The Acolyte – Episode 5 “Night” Recap & Review

Night

Episode 5 of The Acolyte begins with Osha waking up in the forest after being knocked down. She grabs her Pip, steps forward and ends up face to face with a dead Jedi. She hears lightsabers in the distance, and as she approaches, notices Smilo Ren killing a bunch of Jedi. Osha stands from afar with her blaster and aims at Smilo. The shot hits their arm but it barely phases the Sith. Yord tells her to run, so she does just that, while Mae seizes her opportunity and steals Kelnacca’s lightsaber inside the hut.

Smilo throws his lightsaber at Osha, letting it boomerang through the forest, but Sol shows and swats it back, and it eventually ends up back in Smilo’s hands. Sol and Smilo come face go face, and Sol seems to recognize something familiar. He also chimes in that “he carries a Jedi weapon but is not a Jedi.” Another fantastic bit of dialogue there from Leslye Headland, former PA to Harvey Weinstein.

Elsewhere, Yord leads Osha back to the ship by using Bazil while Mae comes face to face with the Padawan, Jecki. The pair skirmish, and Yord isn’t concerned. He knows she can hold her own against the woman who killed two Jedi masters because “Jecki is a Jedi”. 180 million dollar budget, by the way. It seems $0.01 went to the writing team.

Yord and Osha once more lose Bazil, while Jecki manages to apprehend Mae because she’s so damn good. When Smilo Ren shows up, the pair duel and of course she’s way better than all the other Jedi combined. Instead of killing her, Smilo Ren heads off into the woods to chase Mae, who rushes off.

Meanwhile, Osha tells Yord to turn off his lightsaber as the light attracts “them” (these being the creatures clinging to the tree last episode that nobody bat an eyelid to) so she instead *checks notes* uses the torch on her Pip which is way brighter to check out the creatures at the top of the treeline.

With the torch still on, Osha tells Yord to run and they rush through the trees while Sol and Jecki catch up to Smil Ren and the pair fight. Jecki is eventually killed by Smilo Ren, whose helmet is removed and what a surprise (it’s not a surprise at all) the master is actually Qimir.

Qimir throws his cloak at Sol and then grabs Mae by the throat. He claims he wants freedom to wield the power they way he wants. He also wants a pupil, given Mae has gone back on her deal. As they talk, Yord returns and has his neck snapped by the Sith. As for Osha, she hits Mae with her stun gun and knocks her down.

Sol and Qimir go hand to hand until Sol grabs his lightsaber. He has Qimir right where he wants him… until Osha stops him. He lets Qimir get up, just for Osha to put Pip on his back and allow the creatures to show and take him away.

Mae returns though after initially being stunned, and while Sol and Osha talk, she stuns Sol and knocks him down. The two Amandla Stenbergs struggle to emote as they face each other. Osha claims Mae was the one who burnt the stone settlement in episode 3, but apparently we’re not seeing everything. The pair flip flop around their emotions, before they embrace. Mae wants Osha to choose her and decides that’s all they have.

When Mae knocks Osha down, she grabs Yord’s lightsaber and brings it right up close to her own neck and decides to cut some of her dreads off. Qimir survives his ordeal with the creatures, while Mae pretends to be Osha. The Jedi can read minds of course, as we learned from Qimir in this very episode. Sol doesn’t do that though and just trusts Mae blindly, believing her to be Osha given she’s dressed as such. Bazil seems to he the only one who at least senses something afoul.

As the episode closes out, Qimir finds Osha, who’s dressed in Mae’s clothes.

The Episode Review

A lot of people will go into this one and see all the flashy lightsabers and action, immediately conflating that with quality. But even the action, when you break it down, is messy and riddled with issues.

The character motivations for Mae in particular is painful to watch. In 3 episodes we’ve had her desperate to kill the Jedi, then changing her mind and being docile, and then trying to kill them again. And seeing Jecki, the Padawan, stand toe to toe with Mae who managed to kill 2 Jedi masters and then fight the best out of everyone against Smilo Ren is just laughable.

Then we get the boomerang scene with Smilo Ren too when Osha could have just, I dunno, ducked? But then this is the same woman who told Yord to turn off his lightsaber because the creatures are attracted to light… then proceeded to run through the forest with the light switched on on her Pip. Go figure.

The reveal of Qimir being Smilo Ren is one of the worst reveals in TV history and incredibly predictable. Anyone could have figured that out since episode 2 but many doubted it because it was so damn obvious.

It’s worth reiterating that this is a 180 million dollar project because honestly, it looks like a money laundering scheme at this point. The sets are cheap, the acting is terrible, and the dialogue is painful. The story is just not very good and it’s clear that there’s been a twin swap after the dreadlock cutting so I’m not sure why this should be a surprise to anyone. And why is Sol not using his mind-reading or testing to see which twin this is?

It seems like next week we’re probably going to get another flashback episode, this time from Mae’s perspective, but I am really struggling to see how on earth we’re filling 3 episodes full of content here.