Photo: Ed Miller/Lucasfilm Ltd.
When the great film critic Pauline Kael reviewed Star Wars for The New Yorker back in 1977, she praised the picture’s crowd-pleasing craft but also dinged George Lucas for what she regarded as an overall flatness of style and lack of vision. Writing about the Princess Leia character in particular, Kael famously wrote, “In a gesture toward equality of the sexes, the high-school-cheerleader princess-in-distress talks tomboy-tough… (but) is it because the picture is synthesized from the mythology of serials and old comic books that it didn’t occur to anybody that she could get the Force?”
Intentionally or not, nearly every Star Wars project that has followed the original movie has been a corrective to Kael’s complaint. In The Empire Strikes Back (which Kael really dug), we met Yoda, a wrinkly little green guy about as strong in the Force as any Jedi ever has been. Since then, fans have encountered hundreds of lightsaber-wielding creatures of various shapes and sizes and hues and genders, Forcing it up. Apparently, even Wookiees — yes, Wookiees — can be Jedi.
In this week’s The Acolyte episode, titled “Day,” most of the show’s major characters converge on the planet Khofar in search of Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo), the Wookiee who was stationed on Brendok with Sol, Indara and Torbin when the Jedi disastrously attempted to recruit Osha into the Order. The current Jedi leadership now knows that Mae, under the guidance of some mysterious dark Master, is planning to execute everyone who tried to take her twin sister away from her. Kelnacca is next on that list, unless Sol and his cohorts can beat her and her companion Qimir to the Wookiee’s remote lair.
Like “Revenge / Justice” two weeks ago, “Day” is less laden with backstory and set-up than the other two Acolyte episodes; and as a result it’s enjoyable to watch, in a low-key way. I don’t mean it as an insult when I say that it gave off Land of the Lost vibes. For all the millions of dollars that Lucasfilm and Disney+ are spending on sets, costumes, and effects for The Acolyte, there’s something perversely charming about the show when it looks basic and cheap. So it goes here. Our heroes — on a simple quest to find one hulking, hairy galoot — have to traverse a dark, dangerous, and honestly pretty fake-looking forest, filled with enormous insects and other strange surprises. Sid and Marty Krofft would be proud.
There’s more to this story than just a Wookiee-hunt. The Jedi leadership — especially the perpetually nervous Vernestra — would like Sol’s team to move swiftly and stealthily to bring Mae into custody, so they can learn who trained her. They don’t seem all that concerned about Kelnacca or Osha, whom it is strongly implied is being brought to Khofar by Sol as bait. Vernestra is willing to shrug off some ethical concerns to keep the Jedi High Council and the Galactic Senate from learning about Mae’s roaring rampage of revenge.
To be fair, Sol’s motivations seem to be — to me, anyway — less a cynical act of ass-covering than a case of him genuinely caring about Osha and Mae. He insists to Osha that there’s still some good in her sister; and that she could be saved with a little sibling love and compassion. Osha, on the other hand, quietly pulls the skeptical Yord aside while they’re trekking through the wilderness and makes him promise that if Mae won’t listen to her, he’ll take her down.
As always, the sisters are at the heart of this Acolyte episode, searching their own feelings even as powerful forces all around them are yanking at their strings. As Osha travels with the Jedi — stuck in the bland “civilian robe” they make the non-initiated wear — she finds some of her old connection to the Force coming back, which makes her feel slightly wary, since she’s never been able to handle the Jedi’s acceptance of death and loss. Mae, meanwhile, confides in Qimir that she’s losing confidence in her Master’s plan. How is she supposed to kill a Jedi without using a weapon? And if she fails to complete her assignment, what becomes of her?
Mae’s growing uncertainty isn’t assuaged much by Qimir, who needles her about her failure to complete her Master’s “no weapon” assignment, and who appears to have some association with her Master that he’s not being fully honest about. (“I just owe him,” he mumbles.) So as they close in on Kelnacca’s home, Mae sets a crude trap for Qimir — a classic Star Wars rope-trap! — and announces her intention to surrender to the Wookiee.
“Days” feels incomplete. The episode is on the shorter side at just barely over 30 minutes (a good chunk of which is wasted on Coruscant, where Vernestra essentially recaps the story so far); and neither of the traveling parties reach their destination until the final scene. When they do arrive, Kelnacca has already been assassinated. His chest-wound, which looks like a slash from a lightsaber, is still smoking. The scoundrel who may have killed him — a masked figure — emerges from the shadows just before the credits roll and sends the entire Jedi contingent flying through the air with one slight gesture. Presumably, this is Mae’s Master, taking matters into his (hers? their? its?) own hands.
Of course, given that we don’t know who the Master is, it’s hard to say for sure if this is that person. It could be Qimir, freed from the trap and all masked up. Or Qimir could’ve been the Master all along, manipulating Mae up close by pretending to be her friend.
From the beginning, The Acolyte has been pitched as the Star Wars version of a criminal procedural, so we’re supposed to be in the dark at this point about who’s killing whom. But we’re also, somewhat frustratingly, not getting the full picture yet of why Mae’s masked Master is at odds with the Jedi. We can only assume it has something to do with the Force: Who gets it, who uses it, and who should never be allowed to go near it again.
• I’d like to give a shout-out to the commenter “aruffer” from last week’s recap, who is more familiar with the expanded Star Wars canon than I. Aruffer noted that The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland has expressed an admiration for Knights of the Old Republic II, a video game which apparently holds the Jedi in less awe and reverence than a lot of the other Star Wars stories. Something to keep in mind, for sure.
• I know we were all hoping to hang out more with Kelnacca this week, to see what the life of a hermetic Wookiee Jedi is like (beyond the spiral etchings on his walls, that is, which appear to have some deeper meaning given the ominous music that plays whenever the camera zooms in on them). Alas, the show has other plans. Kelnacca barely appears in this episode. But at least we get to meet Bazil, a little rodent-y fellow who, judging by what we see of him in this episode: is an excellent tracker; is suspicious of droids; gets lost very easily.
• The first two Acolytes had titles with two opposed words (“Lost / Found,” “Revenge / Justice”), while the next two have sported single-word titles. I strongly suspect though that next week’s episode will be called “Night,” given that “Day” ends on a cliffhanger just as the sun sets. And I wouldn’t be surprised if last week’s half-origin story “Destiny” will eventually be paired with a similarly titled companion episode later this season. (But what should its title be? “Happenstance,” perchance?)
