– Spoiler Review –
Whether it’s a coven or the Jedi Order, individuals within still make choices and the consequences can have far reaching impacts, a truth we finally learn as the events on Brendok 16 years ago come to light in The Acolyte’s penultimate season one episode, “Choice.”
“Choice” is such a fitting title for this episode because, as we finally learn the full truth of what transpired on Brendok 16 years prior to the series’ main events, it turns out it was nothing but choices which led to the current situation of Mae and Osha’s differing circumstances. The Jedi mission group of Masters Indara, Sol, Kelnacca, and Padawan Torbin are on Brendok without any awareness of Mother Aniseya’s coven, instead they’re investigating how the planet has such thriving plant life considering it was lifeless 100 years ago after one of the Great Hyperspace Disaster’s Emergences* struck it. The Order believes this could be the sign of a vergence, a powerful concentration of the Force which can create life and can bolster a Force user’s abilities, which of course is of great interest to the Order for studying…and probably also to keep it out of their enemy’s hands. Regardless, this group stumbling into the coven is by happenstance or the will of the Force, but what follows are the choices of individuals, from Sol’s insistence they investigate for the sake of the young girls despite the High Council’s orders, Torbin’s willingness to rush back in hopes of ending their mission, to Mother Koril stoking the flames in an effort to protect their coven’s future, which paint a picture not of Jedi negligence or dastardly witchery, but of honest mistakes and misguided good intentions. This is far more fascinating than what the show was sort of making viewers assume, like say Sol and the Jedi cut down all the witches to take the children, and makes for interesting viewing and lots of discussion, exploring the Jedi themselves, the institution they work under, and the greater galaxy’s own usage of the Force. If they were ever to splice episode three “Destiny” with episode seven “Choice” together, it would be quite the interesting bit of viewing, though a back-to-back viewing would also elucidate both episodes for viewers, as we see many scenes from “Destiny” from a new point-of-view in “Choice.” In the end, “Choice” doesn’t answer all the lingering questions of the past, in fact inviting a few more in the process, but makes the overall decision to split the past up episode-wise seem like a wise one, promoting discussion and patience in viewers used to a more binge-heavy model these days.
I’m going to cover the various choices these characters made, starting with Padawan Torbin. Since the episode begins and focuses on the Jedi on Brendok, we get to see the mundanity of their mission, picking up samples of local fauna and testing it for vergence potential. After another unsuccessful day of exploring the planet, the crew settles down for dinner around a campfire, where Torbin expresses his discontent with the mission, wishing he was back on Coruscant instead. He wonders aloud what could be so important about their mission, now on the seventh week, and Indara and Sol discuss with him vergences and Brendok’s potential, giving the Padawan a better idea of their purpose. I was a little surprised no one told him this stuff in the past seven weeks, while I have to give him credit for not expressing these feelings until now, but with the knowledge, and another stomach full of Wookiee cooking, he seems ready for the mission again. It’s Sol finding of the coven and the children, and his insistence to Indara she not go alone to talk with the group, that puts the vulnerable Torbin in a bad situation. Whereas “Destiny” showed us his eyes blacking out due to something the witches were doing once the Jedi confront them, now we see what happened inside his mind, as Mother Aniseya worms her way in, talking to him, goading his discontent to the point he gives in to her, finding himself kneeling in both his mind and in the real world; If he didn’t already want to go back to Coruscant so badly, being used this way doesn’t help matters in the slightest, and understandably so, while who hasn’t felt homesickness before, to some degree? When the blood test results come back for Mae and Osha, not only is the midichlorian count high, but it shows the girls’ symbionts are identical, which isn’t even the case with identical twins, revealing manipulation, and a powerful amount of it meaning the need of help from a vergence in the force, was used to create the twins. Torbin’s desire to get home, made worse by Aniseya’s intrusion, leads him to assume the twins are the proof of a vergence they’ll need to go home. What happens next doesn’t all lay at his feet mind you, but if he hadn’t been focusing on the negative and heeding his Master’s wise words, maybe he wouldn’t have been as susceptible to the witches and therefore not as eager to rush back to the compound after the test results came in. It’s still hard not to sympathize a bit with the Padawan, as I mentioned earlier, the pull of home can be a tough one to overcome, especially on as boring a trip as the one these four were on. Torbin’s ability to block every form of attack Mae threw at him shows he spent his years after ensuring what happened on Brendok couldn’t happen again (props to Jordan Maison for pointing that out!), though since she was still able to talk him into waking up means he hadn’t gotten past all of it. In fact, his ultimate decision to take the Barash Vow must mean his rashness in the situation haunted him still and he hoped the Vow would help him find peace within the Force, but it obviously didn’t work if upon seeing Mae, he was willing to take poison to end the way these events have settled on his heart and mind, with the revelations in “Choice” make this feel understandable to some degree.
