‘The Acolyte’ Finale Recap – The Dark Side Rises

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Acolyte’s finale.

The Big Picture

• The Acolyte
  ‘s finale ties up loose ends but leaves the door open to continue the story further.
• Amandla Stenberg gives a phenomenal performance as Mae and Osha, perfectly capturing their fragmented selves.
• With
  The Acolyte
  , Leslye Headland and the writers’ room were unafraid to explore avenues Star Wars has shied away from.

The Acolyte has officially come to an end (for now) with Episode 8, as Mae and Osha (Amandla Stenberg) return to their homeworld to face their pasts and forge new futures for themselves. While a second season has not yet been announced for the series, the episode, penned by Jason Micallef and directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper, does an excellent job of tying up all the loose ends while teasing where the story might be heading in a potential Season 2.

The finale opens shortly after Episode 6, with Osha heavily breathing while wearing The Stranger’s (Manny Jacinto) helmet, and things are not going well for her. It seems to have unlocked the barrier between herself and the Force that was created after she left the Jedi Order, and now, she’s seeing visions of the not-so-distant future. At first, Qimir (as we know him) is amused as he watches her, but then he realizes something isn’t right. He attempts to reach out to take the helmet off of her, but he’s stopped by some unseen force. His eyes turn black and the air turns frigid, and it’s very similar to what we saw Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) do to Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman) in last week’s episode.

Qimir manages to pry the helmet off of a panicked Osha, who reveals that she saw a vision of Mae with her hand outstretched as she killed someone. She held a lightsaber, but she wasn’t killing the person with the blade. He recognizes that she’s seen a vision of the future, noting that she can kill without a weapon (something she failed to do during her quest). Osha refutes this idea: “But the future isn’t fixed. I can still stop her.” Qimir tells her that he’s going to find Mae, but Osha is quick to point out that he can’t just take off to find her—only Osha knows where her sister is. So he changes his plan so that they’ll find Mae together and see which one of them will get to her first.

Before they leave the planet, Qimir asks Osha if she would like to be trained. Her immediate answer is no. He tries a second time, under the guise of giving her a second chance to get her answer right, and she rejects him once again. This actually delights him, and he reveals that Mae took him up on that offer without even thinking about it. Unbeknownst to them (or at least unbeknownst to Osha), their departure is being watched from afar by a Sith who most definitely appears to be Darth Plagueis. This is one of the threads that Leslye Headland leaves dangling with Episode 8, laying the groundwork for future stories.

Sol Remains Convinced That He Was Right in ‘The Acolyte’s Finale

While Osha is jetting off across the galaxy with her hot new Sith-y friend, Mae is having a no-good-very-bad time with Sol (Lee Jung-jae), who still has her restrained aboard his ship. He reveals that he is taking her back to Brendok because he wants to prove that there was a vergence on the planet, which would further justify his heinous actions. Now that both of the girls are alive, they are essentially irrefutable proof that their mothers used the Force to create them via the power from the vergence. Mae smartly keeps Sol talking while she uses PIP to pick the locks on her cuffs.

Mae is furious that Sol lied to Osha and blamed everything on her, and he tries to sidestep culpability by blaming Mae, both for the fire and for locking the doors. But she rightfully calls him out for invading their home, which is what prompted them to lock themselves away. Sol isn’t very convincing when he tells her that his biggest regret was being unable to save both of them, especially when last week’s episode made it clear that he only ever cared about Osha. He continues trying to excuse away their mother’s death by explaining how Mae and Osha aren’t even twins or sisters, but rather a secret third thing. Mae doesn’t give him a chance to finish explaining. Once she has her cuffs picked, she leaps up and uses PIP to shock Sol. It buys her just enough time to make it to an escape pod with the greatest parting words in Star Wars history: “See you in hell, Jedi.” And, yes, before you grouse about “hell,” it very much exists in the Star Wars lexicon. Mae’s escape largely goes awry, as Sol pursues her through an icy asteroid belt, leading to her crash landing on Brendok.

‘The Acolyte’s Finale Introduces a Senator Who Makes a Really Good Point

On Coruscant, Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) is still fretting about how terribly wrong everything is going for her, and it gets a lot worse when Mog (HarryTrevaldwyn) arrives to tell her that Senator Rayencourt (David Harewood) is waiting for her. As previous episodes have hinted, Senator Rayencourt is pushing to have the Jedi Order externally reviewed, and Verenestra’s not-so-super-secret murder investigation is giving him even more cause to convince the Senate to do it. Vernestra lets slip that there is no larger threat involved with her investigation, which leads Rayencourt to pry her for more information. She admits that she’s close to finding the suspect, and he reads between the lines that said suspect must be a Jedi. He then accuses Vernestra of believing that his insistence that they be reviewed is being fueled by some sort of vendetta he holds against the Jedi Order, which she is quick to refute.

