This evening, the third episode of Lucasfilm’s live-action series Star Wars: Acolyte premiered on Disney+. Below is a recap and review of the episode.
Episode 3 of The Acolytes (simply titled “Destiny”) is, in its entirety, a flashback 16 years before the events of the other two chapters we’ve seen so far. The episode begins on the planet Brendok (new to the series) where much younger versions of Force-sensitive sisters Osha and Mei (played by real-life twins Leah and Laura Brady) show their respective inclinations towards both light and dark sides by interacting with a blue butterfly-like creature under a “Bunta” tree (not to be confused with the “Bunta Eve” holiday celebrated on Tatooine in “Star Wars: Episode IV: The Phantom Menace”). Upon returning to their village, Osha and Mei are reprimanded by their mother. We soon learn that they are part of a group of Force witches. As far as I can tell, the group is unrelated to the Dathomirian Nightsisters we’ve seen in The Clone Wars, Ahsoka, and other Star Wars films, although one of the group appears to be a Zabrak. The twins are apparently not allowed to leave their home, a giant fortress built on top of a volcano. There are also Jedi on the planet, and Sol (Lee Jung-jae), 16 years their junior, can be seen peering at the young witches from behind a tree.
As we learn more about the coven, we learn that Mei and Osha are going to undergo a ritual called “Ascension,” which will make them official members of the group. However, the latter twin is hesitant about the whole ritual. She feels a “call to adventure” from the outer galaxy that many heroes in past stories have had, much like Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movies. In a training scene, one of the parents, Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith from The Last Ship and Queen & Slim), teaches the girls about the Force. The coven refers to the Force as “threads,” but they operate in a similar way to the Jedi, and we don’t see the Nightsisters’ immature “magic” here. The show also features a large reactor core at the center of the fortress, which the other parent, Mother Korir (Margarita Levieva from The Lincoln Lawyer), seems worried about for some reason. What Ascension means for the coven is then revealed just before the ritual itself begins. This is one of the most effective moments of the episode, as they are interrupted by the four Jedi we know May will be hunting in the future: Sol, Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss), Kernacka (Joonas Suotamo, who played Chewbacca in recent Star Wars films such as Han Solo and The Rise of Skywalker), and Torvin (Dean-Charles Chapman), and here we begin to get the impression that the witches just want to be left alone, but that the Jedi might butt in and try to take away their only child for training.
Aniseya is eventually persuaded to allow the Jedi to test Osha and Mae’s Force sensitivity, but before doing so, she puts Torvin into a temporary black-eyed trance as a threat. After a meeting of the coven’s advisors, Aniseya and Korir decide to have their two daughters fail the Jedi test on purpose, but it is clear that Osha wants to pass honestly. They go to where the Jedi ships are parked, and Mae takes the test first while Osha talks to Kernakka outside. When it’s Osha’s turn, Sol realizes that she is actively trying to fail the test at her mother’s urging (a direct echo of the memorable Jedi Council meeting in Star Wars: Episode IV – The Phantom Menace) and urges her to tell the truth about wanting to be a Jedi. Back at the fortress, Mae tells her mothers what Osha has done. Korir is upset by this, but Aniseya basically tells Osha that it’s her decision what she wants to do with her life. Osha then prepares to leave, but May breaks into her room, steals her journal (which bears the insignia of the Jedi Order), and burns it outside her room. In the ensuing panic and chaos, we learn that somehow other parts of the Fortress have also begun to catch fire. Osha escapes through a service vent and makes it to the reactor core, where she is reunited with May. May appears to fall to her death in a tragic accident when she is caught in a collapsing walkway, but Sol arrives in time to catch Osha before she can do the same.
On the Jedi ship, Osha is informed that the entire coven died in the flames, but Sol promises her a better future as a Jedi. We then cut back to the Bunta tree one last time, revealing that Mei survived the fall (which, of course, we already knew, based on the previous episode). For me, this is immediately the best episode of “Acolyte” so far, made even better by emphasizing a story that feels completely different from much of what we’ve seen in Star Wars so far, yet fits perfectly into the ever-expanding mythology of a galaxy far, far away. Admittedly, the acting of the two young stars is questionable (and tolerable, of course), but that complaint is offset by the superb direction, full of emotion and atmosphere by Korean filmmaker Ko Go Na-da (best known for the 2017 drama “Columbus”), and the performances of the other actors. While this chapter is very informative about Mei and Osha’s backstory, it feels like there are still gaps to be filled about the circumstances surrounding the fire, given that showrunner Leslye Headland has refrained from mentioning Rashomon in interviews about the series. The show also has the benefit of being the first live-action content to confront head-on the inherent flaws of the Jedi Order and its various doctrines after those flaws were only hinted at in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and The Last Jedi. Regardless, I was captivated throughout this week’s episode’s roughly 40-minute runtime and genuinely hope to see more world-building like this on a regular basis in Star Wars. After all, as we’ve seen for decades in books, comics, and other supplemental material, there’s more than one way to channel the Force.
The first three episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are available now exclusively on Disney+.
