I have long held that the Jedi are a bunch of killjoy nerds and the galaxy far, far away is better off without them, and finally, a piece of Star Wars media agrees with me.
The Acolyte, a new series set in the Star Wars universe, takes place a century before Anakin Skywalker’s fall from grace yet it is intimately concerned with the ills and issues of the Jedi even during the High Republic, the time when the Jedi were at their most prodigious and powerful. Created by Leslye Headland and with episodes directed by Headland, Kogonada, Alex Garcia Lopez, and Hanelle Culpepper, The Acolyte is a very handsome series—the Kogonada episodes leap out. It’s also very well acted with a cast featuring Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Carrie-Ann Moss, and Manny Jacinto.
The Acolyte begins with a murder, as a mysterious young woman with a distinctive mark on her forehead murders a Jedi master in, where else, a bar on some planet. The Acolyte is essentially a murder mystery set in the world of Star Wars (neat!), though the whodunit is less about the actual murderer—it is almost immediately revealed to be a woman named Mae, one of two characters played by Stenberg—but is more about who put Mae up to it, and who trained her, if not the Jedi?
Mae is one half of a pair of twins, her sister is Osha, also played by Stenberg. Osha and Mae are Force-sensitive, Osha trained to be a Jedi but washed out, and Mae…did something else. Went somewhere else, and trained with someone else, and THAT is the mystery of The Acolyte. It’s a pretty good setup that creates interesting opportunities to link The Acolyte with wider Star Wars lore without getting bogged down in specific plot points from other movies and series. There are plenty of links to the prequel series, in terms of how the Jedi are positioned in the world and how everyone is immediately and deeply annoyed by them whenever they go anywhere (the Jedi suck: change my mind), and there is even a tie to the sequel trilogy, as Osha and Mae seem to be one of those Force dyads they made up to excuse Rey and Kylo Ren’s weird vibes. The Acolyte makes the Jedi so f-cking weird—they love twins! They hate witches!—it’s the second best part of the series.
The best part of the series, though, is Lee Jung-jae’s performance as the Jedi Master, Sol. In his first English-speaking role, Lee is as graceful and mysterious as you imagine a Jedi Master to be, yet as sad and regretful as a man who has made at least one very great mistake in his life. His performance embodies Jedi ideals while also capturing the core hypocrisy of their “no attachments” dogma—Sol is a man deeply attached to the young people put in his charge for training. Though it has been years since Osha left the Jedi Order, his care and concern for her remain palpable, as is his care and concern for his current Padawan, Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen). Sol gives almost all of the heart and humanity to The Acolyte, with Jodie Turner-Smith also bringing warmth to her role as Osha and Mae’s witchy mother.
Where The Acolyte falls down is mostly in the pacing. It moves so fast, not wasting time on character details or the politics of the High Republic. There are seeds of the problems that will later beleaguer the Jedi, but for the moment, why worry? They’re extremely powerful and getting high on their own supply. But that also means we blow past events with little time to breathe or just enjoy the table setting. When the characters are as good as Sol, when the setups are as interesting as covens of Force witches having midnight raves, can we maybe hang out just a little? The Acolyte introduces a lot of intriguing people and places only to move on as quickly as possible.
The biggest victim of this, at least in the early episodes, is Qimir, a smuggler played by Manny Jacinto. He brings so much chill charm to the character, but we hardly get to know anything about Qimir. Even when asked point-blank what he is doing, he’s just like, “Vibes, dude.” The character is so deliberately blank outside of Jacinto’s innate charisma that it’s to the point that Qimir is either extremely underwritten or…he’s a red herring. But that still doesn’t excuse bad writing, if we can tell the red herring is a red herring, it’s not much of a red herring.
The Acolyte moves a little too fast, but that’s the only real issue it has. It’s good enough, and the characters interesting enough, to want some episodes to linger even ten minutes longer (most episodes run 35-45 minutes). And the conflict between Mae and Osha and their different approaches to the Force, underpinned by the mystery of Mae’s master, is compelling enough to justify letting episodes breathe, to unpack the finer details. It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to spend more time in a Star Wars world, but The Acolyte makes the most of its unique era in the High Republic, and Force users who aren’t just Jedi or Sith. FINALLY, the world of Star Wars actually feels expansive.
The Acolyte is now streaming its first two episodes on Disney+. New episodes debut every Tuesday.