In “Destiny,” we saw a lot of Mother Aniseya’s conversation with her daughters, and even Mother Koril, but we didn’t get as much with Koril overall, especially after Aniseya chooses to allow Osha to go with the Jedi. It’s clear the decision wasn’t easy for Aniseya, who did not want to split the two girls apart nor weaken her coven by losing the power of two they represented when they’d ascend to be its leaders, but we get to see more of her efforts here to both keep the Jedi at bay and later be the mother she wants to be, while we also get more of Koril’s reaction to the decision too. Aniseya’s trickery with Torbin isn’t to be antagonistic per se, it’s more of her idea of a defensive tactic to hopeful prevent losing her girls in the most non-violent way possible, but it only serves to push the Padawan to act later. Somewhere in her past, violence seems to have left its mark and informs her decisions going forward, as between “Destiny” and “Choice,” it’s clear the coven, while looking to be powerful, isn’t trying to bother the galaxy in any way, rather looking to sustain itself and grow its numbers so others can feel its protection. Heck, the Jedi were on Brendok for 7 weeks and had no idea about the coven, so it shows how they were doing their best to avoid being found (while having tabs on the Jedi), mainly out of a fear what people would do if they did find them and didn’t understand what they were trying to be. After Osha makes her intentions to be with the Jedi clear, Aniseya talks with the coven and they basically plead with her not to let Osha go, weakening the coven in the process, but she tells them she chooses to be a mother instead of their leader, as she wants Osha’s wishes to be honored. Koril, who we saw in “Destiny” was fiercely against Osha’s wishes/wanting the twins taken from her, states she’d do anything, including violent acts, to protect them, letting her rage take over in reaction to Osha’s choice to be truthful in the Jedi test. She pulls Mae away from Aniseya and Osha, but not simply because Aniseya asked them to as we saw in “Destiny,” rather because she’s giving into her rage and pushing Mae to do the same. As she gathers the other witches to protect against a Jedi incursion, putting forward the threat of violence before there’s any note of violence from the other side, she tells Mae to stop Osha from leaving, which is why the young girl locks her twin away in her room, the fire only an accident from her penchant for getting lost in herself when rage takes over, like she did with the blue butterfly by the tree where Sol first saw them. Aniseya attempts to calm Koril down, reminding her she doesn’t want violence, but when Aniseya attempts to spirit Mae and her away from Sol and Torbin and ends up dead in the process, Koril ignores her leader’s wishes and goes on the offensive against the Jedi. Before Aniseya dies, she tells Sol how Osha chose them and she was going to let the girl go, her action in the courtyard where she’s disappearing herself and Mae into a mist simply an attempt to take the other daughter to safety, but Sol’s inability to tell them apart (more on that soon) leads to him stabbing her, thinking he’s losing Osha. Koril, along with the remaining witches, use their power to control Kelnacca, who jumps into the situation at the wrong time, his mind not fortified like Torbin made his before their return, leading to a brutal duel between Jedi before Indara arrives to cast Koril and the witches out, with bigger repercussions than she imagined. Is Koril still alive, as there’s no body and she was just a spirit floating around like we’ve seen with the Nightsisters in The Clone Wars? And if she’s still out there, what might she do if she returns in the present? In a lengthy interview with Nerdist, which we’ll cover again, showrunner/creator Leslye Headland seems to suggest Koril is definitely out there, somewhere.
Poor Kelnacca! Of the entire group, he’s just happy to be using his metal detector and cooking for the group, only arriving in the courtyard as the compound begins to burn because he wants to help his friends. He should’ve been more prepared, as Koril and the witches take over his mind rather quickly and even worse, the way Indara messes with the connection to save him causes quite the surprise. Either way, I’m glad Kelnacca finally got to use his lightsaber in the show and I liked the physicality to the fight, him throwing people around or kicking holes in the wall. Given how much he messed up Torbin’s face and attacked his friends, it would make sense his inability to remain peaceful and be used for violence against his will could make him want to seclude himself from everyone, afraid he could harm someone else again, unable to trust himself again after what happened. Was he drawing all over his walls the coven’s mark on Mae and Aniseya’s foreheads simply because his time there haunts him still? I’d have liked some time with him in the present outside of the two quick scenes before his death, especially after what he goes through here, as it just makes it feel like the alien character gets the short end of the stick. Hopefully the upcoming one-shot comic The Acolyte – Kelnacca #1 can do more justice for the character rather than keep him regulated to the background like the show mostly did beyond using him for this action scene.
