A Messy and Inconsistent Story: The Acolyte Episode 7 Review
The flashbacks in The Acolyte episode 7 muddy the waters of what the whole story is supposed to be by resulting in a messy, inconsistent narrative.
Spoilers for The Acolyte episode 7 abound in this page.
The following subjects will be covered in this page:
The Reveals in the Acolyte Episode 7 were Necessary but Poorly Managed
The Acolyte Episode 7 Reflects The Greatest Star Wars TV Issue
The Acolyte Has No Idea Which Story She Should Share
Reveals Were Necessary (But Poorly Handled) in the Acolyte Episode 7
The flashbacks of the episode were much awaited given the truth of what happened on Brendok hanging over four episodes. Most of the questions posed in The Acolyte episode 3 were satisfactorially addressed. The revelation that the Jedi were looking for a Star Wars Force vergence in Brendok tied the program tightly into larger mythology. But everything that came after was too hurried and illogical to have any long-lasting effect.
The reference to a Hyperspace Disaster rendering Brendok dead was a great allusion to the first High Republic Star Wars book, Light of the Jedi. Sadly, The Acolyte episode 7 tried to pack too many characters, motives, narratives, and resolutions into a cogent whole. While the continual back-and-forth of what Aniseya and Koril want for their children was agonizing to see for a second time after episode 3, Sol and Torbin's respective hot-headed thinking for taking Osha and Mae away from Brendok was rushed.
While the motivation of every unique character exists in a vacuum, The Acolyte episode 7 does not make any of them feel deserving or earned. Decisions are made on a whim, illogical choices endanger lives on both sides, and The Acolyte episode 7 cannot sufficiently portray the morally gray themes of misunderstandings and opposing beliefs to breed the conflict it aims for.
The Acolyte Episode 7 Indicative Of The Greatest Star Wars TV Problem
Should the convoluted narrative of The Acolyte episode 7 prove anything, it is clear that forthcoming Star Wars TV series must commit to longer runs and seasons. The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Bad Batch, and Andor are among the best Star Wars TV shows; all of them feature several seasons with ten plus episodes apiece. While eight episodes fit some situations—like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, a show aiming for a story as dense, complex, and multilayered as The Acolyte needs a format allowing that narrative to be explored to the fullest.
If the show devoted more than one or two scenes to each character in episode 7, their motivations would be much enhanced. Sol's insistence that Osha has to be his Padawan strikes me as oddly compulsive. He does everything he can to train a character he has known for roughly ten minutes, thus his later choices to kill her mother and let Mae die are wholly reckless.
The Acolyte could have dug far more into Sol's wish to train a Padawan, given more episodes to explore the narrative. As a Jedi Knight, it could have shown a past failure to do so; but, a backstory of Sol needing that connection could have guided his decisions and made them seem earned in The Acolyte episode 7. Not only would this make his character infinitely more interesting, but it would give Lee Jung-jae, a continuous bright spark of The Acolyte, a narrative fit for his performance.
The Acolyte episode 7 could have shown that Sol and Osha had a relationship through the Force to explain the former's want to train the latter, but instead left that absent and further muddled the storyline.
The Acolyte episode 7 also goes into more on young Torbin. Although Dean Charles Chapman mostly does a great job, his character suffers the same issues as Sol. Later on he takes his own life after his reckless choice to dash headfirst into the hornet's nest causes death and destruction back to Coruscant. Torbin wants to go home so much, why? Your guess is just as good as mine.
The Acolyte Uncertain About The Story It Desired To Share
Following the ending of The Acolyte episode 7, most people believed the show lacked knowledge of the narrative it was presenting. Does it follow the Sith breaking into the Jedi? If so, where precisely is Qimir when all of this is under progress? Is it about a conflict between two religious groups and their divergent beliefs generating catastrophe? It could be if only The Acolyte committed the time required to master such a difficult narrative. Is the sad tale of twins here? Is it all of these taken together?
Of course, The Acolyte still has one episode to wrap its narrative. The last could fix every single issue, annoyance, criticism, and unresolved question. But it is simply not feasible for one more episode, which will surely not run more than forty minutes, to sum up all required criteria for satisfaction. Showrunner Leslye Headland has expressed a wish for next seasons of The Acolyte, but she has also promised that season 1 will wrap up cohesively, a reality that does not seem feasible right now.
The Acolyte episode 7 had flashes of excellence: the fight choreography stays great, the music and production design mostly work well, and wider Star Wars references fit the show nicely within the timeline.
Though both sides of the story The Acolyte is narrating are fascinating in their own right, they don't mesh to create a clear narrative, which is concerning given one episode left. The overall endgame of The Acolyte's narrative is still unknown; some characters are switching sides and flitting between goals with little justification, others are making bold, life-changing decisions with little motivation. More time was required to narrate a story so fundamentally complicated, which The Acolyte episode 7 so brilliantly illustrated.
Disney+ now streams the seventh Acolyte episode.
Discover More About the Acolyte.
Set in the Star Wars universe at the end of the High Republic Era, the television series The Acolyte features both the Galactic Empire and the Jedi at their most influential point. Investigating several crimes, this sci-fi thriller sees a former Padawan reunite with her former Jedi Master as they uncover darkening events beneath the surface ready to bring about the end of the High Republic.