However, Senator Rayencourt makes some excellent points about why the Jedi absolutely do need to be reviewed: they’re operating like a religion when they aren’t, they are wielding unchecked power across the galaxy, and they are pretending that they have perfect control over their emotions when it’s clear that they do not. He believes that it is only a matter of time before one Jedi snaps — because they are only projecting the image of goodness and restraint. Rayencourt delivers what seems to be the entire thesis of The Acolyte’s depiction of the Jedi: “When you’re looking up to heroes, you don’t have to face what’s right in front of you.” With this, and an ominous warning that he has reported Vern’s lack of transparency to Chancellor Drellik, Rayencourt leaves Vernestra to mull over her actions — or rather, inactions.

In a later scene, Vernestra is shown to be trying to make contact with someone, though the who isn’t revealed until the final moments of the episode. As she finishes with the call, Mog arrives to tell her that Sol has been tracked down on Brendok. She tells Mog that he needs to gather as many Jedi Knights as possible because they’re headed to Brendok to solve this case once and for all.

Osha Takes an (Understandably) Dark Turn in ‘The Acolyte’s Finale

The vergence isn’t the only thing converging on Brendok. As Sol treks toward the coven’s fortress to find Mae, he sees Osha and Qimir’s ship flying overhead, which spurs him on. Mae is quite clever about playing hide-and-seek with Sol; she hangs off ledges to conceal her whereabouts and sneaks around her former home to avoid being caught. As Sol makes his way out into the courtyard where he murdered Mother Aniseya, the Stranger shows up to challenge him.

The Acolyte has had top-tier action sequences throughout the series, but this might actually be the best. It utilizes the perfect amount of slow-mo to really drive home the grace and power these two men wield, while also playing up the Force aspect of these fights. It’s also consistently visually intriguing, whether by showing the characters’ lightsabers clashing or following them as they parry strikes and recover from being kicked back with swift punches and powerful kicks. But the sequence is made even stronger by contrasting the fight between two masters with a very different style of conflict playing out between their would-be apprentices.

Within the fortress, Mae and Osha reunite in their childhood bedroom. Osha immediately blames her sister for everything: the fire, their mothers’ deaths, and even the fact that she failed at becoming a Jedi. From Osha’s perspective, the fact that she could never forgive her sister or overcome her negative emotions towards her was what limited her from excelling at the very thing she once tried to bar her from becoming. Mae, who has seemingly traded not only clothes but her sense of calm with her sister, tries her best to convince Osha that Sol lied to her: “You didn’t fail. He did.” Rather than face this uncomfortable truth, Osha attacks her sister. As their fists and arms collide with each other, the scene transitions flawlessly to the clash of Sol’s lightsaber with The Stranger’s.

The fight between Sol and The Stranger ramps up when they spot Vernestra’s vessel overhead. Sol is still convinced that he is in the right and has done nothing wrong, and it shakes him when The Stranger glibly tells him that he’s not the one the Jedi have arrived to apprehend. Sol manages to get the upper hand, albeit briefly, after he shatters one of The Stranger’s blades. Before he can deal a fatal blow, Sol is caught off-guard by Mae, who manages to disarm him and chuck his lightsaber aside, seemingly shattering the kyber crystal within.

The Stranger tells Mae to strike Sol down, to finish what she started with her quest, but Mae just wants him to confess what he did — not just to her, but to the High Council, and the Senate, and the Republic, so that he can pay for his crimes. Still, Sol holds fast to his convictions, claiming that he did the right thing. The Stranger watches on with great interest as Sol explains that Mae and Osha aren’t twins—they’re the same person. This fact seems to be a real sticking point for Sol, and perhaps is the driving force behind his belief that he made the right decisions on Brendok. They were an anomaly that he had to figure out. Whatever his rationale, Osha watches from the shadows as her former Master digs his proverbial grave.

Osha picks up Sol’s discarded lightsaber, grasping it in her hand as she listens to him confessing to the murder of their mother. She steps out of the shadows, asking Sol if that’s the truth, and he almost looks like he’s going to lie before he admits to what he did all those years ago. Osha wants answers: “If it was the right thing to do, why didn’t you tell the Jedi?” Sol continues making excuses for what he did and for the lies he told, and as he starts to claim that he did it because he loves Osha, his words are cut off. With a crisp “stop talking,” Osha begins to Force choke Sol. Even as he dies, Sol robs Osha of the choice to kill him because he accepts his death with a simple: “It’s okay.” The Acolyte does something incredibly cool with this scene that really proves that a Star Wars nerd was at the helm of the series. Osha’s rage and anger bleed into Sol’s kyber crystal, turning it red, just like all the dark side users that came before her.

