‘The Acolyte’ Episode 5 Review: “Night” Is One Big Lightsaber Duel with Huge Ramifications
Well, for any fans who have felt recent episodes of The Acolyte have been light on action, get ready to fill your boots. “Night” is almost entirely one long action scene as the Jedi face off against the mysterious masked red bladed figure.
Until now, The Acolyte‘s action scenes had been mostly unarmed combat, with Mae occasionally dodging and ducking beneath a Jedi lightsaber, but here we finally got a big climactic lightsaber duel. The choreography is just as impressive here as it is in the other fight scenes, with plenty of cool flourishes from the masked man as he carves his way through his Jedi opponents.
Make no mistake, the The Acolyte‘s villain is a force to be reckoned with. The Jedi have no idea what they’re up against, while the red blade knows exactly what he’s doing. He delights in displaying his power, taunting them as they struggle against his might.
This episode has some big consequences too. The ramifications of this fight will be felt for the rest of the season, with some pretty huge developments and reveals that will inform the final three episodes. Granted, some of the reveals were pretty easy to spot and many people had accurately called them beforehand, but their execution was excellent.
This was the most exciting episode of The Acolyte so far, with visceral action, big reveals and surprising twists.
Spoilers ahead…
Let’s start with arguably the most surprising reveal of the episode (no, I obviously don’t mean the reveal that Qimir was Mae’s master all along like we all predicted). It seems that The Acolyte has introduced cortosis into live action!
For anyone who didn’t read the Legends books and comics from the old Expanded Universe, cortosis was a type of metal that could absorb energy at such a high rate that when a lightsaber came into contact with it, it would deactivate the blade for a few seconds at a time. Cortosis was prevalent in those stories, as enemies would constantly use it to nullify the effects of a lightsaber.
Since the canon was reset, cortosis has rarely appeared but it seems it’s finally been brought into a live action story as Qimir’s armor seemed to be laced with it. Leslye Headland knows her Star Wars, it seems.
Right, let’s talk about the Qimir reveal. The Acolyte had telegraphed this development quite heavily beforehand, leading some to speculate that Qimir was a red herring and the mysterious figure would surely be someone else, like Master Indara. The reveal that it was Qimir definitely left me going “well, yeah”, so if the show wanted me to be blown away then it probably shouldn’t have left so many clues in the last three episodes.
The more interesting reveal here is that Qimir claimed that he was indeed a Sith. This has huge ramifications for the rest of The Acolyte; either he ends up killing Sol and possibly Vernestra Rwoh by the end of the season to conceal his identity (he states his intention to kill them all for this very reason right after revealing it), or he gets killed and the Jedi cover it all up to make sure that the High Council and the Senate never learn of it to keep panic and fear from spreading. My money’s on the latter.
Manny Jacinto’s performance was fantastic. Not just his skill with a lightsaber, but the violent glee and raw darkness on his face as demonstrated his power to the Jedi. It felt like he’d been aching to show the Jedi just how superior he felt to them, as he spoke with disdain about the fact that he’s had to hide who he was in order to stay alive. If he hadn’t just outed himself as a Sith, I’d have almost felt sorry for him.
Yord said something very interesting about Qimir; that his fighting style was hard to predict because he didn’t follow any of the rules of lightsaber combat practiced by the Jedi. They went into that fight expecting everything to go a certain way, and didn’t know what to do when Qimir refused to react how they expected.
It’s a fantastic metaphor on the state of the Jedi. The order has become so rigid, so concerned about following the rules they’ve set out and doing everything a certain way, that they have no idea how to act when they’re out in the world and away from their ivory tower on Coruscant.
This revelation actually helps make some sense of Darth Sidious’ fight with the Jedi masters in Revenge of the Sith. Many people rightly complain that Kit Fisto, Saesee Tiin and Eeth Koth were dispatched too quickly by Palpatine. But could it have been that those Jedi were guilty of the same things as Yord Fandar and the other Jedi redshirts were in this episode, expecting their Sith opponent to act a certain way so they were completely unprepared for a fighting style that was the opposite of what they practiced?
I think most of us predicted that Yord wouldn’t be long for this world when we first met him (he’s been the biggest symbol of how stuffy and rigid the Jedi have become), but somehow I was still surprised when Qimir did kill him. With a snap of the neck, no less! For the man who tasked Mae with killing a Jedi without a weapon, that must have felt good. I think because Jecki had already snuffed it, I didn’t expect a second main character to be killed off so quickly. If they had reversed those deaths, Yord wouldn’t have garnered nearly as a big a reaction from me, so kudos to the writers for that.
Jecki got a pretty cool death. Coming off a fun fight with Mae in Kelnacca’s hut, we see her adapt to Qimir’s cortosis armor by pulling out Kelnacca’s lightsaber (a resourcefulness not displayed by the other Jedi, almost certainly taught by Sol). The confident grin on her face was wonderful as she went on the offensive — her fighting style with dual blades reminded me of Anakin vs Dooku in Attack of the Clones — and I gasped when Qimir stabbed her through the chest. I thought Jecki would last another episode or two, so this really pulled the rug from under me.
Osha’s plan to use the bugs to defeat Qimir was a great idea. She displayed the kind of creativity that seemed to elude the other Jedi, using the planet’s nature to her advantage. Honestly, it was the type of thing we’d expect a Jedi to do, but none of these guys thought of it. So many of the bugs smothered Qimir that the plan worked without undermining his power. He was still slashing more of them off as they flew off with him but he was severely outnumbered.
The showdown between Osha and Mae probably could have used another pass in The Acolyte writer’s room. It was adequate and allowed the sisters to get everything off their chest, but Mae seemed to conveniently ignore Osha’s points and decline to correct her on others. She scoffs when Osha accuses her of burning down their home when she could have set the record straight (this is clearly because the series wants to show us what really happened later, rather than tell us now), and accuses Osha of following Sol down a path with no family, right after Osha just told her the Jedi were her family at one point.
I am also surprised Sol didn’t immediately recognize that Mae was impersonating his former padawan. Shouldn’t he have been able to sense her in the Force? That does seem like a bit of an error here.
The episode ends with Mae travelling with Sol, and Qimir picking up Osha. I wonder if the show is going to show Osha turning toward the dark side (it hinted she’s capable of it in episode 3) while Mae turns towards the light in Sol’s company. It’s definitely easier to see how this show will end now, but there are still 2-3 possible endings to keep us guessing.
We’ll be back next week to discuss episode 6 of The Acolyte. Look forward to our discussion of this fifth episode on SWNN Live! on Thursday night, too.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
