It’s Tuesday night, folks, and that can mean only one thing: The Acolyte, which is either the best news of the week or the worst news of the week, depending on where you stand with this show. First, let’s recap everything that has happened before diving into our The Acolyte Episode 5 recap and spoilers.
Twin sisters Mae and Osha thought the other dead after an incident years ago. Mae turned evil and began hunting the Jedi responsible. Osha joined the Jedi for a time before stepping away to prevent space fires but reluctantly returned to the Order to stop her sister. Uh, then everyone went looking for a Wookiee Jedi … Mae said, “F— it, I’m good now,” abandoned her mission, and ultimately stumbled on the Wookiee Jedi’s corpse just as our heroes arrived. A dark figure many fans have dubbed Smilo Ren suddenly appears, brandishing a red lightsaber.
Maybe this episode will inject some life into the proceedings with some much-needed lightsaber action. Let’s do this!
Star Wars: The Acolyte Episode 5 recap and spoilers
Episode 5, titled “Night,” opens with Osha lying amongst the brush after getting tossed aside by the dark figure. She awakens to a ghastly sight: a dead body lying amongst scorched earth. Beyond the trees, she sees lightsabers flailing about. Sol’s Jedi force is getting knocked around by the dark figure who slashes and stabs everyone in sight like Emperor Palpatine on steroids.
Admittedly, the fight choreography looks great.
Osha shoots a stun gun at the dark figure, who brushes off the attack as though swatting a fly. The dark figure then chases her into the brush, presses X, and tosses its lightsaber, which slices through a grouping of trees. Sol steps up at the last second and orders Yord to take Osha back to the ship, and we prepare for battle.
Yord and Osha follow the worthless squirrel tracker.
Smilo Ren is totally Darth Mom (Mother Koril), and she easily overpowers Sol.
Meanwhile, Jecki decides to take Mae head-on. Somehow, the tiny Padawan holds her own against Mae’s throwing knives better than Indara. The pair throw shit at each other.
Yord hears his apprentice’s cries and says, “Eh, Jecki can handle herself.” Wut. He pulls out his lightsaber, preparing to murder the foliage, and then tells Osha that the dark figure can get everyone’s head. “You know, like Professor X.”
“My mother could do that.” Cue the Arrested Development jingle.
Now, which mother could do that remains a mystery. (It’s Mother Koril.)
Nearby, Jecki uses the Cobra Kai method of sweeping the leg and knocks Mae to the ground, admonishing her for taking the Jedi Wookiee’s weapon. Mother Koril, I mean, the dark figure, arrives and tosses Jecki aside. “Mae, you could learn from this Padawan.” Jerk.
Luckily, Jecki has another lightsaber and goes full-on Anakin in Attack of the Clones. Watching lightsabers never gets old. Somehow, Jecki survives, but the dark figure runs after Mae, who flees into the woods. Sol arrives and engages the dark figure.
Mae pulls a Luke and calls to Osah with her mind. “We’ve got to go back,” she tells Yord. “I know where Mae is!”
She flips on a flashlight, uses it to attract those weird tree bugs, and runs to the battle.
Speaking of which, Sol and Jecki combat the dark figure until the evil bastard stabs the young Padawan to death (with a hidden blade, no less) — but only after she knocks off his helmet. Her body falls, and … it’s Qimir.
Okay, to be fair, I thought the show was using the man as a red herring to make us believe he was the dark figure. He was too obvious. I should’ve known the writers were Rings of Power fans. Why subvert expectations when you can … telegraph your main twist?
Qimir takes Mae hostage. “Who are you,” Sol asks, defeated.
“I have no name,” Qimir, or Man With No Name, says. “But Jedi call me … Sith.”
“What do you want,” Sol beckons.
“Freedom,” MWNN says.
“You’re a prisoner?”
“It’s all part of the whole Sith gig — phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty room to play with them.” He wants an Acolyte and an apprentice and the ability to train as he sees fit. “This one exposed me,” he says, gripping Mae harder. “Now, I have to kill all of you.”
Suddenly, Yord shows up and does something worth—eh, never mind. MWNN snaps his neck. Gawd, this went from a G-rated piece of fantasy sci-fi fluff to a dark and brutal murder fest in a hurry.
Mae once again tries to run, and once again, Osha aims a stun gun at her. Except this time, she fires and hits her target.
Sol does what he does best: attack MWNN without a lightsaber. He throws some nifty punches, knocks the Sith to the ground, and is about to deliver the killing blow, but Osha stops him. Imagine how much pain and suffering Sol could have prevented had he done what was necessary. “The Jedi do not attack the unarmed.” (Clint Eastwood would’ve blown the sucker away. “He should’ve armed himself.”)
“Do you still trust him, even after what he did to you,” MWNN asks Osha. Sol’s like, “Erm.”