Of all the Jedi, it surprises me little it was Master Indara who did the least to cause this problem, as she seemed more of a rule follower in both the premiere and in “Destiny,” and she’s definitely the voice of reason with those around her as the situation escalates. It’s Indara who both shoots down Torbin’s dissatisfaction with their mission and attempts to keep Sol in check. When Sol returns with the news of what he’s found, she asks for patience first but his revelations the witches prepare for a ceremony that night helps push her to listen to his concerns for the girls, causing them to confront the group in the courtyard. After they leave and Aniseya agrees to let the girls be tested, Indara and Sol discuss the situation, with her basically calling off the testing and happy this gives her a chance to contact the Council like she wanted to before going to the compound. Sol believes Osha’s lack of markings means she wants to leave with them, but Indara cautions him not to confuse what he wants with what the young girl wants. It’s not until Mae misremembers what her mother taught her about the Ascension ceremony, saying they need to be a sacrificed instead of a piece of them needs to be sacrificed, when Indara grows much more concerned about the girls and the coven. Regardless, she’s steadfast in her deferment to the High Council, telling the others to wait for the blood sample tests and word from the Council before they do anything. When Indara joins the group later, she claims to have gotten a response: the council wants them not to take the children and leave the coven alone, saying they’ve interfered enough already. Indara must contend with Sol’s emotional connection to Osha in response to the Council’s order, with her following the Jedi’s doctrine in all her rebuttals and it’s hard not to side with her in the situation. They simply don’t understand what’s going on and, as far as the Council is concerned, the witches aren’t hurting anyone or anything, so why bother with it, so maybe it’s another Force cult and they aren’t anything to worry about. Indara follows Sol and Torbin in their ship when her Padawan runs off to the compound, sending Kelnacca in first before she joins to help pull their friend from the brink, which means her culpability in these events stem from the initial decision to meet with the coven and later deciding to save Kelnacca, as when she fights against the witches’ influence over the Wookiee, severing the connection ends up killing the entire group! For someone who urged caution and pointed out they didn’t know what they were dealing with, her decision to save Kelnacca has big ramifications, killing so many, showing she’s not totally perfect as she let her emotions for her friend get the better of her in the moment; I initially assumed the witches all died in the resulting scene, then my wife said it seemed like they all passed out and the fire killed them, but Headland confirmed in the Nerdist interview Indara’s work killed them (this is why I assume she has another dot next to her eye in the premiere, denoting the times she’s had to kill). As the Jedi fly away from Brendok with Osha in tow, it’s clear Indara’s unhappy not only with Torbin and Sol, but herself and what she did as well, almost taking it out on Sol if not for Torbin interrupting by asking what they’ll tell the Council when they return. It’s surprisingly Indara who puts together the lie about what happened, partly to cover up her role in things, but also to help prevent Osha from losing out on this opportunity to be a Jedi. To her it’s an easy choice, as it helps make up for their actions if something good can come from Osha’s training, and her role in things helps set up why, out of the four, she’s the most put together of the group 16 years later. Just like Kelnacca and even Torbin, I wish we got more time with her in the present before she died, if only for a few more hints to be dropped or to better understand how she truly felt all these years later.
