‘The Acolyte’ Non-Spoiler Review (Episodes 1-4): Amandla Stenberg and Lee Jung-jae Charm Their Way Through a Show That Has Not Reached Its Full Potential Yet
If you’ve seen the trailers for The Acolyte, you know exactly how the show starts. After you’ve seen the first two episodes of the series, which debut tonight on Disney Plus, you might think you know where things are going next. And though the show isn’t entirely unpredictable, showrunner Leslye Headland (who also wrote the first episode and directed the first two), along with her team of writers, manages to keep the audience intrigued about a series of murders despite making the assassin one of the main characters in the series.
I’ve seen the first four episodes, which I’ll be discussing here. No spoilers ahead. Beware that these are my thoughts on these episodes and not necessarily the entire first season of the show.
And that’s really the strongest part of the show, the character dynamics between the parts played by Amandla Stenberg and Lee Jung-jae. 100 years before The Phantom Menace, Mae (Stenberg) is out for blood, embarking on a revenge quest that will only draw her further into the paths previously walked by her dark side master — a mysterious masked figure whose real identity will probably stay a secret until the end of the season. The show barely pretends the author of the crimes is unknown, with the actual mystery becoming, before the end of the first episode, what really happened to Mae.
Jung-jae plays Jedi Master Sol, a well-respected figure inside the Order, who himself looks up to Vernestra Rwoh (played by Rebecca Henderson, she’s possibly the best supporting character in the show.) Sol is the heart and, well, soul, of the series, both in writing and especially through Jung-jae’s portrayal. Four episodes in, the Squid Game actor might be in the running for the best lead performance in a Star Wars series so far. And because of how, in particular, the fourth episode played out, it seems like his emotional baggage will play an even bigger role in the second half of the season.
All the strong character work Headland and her team accomplish with Sol and Mae, however, is short-circuited by extremely bland supporting characters, especially Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), who seems to be checking the box that every Star Wars series must have a universally hated buffoon. The writing on Sol’s Padawan, Jecki Lon, is evened out by a very charismatic performance by Dafne Keen, who is able to hide the fact that by the time the credits roll on the fourth episode we haven’t really learned anything about her that wasn’t revealed during the press tour.
Besides the characters, the selling point of the show is the investigation into a series of murders that leads Sol to reckon with his past. The full weight of this hasn’t been revealed in the four episodes I saw, and the truth is that the show will live or die on whether Headland is able to bring this mystery to a satisfying conclusion. There’s a “been here, seen that” feeling that comes along with it, as parts of The Acolyte don’t feel like they’re breaking any storytelling grounds — yet feel like the first step to freshen up the Star Wars franchise.
At 35 minutes a pop, the episodes of The Acolyte feel as long as they need to be. They tend to slow down toward the middle, exaggerating the feeling of a slow burn that comes along with an eight-episode mystery thriller that so far hasn’t zig-zagged much. But perhaps what’s unexpected about the structure of the series is that Headland is aware that there is a degree of predictability that comes along with the questions she’s raised, and decided to pull the curtain on the third episode. From that point on, the question driving the narrative becomes: why did the events of the third episode unfold the way they did?
The Acolyte tries to feel like a breath of fresh air for the Star Wars franchise, and it definitely succeeds at that. But how original is it outside of the saga? There’s been a lot of talk about the fight choreography and the “Force-fu” style it introduces. Most of the action of the first four episodes is concentrated on the first two, which feature a few of these sequences. Particularly, Mae vs. Sol is very entertaining to watch. The third episode, in turn, is a fascinating new exploration of Star Wars lore and interpretations of the Force that, if anything, should have been explained even further. Hopefully, all will come in due time.
Michael Abels’ score feels ever-present, always lurking in the background, but never really taking over the action or calling attention to itself. A similar argument could be made for Amandla Stenberg’s performance, as she brings a lot of nuance and sensibility to her work in the show, even if half the time she’s not being particularly flashy about it. However, so much of her work is tied to specific plot points, so going further than that would be risky in terms of spoilers.
The bottom line is that I’m enjoying the show so far but, besides a very cool cliffhanger at the end of the fourth episode, I’m not particularly dying to see the next one. I have an overall positive impression, yet I also fear that the mystery will be as, or even simpler than presented at face value during the first four episodes of the series. Though there are some interesting themes raised during the first half of the season (particularly in the third episode), it doesn’t feel like Leslye Headland has reached the full potential of what she wanted to do — at least not yet.
The first two episodes of The Acolyte will start streaming on Disney Plus on Tuesday, June 4, at 6pm PT.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
