Season 1, Episode 1 of the Disney Plus series The Acolyte, titled “Lost/Found,” is directed and penned by showrunner Leslye Headland. The titles of each episode, starting from the pilot, hint at the journeys of the twins Mae Aniseya (Amandla Stenberg) and Osha Aniseya (Amandla Stenberg). For example, Mae is “lost” (Dark Side) while Osha is “found” (The Force: Light Side). The show takes place during the High Republic era, when the Jedi and the Republic were at their strongest, with the Sith slowly weakening the two organizations as parasites in the shadows in the form of powerful politicians, corporate leaders, industrialists, bankers, scientists, etc.
The Twin Sisters: Osha and Mae
Osha and Mae are twin sisters who became separated when their home was burned down. It is implied that Mae was responsible, but it is unclear at this point. The episode begins with Mae’s arrival in Ueda to kill Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss). It is significant to notice that she finds Indara’s location after bribing a civilian for information. The Jedi’s purpose in life is to defend the lives of the innocent, but it is dark to notice that some people do not care about the Jedi’s selflessness and are willing to give them up for money. Mae locates Indara in a cantina, leading to a duel between the two, with the pacifist Jedi master using Force-fu, a Jedi version of Kung Fu, to disarm the acolyte. However, Mae uses the innocents around her as shields and distractions to perform dirty attacks on Indara, forcing the Jedi to save those around her before Mae strikes the killing blow. Although Indara is dead, she succeeded in protecting the civilians around her, while Mae hurts many people just to get one Jedi dead. This alludes to how the Sith are willing to use the Jedi’s selflessness in protecting innocents just to bring them out into the open and kill them. The Sith are evil, no matter how sympathetic they may be.
While Mae is out in the open hunting Jedi, Osha is working for the Trade Federation as a meknek, freelance mechanics who repair the outer hulls of starships. However, this is an illegal profession as only droids are supposed to perform this dangerous work. This is an interesting callback to Phantom Menace, when R2-D2 and the other R2-units were the only ones allowed and capable of fixing the outer hull of Queen Amidala’s shuttle. Another interesting callback is the Nemoidians of the Trade Federation. However, it is noteworthy that they hired mekneks to fix their ships when it is well-known that Nemoidians are stereotyped as paranoid and greedy corporatists who only trust droids, not living beings. It is plausible that the Neimoidians Osha works for are not that paranoid in hiring and trusting living beings to fix their ships, especially their shields. Osha and another meknek are working to fix the ship’s shield, and it is surprising that their Neimoidian captain allows the two to act sarcastically and joke around while on their comms.
Soon, Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and his padawan, Tasi Lowa (Thara Schoon), arrive on the Neimoidian ship and meet with its captain. The captain and the rest of the Nemoidians are annoyed at having to deal with Jedi but are forced to oblige any request the Jedi make. The request is to allow the two Jedi to take Osha as their prisoner back to Coruscant. The Nemoidians tried to lie that they illegally allow mekneks to work on their ship, but Yord attempted to use a mind trick to force the captain to tell the truth, which horrified the latter and his officer, who tells the Jedi the truth. The Jedi’s meeting with the Neimoidians on this ship is also another interesting callback to Phantom Menace, in which the “cowardly” Neimoidians, led by Nute Gunray, were about to negotiate with the Jedi to not incur their “wrath” until Darth Sidious subtly told Gunray to grow a spine by defying the Jedi’s negotiation requests and having them killed. The Sith are later the reason why the Neimoidians become confident enough to fight the Jedi with their droid armies, which leads to the eventual rise of the Clone Wars.
Yord and Tasi arrest Osha and attempt to interrogate her involvement with Master Indara’s death. Osha claims she is innocent and was not involved until an innocent bystander, the Ueda cantina owner, came in and pointed out that Osha is the murderer based on how she looks similar to Indara’s assassin in appearance. It is surprising how Osha and Mae really look the same and have similar hairstyles despite being apart for a long time, making it plausible they were artificially created by the witch coven they were born to in the past. In the end, Osha is taken to a Jedi prison transport for a trip to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Osha did not rebel at her arrest because she has faith that the Jedi will do the right thing. This faith stems from Osha’s past as a former Jedi padawan to Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae), a kind and wise Jedi Master with a shrewd personality similar to Qui-Gon Jinn. However, Osha was unfortunately witness to a prison break on the transport, with some prisoners escaping on an escape pod that, funnily enough, is headed to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
The Dyad in the Force
Osha tries to save one crazy prisoner, due to her Jedi nature, but is betrayed and stranded in the Jedi prisoner transport ship that is about to crash into into the ice world of Carlac. Osha survives, but she falls into a dream confronting a child-version of Mae, who reveals the truth that Mae herself is alive and is the one who killed Master Indara. This is interesting as Mae is not actually talking to Osha since Mae does not know her twin sister is even alive. This dream is likely a Force Dyad, when two Force-sensitive beings have a unique Force-bond—that is unbreakable—that makes them one in the Force. In other words, Osha’s dreams and nightmares are visions of Mae’s inner thoughts in the latter’s own mind.
