The thing is, the show doesn’t really follow up on all of this initial momentum. With such an overtly violent setup you’d think we’d be in for a darker Star Wars tale, something stylized or even crime noir-ish. The main trilogy was a space opera, and The Mandalorian initially leaned heavily into Westerns, but The Acolyte so far only seems to only have slight genre tendencies underneath its space fantasy backdrop. While the series does hit its fair share of minor chords in its first two episodes, there’s nothing particularly dissonant or disruptive going on thematically or stylistically. It’s a well-written and well-told Star Wars story that’s presented in a very similar manner as all of the other shows we’ve seen so far from the franchise.
What’s disappointing about this is that the premise and setting of The Acolyte is a perfect excuse to deviate from the established formula in a big way. That doesn’t really happen here—the way the show is edited, the way the scenes are lit, the orchestral score, the fraught master-padawan relationship…it all feels too familiar to be truly exciting. The Acolyte stands comfortably beside its Star Wars TV show peers, but it doesn’t really stand out, at least not yet.
Okay, so the show isn’t as edgy or subversive as it could have been. That being said, it’s still one hundred percent worth watching. The story’s greatest virtue is that its secrets are revealed at a clip that’s actually kind of addictive. There’s a propulsive nature to the way bits of the characters’ backstories are occluded and subsequently unveiled, which makes the show consistently entertaining to watch.
When we meet Osha (also Stenberg), for example, she’s presented to us in a way that causes us to question whether or not she really is the Jedi-killer we just watched murder Indara. We’re left to ponder this for a while, and then we see her haunting vision of Mae, her twin sister, and a little piece of the bigger picture comes into view. We still don’t know who Mae’s master is, why she wants to kill these particular Jedi, or the truth behind the sisters’ estrangement, but the show gives us the perfect-sized morsel to want to come back for more answers.
There are also a zillion questions behind Master Sol’s (Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae) connection to his former Padawan Osha. He clearly harbors a measure of regret when it comes to Osha and Mae, and while he reveals to his pupil Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) that he watched Mae die after she set her entire family on fire, it’s clear there’s more to the story than that.
Lee is just a phenomenal actor and brings the same gravitas and warmth to The Acolyte as he did to Squid Game. Though there isn’t nearly as much pathos or complexity to Sol as there is with Seong Gi-hun, Lee still brings an underlying but palpable sense of compassion and humanity to every scene he’s in.