Spoilers for The Acolyte ahead.
Ever since I started watching The Acolytes, I’ve been hoping it would go a certain way, but wasn’t sure if Disney would allow it, at least not explicitly. You see, in the original Star Wars trilogy, the Jedi weren’t really a character, they were just a forgotten piece of history, so the only impression most people had of them was that they were cool guys who fought bad guys with glowing swords and magical powers. However, when the prequels came out, creator George Lucas was able to explore them in more depth, and even explore the politics surrounding them (a bold move that didn’t quite pan out).
But specifically, it raises a question about the Jedi – are they really good? Since the first prequel movie, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, there have been hints that something is not right with them. When Qui-Gon Jinn and company travel to Tatooine, they’re not going to free any of the slaves living there. In fact, the only reason Qui-Gon Jinn saves anyone, a man named Anakin Skywalker, is because he believes the child is the one prophesied to bring balance to the Force.
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I admit there may be some subtleties here, and bureaucracy does get in the way, but why would something like this prevent something that is morally right? Jinn also takes classic Jedi action by taking the child away from its mother, even though the child is too old to be trained as a Jedi Knight, which obviously sets off the events of the original trilogy in due course.
Many of these plot points are repeated and revisited in The Acolytes. When Thor (a character directly inspired by Jinn) meets young Force-sensitive twins Osha and May, he immediately feels it is his duty to take them to train as Jedi Knights, completely ignoring the advice of his companion Indara. After all, the twins are members of a Force coven, and both are technically too old to be trained as Jedi Knights (or perhaps, as some have suggested, they have been brainwashed).
By the time we get to Episode VII, the penultimate episode of the series, we finally learn that Thor actually killed Osha and May’s mother, and that Indara and two other Jedi were involved in killing all the other coven members. It’s a brutal moment and a clear indictment of the Jedi Order, and I’m glad the series tried to explore it. Even the Jedi on Coruscant, the de facto Jedi stronghold and political center of the Galactic Empire, ultimately lied about what happened in the show in order to protect themselves.
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It also took a full season to get here, leaving a lot of foreshadowing for a yet-to-be-determined second season. I think it’s a safe bet that there will be a second season, and we don’t know how successful it will be in the streaming age, but there’s still a lot to be said about the Jedi and their flawed ways. This is a prequel, and I don’t expect it to correct anything they did, and they can’t unless Disney wants to create a completely separate canon. There’s still room narratively to address these criticisms, though, and move away from the simplistic good vs. evil presentation of the original trilogy that has been dragging down the series for much of its run.
It’s clear that showrunner Leslye Headland wanted to explore these themes in depth, especially since Big Bad Qimir seems a lot more complex than Darth Sidious who just wanted “unlimited power,” and I welcome this representation of the dark side of the Force with open arms. Qimir’s relationship with Osha also parallels the much-welcomed new trilogy Kylo Ren and Rey, but with Osha turning to the dark side instead of Kylo turning to good. It makes one wonder if there’s a world out there where there’s room for more different interpretations of the Force besides the Jedi, so really, I just hope that happens in Season 2 because, frankly, red lightsabers are just cooler anyway.
