The Acolyte: Season 1: Episode 3: Destiny
What is it ? : We flashback to 16 years earlier, a younger Osha is sitting under a tree meditating, she holds a butterfly like creature with the Force before releasing it, but instantly it is held again and her sister Mae arrives. Mae holds the creature and it begins to become distressed so Osha asks her sister to release it, which she reluctantly does.
Mae tells her that she shouldn't be here as the tree is dangerous, which Osha tells her is only if she eats it, and that they have been told to not leave the fortress, but Osha wanted some alone time as she isn't comfortable being with her twin all the time. But they begin returning, only for it to be shown that Sol is watching them.
They return to the Fortress which is filled with women with no men, or other children, and Osha is scolded by a Zabrak, Mother Korel, for leaving the fortress.
The inhabitants are revealed to be a coven of witches, and they discuss the Jedi who have arrived, and then begin to demonstrate the Force to the two girls calling it The Thread, and by pulling on the Thread they can effect the world. Their mother, Aniseya demonstrates by Force Pushing two younger witches while they attempt to resist, and then it is the twins time, and Mae resists but Osha hides behind her sister, resulting in more scolding from Mother Korel.
The twins are to be put through their ascension the next day, but Osha isn't sure that's what she wants. And when the ceremony comes about, while Mae is put through it, Osha's is interrupted as Jedi Master Indara enters the courtyard, flanked by Sol, Padawans Torbin and Kelnacca. The girls hide in the mass of witches, and the Jedi say they are here as they've heard that the witches are training children, and the Jedi alone have the right to test and train children in the Force. The witches deny there are any children there, but Sol spots Osha and speaks to her, leading to Indara demanding that the children be brought to their ship for testing.
The next day, the witches discuss attacking the Jedi, but Aniseya tells them that will just lead to more Jedi coming, so agrees to allow the children to be tested, but they are briefed to do their worst in the tests, to do the opposite of how they feel. The other witches seem concerned that the Jedi will discover how the sisters were conceived.
They travel to the Jedi ship, and while Mae is taken inside for testing, Osha watches Kelnacca repairing a speeder bike, and shares a moment with him. Mae returns having failed the test and Osha enters the ship to be tested.
Sol holds up a screen, testing Osha in the same fashion as the Jedi council tested Anakin. She wrongly identifies the first image, but Sol tells her she was right and Osha looks disturbed. A second time this happens, but Osha blurts out that she knows what the image really was and he's wrong, so Sol takes her aside.
He asks her if she has been told to answer wrongly, and speaks to her about his own testing, how he was scared, but when he got to the Jedi temple there were lots of people like him and he felt a belonging to the Jedi. He tells her that she should tell the truth.
She emerges from the ship later, and Mae realises that she has passed the test instead of failing it as they agreed and is angry at her sister for lying to her. But Osha explains to her mother that she wants to be a Jedi, she doesn't want to be a witch, and after consideration, Aniseya agrees that Osha should go with the Jedi and follow her own path and be true to herself.
As she packs her things, Mae comes in raging at her, and locks her in her room before setting fire to the Fortress. As the fire advances at her, Osha uses tools to unlock a hatch and escape into the guts of the fortress, where she sees Mae sabotage the buildings generator which explodes. The two face off against each other, each blaming the other for the chain of events which led to this, when Sol arrives, he manages to rescue Osha, but the platform Mae is on collapses and she falls into the inferno below.
He carries Osha out past the bodies of all the witches laying dead, and she awakens later on the ship on a medical bed, she wants to go home, she is worried about her mother, but Sol tells her there is nothing to go back to, and the two embrace as he comforts her.
Meanwhile Mae approaches the tree where Osha had meditated . . .
High Points : So we see a part of the overall mystery, which puts the blame firmly at Mae's feet. She was outraged her sister was going to leave her, and was getting to break the rules set by their mothers, so destroys everything.
But it's obvious this isn't all of the story yet. How could one young girl cause a fire so bad it would kill all the Witches, without harming her or her sister? Why would one of the Jedi in the current day part of the story commit suicide over this, when he wasn't even present for the disaster?
There's definitely a further level to this mystery.
I also really liked the hint that perhaps Osha and Mae were conceived through the Force (in an all woman cult this might even be fairly common), making me wonder if this is going to show us the path to Darth Plagueis and his instructions to Palpatine which results in the birth of Anakin?
Sol continues to be an amazing character, and his empathy is fantastic, I want to see more of him, while I'm kind of happy that Indara and Torbin are dead, as they're just kind of boring and behaving so emotionally remote that I just don't care if they exist or not.
Low Points : While I found everything in this episode interesting, there's no action and very little drama except two young girls having a childish strop at each other, which although leads to a massive disaster, is still two girls pushing and shoving and shouting, so not exactly fantastic storytelling.
So what do you really think ? : I though it's particularly interesting to have an entire episode be flashback, and it makes sense why they hired Carrie Ann Moss for the role of Indara, when she dies in the first few moments. And I won't be particularly surprised if we get a lot more flashback sequences, if not full episodes as the series goes on.
I also must comment that as portrayed in this episode, Mae's actions appear insane, she appears to kill everyone rather than just allow her sister to take a path different to her own. But we must remember that this is told from Osha's point of view, where she constantly felt oppressed by her sister being accepting of the Destiny which they have been given. While Osha wants to do something different, she is constantly compared to her sister, who is just happy with what her mothers want her to do, and in Osha's eyes that makes her sister the bad guy (I think many of us has had a sibling which we were always compared negatively to).
I think there's more to this story, which will make this episode shine more when we see that, or if there's not more to it, then this episode won't hold up particularly well.
Final Words : My current theory is that the Jedi attacked the Fortress to seize the girls for training, that Indara and Torbin were so impatient with the Witches, and so full of belief that they as the Jedi had the right to do whatever they want, that they actually attacked, or confronted the Witches, which led to a battle. That Mae being so angry when she confronts Osha wasn't just about her sister leaving, but her sisters actions which had led to the carnage already played out by that point. Which is what leads Torbin to commit suicide rather than admit his actions to the Jedi Council later.
Score : 8.5/10
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