With Sol now dead and Osha’s vision now coming true, but for her, Osha collapses to her knees, shaken. The Stranger approaches, offering her his hand, but she lunges at him, ready to strike him down with her blood-red lightsaber. Before she gets a chance to deal any damage, the Jedi arrive on Brendok. Qimir immediately senses a presence, and on the other side of the planet, Vernestra feels the same — only, she looks mad as hell that she’s sensing Qimir. The Stranger vanishes, leaving Osha and Mae to escape together to hide from the Jedi.

When Vernestra arrives in the courtyard, Qimir watches her from a window above, and she knows she’s being watched as she leans down to examine Sol’s body. Given Vernestra’s reaction to sensing Qimir, and the whip-shaped scars on his back, it’s fairly easy to piece together their obvious connection. Later in the episode, Vernestra does confirm that he was once her pupil, leaving the door open for more storytelling—both past and present.

Osha and Mae Make a Tragic Decision in ‘The Acolyte’

Mae and Osha escape from the fortress using the same route that Mae took all those years ago when she was left alone on the planet without her sister. They make their way to the beautiful golden-leafed tree where they played as children and apologize to each other for everything. The Stranger appears to interrupt their tearful moment, warning them that the Jedi will find them if he was able to find them so easily. Osha doesn’t seem too concerned by this, trusting that the Jedi will do the right thing, and he’s understandably frustrated that she still has faith in the Jedi, after everything.

This seems to make something click for Osha: She asks him to let Mae go, in return for her staying to train with him. The problem is, if the Jedi take Mae into custody, they might be able to get vital information about Qimir, Osha, and their whereabouts. Qimir offers to try to wipe Mae’s memory permanently to prevent this from happening, and they surprisingly agree to it. With tears in her eyes, Mae tells her sister: “You’re going to do what you were meant to do. I won’t stop you this time.” As the sisters hug and repeat the rhyme they were taught as children, Qimir sets to work stripping Mae of her memories, and it’s quite sad to see her slowly forget these crucial little moments. When they pull apart, Mae has no idea she’s looking into the face of her other half. Osha and Qimir escape before the Jedi catch up to Mae and take her into custody.

‘The Acolyte’ Has More Threads to Pull On

With a surprise third-act memory loss plot well underway, The Acolyte makes no secret that there are still plenty of stories to tell with this cast. On Coruscant, Mae is brought in for questioning by Vernestra, who pries her for information about what she recalls from childhood, when her mother was murdered by Sol. Thankfully, Qimir has left all of those memories intact, and Mae gives something akin to testimony about what really happened on Brendok. Mae’s witness statement allows Vernestra to finally close her case and pin everything on Sol.

Before the Senate, Vernestra reveals the tragedy that took place on Brendok, detailing how a simple field mission turned deadly, and how the threat of it being uncovered sent Sol down a dark path. She claims that the Jedi were murdered by Sol in an effort to cover up what happened on Brendok and, in the end, Sol returned to Brendok to die by suicide as his final act. The Senate seems convinced by her version of events, though it bolsters Senator Rayencourt’s request to see the Jedi externally reviewed, which seems inescapable at this point. As a coda to this arc, Vernestra asks Mae for help finding her former pupil, which opens up a world of possibilities for Season 2.

Said pupil has now found a pupil of his own, as The Acolyte returns to the uncharted planet that the Stranger calls home. He and Osha stand side-by-side, looking out at the horizon and all its potential. It’s a stark contrast to the final moments of The Rise of Skywalker, which saw Rey (Daisy Ridley) standing (mostly) alone on Tatooine after losing Ben Solo (Adam Driver). Whether intentional or pure coincidental poetry, the scene is pure magic. Wordlessly, the two exchange a look before he reaches down to take hold of the hand she’s grasping her newfound lightsaber with. It’s the sort of scene that enemies-to-lovers fans can only dream about seeing canonized.

The Acolyte closes on a pint-sized cameo, as Vernestra finally seeks her audience with the mysterious Jedi she was trying to reach at the top of the episode: Yoda. Yoda has been a prominent figure throughout The High Republic era, and hopefully, in a potential Season 2, we will get to see Vern and Yoda interacting more, as Yoda has watched her grow up within the Order, given their similarly lengthy lifespans.

What began as a taut murder mystery quickly transformed into a sprawling lore-filled adventure that questioned the morality of the Jedi and forced audiences to reckon with their hero-worshiping ways. While The Acolyte could have benefited from longer episodes and a longer season overall, Headland and the writers pulled off an unforgettable season of television that challenged Star Wars by tugging at some of its most exciting threads of storytelling.

All episodes of The Acolyte are streaming now on Disney+ in the U.S.

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