Jedi Master Sol and Vernestra Rwoh
At the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Jedi Master Sol teaches Jedi younglings meditation, how to read their visions, and respect the Force. He ends his class early to speak with Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson). Master Rwoh, pretty much the Mace Windu of this show, is a Mirialan female Jedi Master who wields a purple lightwhip and is a veteran of the Jedi’s past war against the Nihil, Star Wars’ version of evil space vikings. The Jedi-Nihil conflict gradually transformed the optimistic and lighthearted Rwoh into a rule-following and dogmatic Jedi. It is sad that such conflicts made the Jedi more political and police-like, when they are supposed to follow the will of the Force and help others whenever they need it. Despite this, Master Rwoh maintains her focus when it comes to facing conflicts, especially when it comes to assassinations, such as Jedi Master Indara’s murder. Additionally, Master Rwoh is tolerant towards other Jedi, such as Sol, forming attachments to their students and friends as she once attached to her friends when she joined in the fight against the Nihil in her youth.
Master Rwoh talks with Master Sol regarding Master Indara’s murder and how the Jedi suspect Osha’s involvement. Sol refuses to believe Osha’s possible complicity because the latter was a devoted and excellent Jedi padawan, with firm dedication to the Jedi Order before she chose to leave the organization. Another reason Sol does not believe in Osha being guilty is that he and Indara saved Osha’s life on the latter’s homeworld of Brendok, a world governed by a witch coven under Mother Aniseya. Being saved by the Jedi as her home was burning down is what strengthened her resolve never to betray the Jedi Order or its values.
The Jedi’s Political Enemies during the Clone Wars
Despite Sol’s protests, Master Rwoh quietly tells her colleague that if the news that a former Jedi killed one of their own becomes public, the Jedi’s political enemies in the Republic can use that information against the Jedi Order. This information is important and ties to how Darth Sidious, as Chancellor Palpatine, used the Jedi’s political enemies, consisting of corrupt senators, corrupt politicians, corrupt officials, and pro-military factions, to turn the Republic against the Jedi and proclaim the creation of the Galactic Empire with himself as its undisputed Emperor. Thus, Master Rwoh believes that discretion is required with swift justice being made to set an example that the Jedi are not vulnerable to the public. Sol agrees and proceeds to prepare for his mission.
He calls for his new Jedi padawan, Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), for her presence in his classroom. Jecki sees her master viewing a hologram of Osha for a brief moment before he turns his attention to her. Jecki questions why Master Sol is still attached to his former padawan despite attachment being forbidden in the Jedi Order. Master Sol explains that the memories of the past are lessons that must be remembered and learned so one can avoid repeating the same mistakes. This is the lesson the Jedi failed to learn during the Prequels,, which eventually led to their demise during Order 66.
From the captured prisoners who escaped the transport, Master Sol learns that his former padawan remained in the transport and heads to the ship’s location with the aid of his current Jedi padawan Jecki and Jedi Knight Yord Fandar. The three are successful in tracking the crashed prisoner transport and find Osha. Osha says she did not murder Master Indara and that her twin sister Mae was responsible. Master Sol believes his former padawan and asks her to come with the Jedi and help them track down Mae.
The Sith: The master or the apprentice?
The episode ends with Mae meeting what seems to be a Sith master or a Sith apprentice who teaches his acolyte that “the Jedi live in a dream, a dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail. Steel or lasers are no threat to them. But an acolyte, an acolyte kills without a weapon. An acolyte kills the dream.” The Sith’s quote is important because killing the Jedi does not defeat them but destroys their ideology and faith in democracy and the Republic. This is how Darth Sidious destroyed the Jedi: he turned the very institution the Jedi swore to protect and guide into traitorous, corrupt enemies through events such as the Clone Wars, Order 66 (Operation Knightfall), and the rise of the Galactic Empire. The war between the Jedi and Sith is not an action-packed war, but a war for the soul of the Galaxy, akin to Batman and Joker’s war for Gotham’s soul in The Dark Knight.
Overall, the pilot episode of The Acolyte has an interesting beginning to discovering the mystery of the Sith plot during the High Republic era. However, there were some pacing issues, and the final scene with the Sith Master’s dialogue felt out of place and somewhat anticlimactic, since it kind of served no purpose for the beginning of the series. It could have worked if the Sith conspiracy is revealed to the audience in a later episode during one of Mae’s many Sith trials as a Sith acolyte. Additionally, it would have been generous to the audience if the entire series were shown through Mae’s and the Sith Order’s point of view, not Osha’s or the Jedi’s.
Rating: 8/10