might be made, and they point out the apothecaries shop, but as they view it through macrobinoculars they realise the shopkeeper is different.
They confront the shopkeeper and under pressure he tells them that Mae will return as she has left items behind which she will want to recover. So they wait inside the shop, until Mae returns that night, confronting her outside in the square.
She attacks Sol, but he holds her in the air helpless, and reads her mind to find out who sent her, but realises that her master has hidden his identity from her, so she cannot identify them. She forces him out of her mind dropping to the ground and attacking once more.
They fight, but it ends when she uses the force to cause the sand on the ground to rise up in a sandstorm temporarily blinding the Jedi and allowing her to slip away.
Sol realises that Mae is targeting the Jedi who were on her homeworld years ago, so there remains himself and a Wookiee Jedi, Kelnacca. He contacts the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to tell them he intends to go to Kelnacca on the forest world of Khofar, but is told that the council wants him to return as they want a meeting to discuss the appearance of a trained outsider.
Mar confronts the apothecary, who helps her slip out of the city, but only after Osha spots her and shoots a stun bolt, missing. And on Khofar two scavengers want to loot a hyperdrive from a wrecked ship but are confronted by a Wookiee, who uses the Force to grab their blaster when they pull it on him. . .
High Points : Once again the story moves quickly, the mystery I find interesting, and it generally looks great.
It also confounds standard story tropes, with Osha being accused of the second murder when she is discovered standing over the body, but it instantly being dismissed by Yord as he witnessed her arriving and discovering the murder herself.
We're also left with some mystery as to Osha's feelings about her sister, although she's obviously not happy as being framed for the murders, when she spots her she fires, but misses. Even though we were told she knows how to handle the weapon with some skill. So has she deliberately missed? Was she just incapable of shooting her sister? Or was it just she's out of practice and was firing at a moving target? We also see Master Sol looking on, so know he has the same questions.
Low Points : Last episode I mentioned that I thought that some of the sets looked as if they were reused, and once again I feel like the Olega set looks a lot like the set used for Ferrix in Andor, with open shops onto dusty streets outside. It might just be a Star Wars look, but it just seems familiar, and therefore looks as if the series has been done on the cheap.
Also the Apothecary shopkeeper in this episode is played by Manny Jacinto, who played Jason in the series The Good Place, and it's obvious as he seems to be playing the character virtually the same way, which I found pretty distracting.
So what do you really think ? : I once again really enjoyed this one, the story is interesting and moving along at a good pace, the acting and characterisation is good (except in the one place it bothered me as mentioned above), and it all seems fresh and new. It's Star Wars, but not re-treading the same ground again and again (although that's not to say that it won't as it moves along).
Final Words : This series really seems to be split between 1 star and 5 star reviews, with a lot of the 1 star reviews (at least on Google) seemingly not having watched the series, or being based on the interviews done around the launch of the series. So firstly I'm reviewing the series, not the interviews, which I haven't even watched (so even if they do seem pretty disasterous, it doesn't matter to me). And secondly I'll rate each episode as I go along, based on what's in it, not what rumours tells me might be in a future episode.
And as said above, I'm liking what I've seen so far.
Score : 9/10
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