The Acolyte Episode 5 Review

The Acolyte’s fifth episode is a great action set piece throughout, letting the Jedi and Sith go at each other for about 30 minutes. It’s a fantastic display of lightsaber combat with some staggering deaths, though it does culminate in a rather obvious reveal. Master Sol’s past is going to come up and bite him sooner or later, which is intriguing because of Lee Jung-jae’s excellent characterization, and Mae’s twists and turns, which ultimately fall flat. 

Getting the reveal out of the way quickly, it turns out the Sith is Qimir, which should surprise no one. He laid it on so thick in episode four had indeed he was the Sith, that when his helmet broke audiences will likely let out a small sigh on how obvious the twist was. 

However, to make up for that rather lackluster reveal, Manny Jacinto, who plays Qimir, crushes the role. He’s playfully goofy at times but is serious in his resolve and goals. Something that also helps is the brutality of his fighting, and his stellar costume. It also has fighting utility, being laced with cortosis, a material that shorts out lightsabers. It adds to the fight. Now audiences have the question of The Stranger’s identity out of the way, more pop up like where did he come from, who trained Qimir, and does he have a master? 

Throughout the half an hour episode, audiences are treated to a fantastic and frenetic lightsaber fight between Qimir and the contingent of Jedi. Watching them dance across the admittedly small sets is a sight to behold. A small nitpick is with the fight’s brutality, as while it’s fantastic to see a few brutal moments, some are confusingly constrained by the TV-14 rating, while other parts aren’t. 

And, as previously mentioned, the cortosis causing the lightsabers to short out is a little touch that adds a lot of flair, making this fight stand out between the many across ‘Star Wars’. Something that makes this fight feel consequential to the plot, other than the Sith reveal, is the death of two major side characters, Jecki and Yord. Jecki’s death is the most emotionally impactful of the two, but she went out in a badass fashion, and Qimir using Shoto blades to inflict multiple was as sad as it was satisfying. Yord’s death is shocking, as he was the comic-relief bootlicker of the Jedi, but  

Mae’s plotline this episode becomes muddled this week. After declaring in episode four that she was going to going to surrender to the Jedi and reveal everything she knew about The Stranger, she goes back on her word. When Jecki tries to apprehend her, Mae attacks her with such a ferocious anger. Later on, Mae tries to run away from everything that’s going on. And to top all this off, she stuns her sister and takes her place to return to the Jedi Temple after the fight. Why is completely unclear, has she gone back on her motivation not to kill the Jedi anymore? Who knows. 

Osha is floating about currently, being dragged from place to place. She didn’t want to come to Khofar in the first place, and she spends the fight in “Night” trying to run away. When she finally does confront her sister, she gets stunned, and Qimir is the one who finds her. This the traditional villain captures the hero, but here Osha (and the audience) stands to learn a new perspective on what happened in the past.  

Master Sol has a harrowing time in this episode, with Qimir ominously hinting that the two aren’t so different. He promises to spill the beans, hinting at another flashback soon. But now that the outright tease from last episode has been resolved, making sense on what happened on Brendok all those years ago. He as a character has been the best in the series so far, though Qimir might challenge that. 

Episode five of ‘The Acolyte’ is easily the best of the season so far, bringing cool lightsaber battles and a brilliant if obvious new enemy to the fore. While the main characters seem aimless and confused, it’s easy to become attached to the side characters that pushes the desire to learn more forward.