Osha notices the tree bugs flapping above. “Sol,” she says pretty loudly and glances up. He follows her gaze and retracts his blade. Remember that MWNN is watching him the whole time but somehow doesn’t notice this very obvious bit of subterfuge.
“You have all these rules, and you think they’ll save you,” MWNN says, snatching his blade, ready to finish the fight. Osha leaps and attaches her flashlight (or Pip’s head) to his back, and the tree bugs attack. Ha! There’s no way these goofy bugs can stop a man who just took down a dozen Jedi by hims— oh, the bugs carry him away into the forest.
I did not expect that.
Osha decides to confront Sol rather than make a run for it. “What did you do?”
“I’ll explain,” Sol says.
Suddenly, Mae arrives and blasts him with a stun gun. “The Jedi ain’t worth a damn, everyone’s got a stun gun!”
Osha and Mae embrace. For a moment, it’s like Frozen. Then, Osha puts her sister in a headlock and we’re back to Kill Bill. “You’re under arrest.” Mae wiggles free, and I’m reminded of this bit from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles:
Mae uses the power of the Thread to push Osha away and apparently knocks her out. That worked out nicely. Then, she ignites her saber and dramatically cuts her hair. The music swells like we just witnessed God’s return—not since Tangled have we seen a more perfect haircut.
MWNN finally kills the bugs and lands on his feet. Took him long enough.
Mae, having apparently watched Sunday’s episode of House of the Dragon, returns to Sol disguised as Osha. Somewhere, Erryk and Arryk smirk.
“Where is your sister,” Sol asks.
“She’s gone.”
Ever the sucker, Sol refuses to read her mind. He and Maeosha instead head back to the ship. Granted, actress Amandla Stenberg has done a remarkable job portraying each character as the same damned person. It’d be hard to differentiate between the pair.
MWNN finds Osha’s body, heals her wound, and then gives her a blankie. Ah, so now the roles have switched, you see. That’s subversion!
The Acolyte Episode 6 theories and thoughts
Okay, okay. I’ve slammed this show quite a bit over the last month, but I’ll admit, this episode was good. Not great, but good. The action was surprisingly brutal, the choreography was sound, and for once, I could see where some of that $180 million budget was spent.
The Qimir reveal was dumb, but Manny Jacinto at least looks the part of a formidable warrior. His fight sequences with Lee Jung-Jae and Dafne Keen were pretty great, even if everyone completely neglected Jedi Tormund’s instructions last week about not wasting any movement on silly flourishes.
Also, Jung-Jae is pretty great in this show. So is (was?) Keen, despite her underwritten role. And yeah, I found Jacinto intimidating. Director Alex Garcia Lopez did a solid job capturing the chaos, and this is probably the first time I’ve noticed Michael Abels’ score.
Hell, if you squint hard enough, the episode even resembled Star Wars.
Still, questions remain:
- How does Qimir fit into all of this? Did he kill everyone at Witch Island?
- Are Mae and Osha’s mothers dead? If so, that means they died in that goofy-looking fire, and that’s really dumb. I still think they appear at some point, likely as the main villains.
- What did Sol and the Jedi do that was so bad? It couldn’t have been worse than the power of one, the power of two, the power of many …
- What was the point of Yord? He has a handful of peculiar moments, bullies Osha, and dies unheroically. Essentially, he was a Red Shirt with a half-written backstory.
- Why can’t any of the background extras have lines? Sol arrives on the planet with a group of Jedi, and they all die without saying a word. Were they NPCs? Is this all one giant video game?
- So, is Mae fixing to go on a Jedi Temple rampage, or is she pulling a Talented Mr. Ripley and assuming her sister’s identity? If so, why didn’t she, you know, actually kill her sister?
- Who brought all the stun guns?
- What the hell is that tracker thing doing?
- Why does Mae/Osha always react to everything with the same bland expression? Osha doesn’t even react much to Jecki’s death. My Lord, this character makes live-action Ahsoka look like Daffy Duck by comparison.
Overall, an entertaining episode. It’s too bad we don’t care about these people because the action was quite thrilling. Unfortunately, the first four episodes look even worse now. Why were the writers padding the runtime with useless filler rather than using the previous two hours to flesh out these characters more satisfactorily?
Episode 4, in particular, is an egregious example of wasted time as nothing happened. Why not spend more time building Osha’s character into something more, ah, anything? Why not give us a few scenes demonstrating how Mae’s evil actions affect her soul?
It’s clear the writers are building towards big story beats but are unsure how to fill in the gaps between them. We’ve spent far too long wondering around Coruscant in boring Jedi meetings or on pointless side quests that grind the narrative to a halt.
At this point in Star Wars, or around the 2.5-hour mark, Luke had already destroyed the Death Star and sent the audience packing. The Acolyte has another 90 minutes to go!
Also, I have no idea how much lore the episode breaks by revealing the Sith a hundred years before The Phantom Menace, but I imagine some fans won’t be happy. Still, at least something worthwhile happened this week and there were lightsabers.