I left Sol for last because he’s not only the catalyst for these events, as he lets his emotional connection and the pull of the Force to Osha dictate his actions, but he makes the biggest choice of the episode, in my mind, in the final moments on Brendok. As I covered when talking about other characters so far, Sol is easily invested in Osha’s life, forming a quick connection, with an early friendly chat between Indara and him leaving one to wonder if he’s simply trying to fill the missing spot of having a Padawan/any parental instincts. His insistence something must be done about Osha, even against the will of the Council, seems very much like Qui-Gon Jinn with Anakin Skywalker, but whereas Qui-Gon saw the boy as a fulfillment of a prophecy and was willing to do what he must to train him, Sol’s connection is far more emotional. There’s always the question if Anakin would’ve fallen had Qui-Gon trained him and I think, in the end, he still would have, as Qui-Gon, like Obi-Wan, also followed most of the tenants of the Order and wouldn’t have been nearly as emotionally available as Obi-Wan does for Anakin, but Sol proves the inverse can be problem as well, as his emotional attachment to Osha prevents him from being honest with her, leading her to wash out and, as we started to see in episode six “Teach/Corrupt,” be more willing to hear out someone who will be truthful to her, emotions included. Sol proves this isn’t really about Osha or her safety, despite what he keeps trying to tell Indara, when Mae arrives screaming for help after starting the fire and Sol calls her Osha, not realizing it’s Mae until the girl is looking up at him over the body of her dead mother; if you thought he knew he was with Mae right away last episode, this certainly proves he did not until the very end. He realizes his personal drive for a connection with Osha led him here and he’s besides himself it came to such violence, as he’s unwilling to fight Koril afterwards, only using his saber to disarm her at one point. After Indara helps Sol and Torbin with Kelnacca, Sol rushes off after the twins, which is where we come to the part where they both are on the bridge, reaching out to one another, as he attempts to hold them up. While it looked like Mae’s side gave out beyond his control in “Destiny,” and he told everyone there was nothing he could do, it turns out that’s the biggest lie of the entire night: Sol chooses to save Osha, letting go of Mae’s side as he’s struggling to hold onto both. Indara helps him manufacture the lie by coming up with a lie of her own to the Council, as he wanted to face them for what he did and she helps him escape judgment. This has been eating him up ever since, but after everyone’s deaths recently, and his push to still want to save Osha with Mae’s help, one has to wonder if he’s finally let go of what he did or has only given into those feelings more. In fact, after we got to see the truth here, I immediately began to wonder if this is what Sol told Mae at the end of last episode…or if he tells her a new lie, and we get to see this truth now to see how much more he’s given into what he’s done. I’m still team Sol Patrol as this is such an intriguing new wrinkle to the character, showing how flawed people can be, no matter the supposed morality of the institute they belong to. As Mother Aniseya says shortly before her death, “Someday, those noble intentions you all have will destroy every Jedi in the galaxy,” so is it the individuals within the Order who are at fault for the noble intentions or the institute and its way of promoting those that are, especially as they begin to withdraw further and further from being out in the galaxy and amongst the people once we head towards the prequel era? The Acolyte wants to have the conversation and hopefully a potential second season can expand on what it’s trying to say about the Order and the galaxy at large.
Here are a few other things:
- The Nerdist interview with Headland is rather large, teasing stuff in the finale, talking about how the twins are nothing like Anakin, and even plans for a second season. The biggest finale tease I was expecting: we will learn how the twins were created! Was another party involved, teaching or coaching Mother Aniseya what to do? Or was it not really her who did it? Her line about the Jedi’s noble intentions destroying Jedi sounds like something she’d have heard from a Sith…but we’ll find out in the finale for sure!!
- *Given how this series is set at the end of the High Republic era, while there have been some callbacks, from the Barash Vow, costume designs, to the satellite Temples, there’s nothing like hearing the Great Hyperspace Disaster uttered out loud, by Master Indara aka Trinity aka Carrie-Anne Moss of all people! The disaster is the era’s inciting incident, played out in exhilarating dramatic fashion in Charles Soule’s opening novel, Light of the Jedi, and it sees pieces of a ship destroyed in hyperspace emerge randomly across the galaxy, impacting planets and ships in a seemingly unpredictable way, testing the Jedi Order and the Republic like never before.
- Between the tree Mae and Osha visit to the creepy hole at the compound, is there more than one vergence on Brendok? Powerful light and powerful dark, something like that? Or just one of the two is a vergence? I’d argue they both are, fitting with the twins Mother Aniseya created. Either way, vergences are nothing new: Anakin himself is one, the dark side cave on Dagobah is another, the Jedi Temple is built on top of one (and a Sith Temple), Vader built his Mustafar castle over one, and so many more between Legends and canon.
- While I was suspecting the finale to be when Victoria Monét’s song would play with the credits, but learning about Mae and Osha being split in two instead of simply being twins feels like the most appropriate time to drop the banger of a track given its lyrics.
The Acolyte’s seventh and penultimate season one episode “Choice” fills in the blanks of the past in the most fascinating of ways.
+ Everyone made a choice and they’re all really dealing with it now!
+ Sol’s final choice between the twins
+ Indara’s staunch stance almost doesn’t waver
+ More of the coven’s side, especially Koril
– Highlighting show’s moving too fast and we didn’t get nearly enough time in the “present” with the Brendok Jedi besides Sol…
– …while Kelnacca gets the shortest stick
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Bluesky, Twitter @MynockManor, and Instagram @mynockmanor.
THE ACOLYTE REVIEWS
Season One: 1.1/1.2 “Lost/Found” & “Revenge/Justice” | 1.3 “Destiny” | 1.4 “Day” | 1.5 “Night” | 1.6 “Teach/Corrupt”