Photo: Christian Black/Disney+
As I mentioned in my recap of the series premiere, Leslye Headland’s concept for The Acolyte reaches beyond Star Wars to some of the first movie’s original influences, interwoven with some of Headland’s own. In interviews, she has referenced Akira Kurosawa and King Hu, along with Kill Bill (which was influenced by some of the same genre pictures George Lucas drew from). She also talks about the challenge of setting a procedural crime drama in the Star Wars universe, and she mentions Frozen as an inspiration for the complicated relationship between Osha and Mae.
I have not seen Headland mention Umberto Eco’s 1980 novel The Name of the Rose (or its underrated 1986 film adaptation), but through these first two episodes, I’ve thought often about that book, which sees a monk and his apprentice investigating murders in a monastery, dealing with the culture and biases of an isolated and ossifying institution. The Acolyte seems headed in a similar direction. As Sol and his team of Jedi and ex-Jedi pursue Mae across the galaxy, they keep learning more about the state of the Jedi Order, as it has expanded during the High Republic Era.
Early impressions? The Knights aren’t alright.
Disney+ made the second Acolyte episode available on the same day as the first, and whenever streamers do that for non-binge-release shows, it’s often because they think the audience might need just a bit more to hook them than the series premiere provided. Maybe there’s a key character (or actor) they want to introduce on debut day, or maybe they want to make sure viewers understand the show’s basic structure.
I can see a little bit of both of those concerns in episode two. There’s one new key addition to the cast: Qimir, played by the delightful Manny Jacinto, who has a very different vibe here than he did on The Good Place. On that show Jacinto played someone sweet, dim and casually destructive. When we first meet Qimir, he’s sleeping off some kind of intoxicant, but as soon as he wakes up, it’s clear that he’s savvy and confident. We later learn that he used to smuggle weapons for the Hutt crime syndicate (which has apparently been in business for a very long time) before striking out on his own and meeting Mae.
When the episode begins, Mae and Qimir are on the planet Olega, hunting another Jedi on Mae’s kill-list. She first tries coming at Master Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman) the same way she did with Indara, catching him off-guard while he’s in a relaxed state and demanding he strike first. (She uses the same words: “We have unfinished business. Attack me with all your strength.”) But it turns out Torbin is meditating — silently floating behind a force field, as he apparently has been for the past ten years. Her attempts to take him out with her knife-throwing skills prove futile.
So Qimir — who has usurped a local apothecary shop — helps Mae with a Plan B. He whips up a powerful poison while telling her that Torbin has the same curse of self-righteous arrogance as every other Jedi they’ve met. “Like every Jedi, he only thinks he’s found peace,” Qimir says. “What he really needs is something only you can give him. Absolution.” Sure enough, the next time Mae sneaks into Torbin’s chambers, she grabs his attention by reminding him of who she is and what he’s done. He floats down to the ground and says, “Forgive me. We thought we were doing the right thing.” Then he drinks the poison.
(We still don’t know exactly what happened between Mae and these Jedi, but I predict a full flashback episode before this season is over because surely you don’t hire Carrie-Anne Moss and Dean-Charles Chapman for just a few minutes of screen-time each. All we know is that the trouble involves an incident from 16 years ago and that Mae’s other potential victims include Sol and Kelnacca, the latter of whom is a Wookie.)
The pacing issues that kept The Acolyte’s first episode from being a four-star winner haven’t improved much in episode two. Granted, there’s always been a little bit of stiffness to Star Wars when it’s in expository mode. Lucas — sometimes maddeningly — liked to emulate the squareness of old movie serials, with characters often speaking to each other with a kind of passionless formality that could suck the air out of scenes. Headland starts out her series in a similar style, but so far The Acolyte isn’t compensating with the relentless action common to the Lucas films (and to The Mandalorian, a closer point of comparison).
That said, there are moments in this second episode where the elements of a more natural, conversational dynamic come to the fore. Mae and Qimir have real chemistry. And each member of the team pursuing them is showing some personality, as their very different types play off each other. We have Sol, the sensitive and troubled Master; Yord, the headstrong and officious Jedi with obvious ambitions to rise through the ranks; Jecki, the whip-smart Padawan who mocks Yord right to his face; and Osha, who is handy around a ship and surprisingly laid-back for someone with a tragic past and a twin sister who murders folks.
Headland is still handling action well, too, although there’s really only one big set-piece in this episode. After Mae poisons Torbin, our heroes corner Qimir and get him to help them set up a sting, which culminates in Sol and Mae having a standoff in the street. Here we see more of what Star Wars fans have already dubbed “force-fu” — a mix of martial arts and telekinesis, with some weapons mixed in — as Mae and her seemingly never-ending supply of knives tries to stall Sol long enough so she can get away.
She does, of course, get away — because it’d be very weird for a show about Sol’s search for Mae to end after episode two. There are a few interesting takeaways from their skirmish, though. For one, Sol notes that in Mae’s initial attack, she’s not wielding a weapon, echoing the mysterious villain’s comment in episode one that you can’t kill the Jedi Order with weapons. (So far though, each of her kills has involved weapons. She insists to Qimir that she’s building up to her no-weapon kill.)
It’s also worth noting that after Mae uses a cloud of dust to facilitate slipping away from the Jedi, Osha has a brief moment where she sees her sister and has a chance to neutralize her with a plasma blast. Instead, she fires a warning shot and lets Mae get away. A case of blood being thicker than water? Or does some part of Osha want someone to give the Jedi what they have coming?
• Raise a tankard of Weequay Pirate Brew to Michael Abels, The Acolyte’s composer. Best known for his Jordan Peele movie scores — and his Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the opera Omar with Rhiannon Giddens — Abels so far on this show has been delivering a remarkable riff on John Williams’ original Star Wars music, with full orchestrations adding a sense of fullness even to the quietest passages.
• As they await the arrival of Mae, Yord gives us the first “I have a bad feeling about this” of the series.
• There’s a nice tease at the end of this episode, as Qimir suggests to Mae that they flee to Khofar, “a relaxing forest retreat where the Wookie Jedi lives.” We are then whisked to Khofar, where we get our first glimpse of the awesome-looking Kelnacca. A Wookie Jedi! The High Republic Era may have been pretty square, but they were wild in their way.
