Star Wars The Acolyte makes convergences important to its plot

No one ever said the Star Wars story was clean or simple. But even in this mess of post-Disney canon and oft-ignored legends, there are still areas of utter silliness that are allowed to play an important role in the story. And now the latest episode of The Acolyte has put two of these things in focus: Vergences and Midi-chlorians.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for episode 7 of The Acolyte.]

Almost every Star Wars fan, from the passionate book reader to the casual movie viewer, is familiar with midi-chlorians in some way.. First infamously mentioned by Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menacethey are a physical, living measure of Force sensitivity that can be measured with a simple Jedi blood test.

It is a part of the lore that has been mocked and rejected by fans since 1999, and for good reason. It is disappointing to hear the mystery and magic of the Force reduced to a matter of simple genetics. In fact, midi-chlorians have been so heavily rebuked that when The Acolyte Although the writers mention them for plot reasons, they refuse to use their full names, instead using the ridiculous-sounding abbreviation “M-count.” Despite all this, Vergences, the other plot-critical piece of lore in this episode, are even more ridiculous than the oft-mocked power-giving lifeforms.

Image: Lucasfilm

Vergences were also introduced in The Phantom Menace, Also by Qui-Gon during a conversation with Mace Windu. He didn’t elaborate on them at the time, but since that film, we know that convergences are usually places with an unusually high concentration of the Force. They’re more commonly known as nexus points of the Force, and canonically include things like the cave on Dagobah where Luke confronts Vader. Another example is the mirror cave that Rey visits on Ahch-To. But that’s not all convergences are, and this is where things start to get ridiculous.

Based on the various uses in the canon, vergences can be almost anything. When first mentioned Qui-Gon explains that Anakin himself is a Vergence, which is one of the reasons he believes the Child could be the Chosen One. In another instance, the Skywalker family lightsaber becomes a Vergence when Rey touches it The Force Awakens. Why does this happen? Who knows! Vegences are a mystery. That’s all well and good as long as they’re mostly reduced to an evocative piece of contextual lore to some of Star Wars’ most important events. But when they become important, things get messy.

Image: Lucasfilm

And that brings us back to Episode 7 of The Acolyte. While all of this ambiguity may be good for helping us understand important places and moments in the Star Wars canon, it is a terrible tool to use in an ongoing story. Despite this fact, The AcolyteThe big reveal is that the coven on the planet Brendock actually built their temple around a convergence. Not only that, they also appear to have used this convergence to create artificial life, which they then split into two extremely Force-sensitive (high M number) children, Osha and Mae – who appear to be one person trapped in two bodies.

This would be an extremely complicated reveal no matter what Star Wars lore ties it together. But trying to explain all of this through the vagaries of a rarely used piece of lore that is inherently mysterious is downright baffling. On top of that, it remains a complete mystery how exactly the Coven created Osha and Mae and what it means that they were split into two different bodies. The worst part is that none of this may be exactly what the show is trying to reveal, which could honestly be the worst case scenario of all.

All of this spoils what should have been the show’s triumphant reveal: An over-the-top cliffhanger was set up in Episode 3 just so we could see what happened, so why doesn’t it feel like we know what happened?