Spoilers The Acolyte

[JD]

At the influencer Q&A a couple weeks ago, the creator of the show said Episode 5 is probably the most exciting.


Yeah in legends Anakin was created by The Force itself to counter Darth Plagueis experiments into manipulating life.

Ah, OK. I thought I might have remembered hearing about an EU book addressing Anakin's origins, but I never read it.

It was easier once Mae got the tattoo.

The little ones were played by actual siblings. Leah and Lauren Brady according to the credits.

I was wondering about that. I was thinking a lot of the interactions seemed pretty complicated for it to have been one actress duplicated.

 

[Set Harth]

So... that's it? Mae started a fire and everyone died? And that guy actually killed himself over it? Wha?

Why would the fire kill everybody? I've been in a fire, there were exploding windows and everything! In fact, the exploding window was what woke me up. And nobody died! And I don't even have the Force!

 

[The Nth Doctor]

So... that's it? Mae started a fire and everyone died? And that guy actually killed himself over it? Wha?

Why would the fire kill everybody? I've been in a fire, there were exploding windows and everything! In fact, the exploding window was what woke me up. And nobody died! And I don't even have the Force!

...which is why (and others here) already suspect there's more to the situation than what was revealed here.

 

[JD]

There appears to be more to the story. Like I said there were other flashback scenes in the trailer that weren't in this episode.

It came across as.. the jedi are the only way.. period. If your force sensitive . Your ours.

Even though there are numerious planets with probably numerious versions of "the force"

I don't know, it seemed to like they were willing to back off if the Mothers stood their ground, and neither of the girls wanted to take the test. The only reason they didn't back off was because Osha wanted to the test and Mother Aniseya gave in.

Dont like where there taking the Jedi. As not truelly good. More there way or the highway. Like 15th cebtury church..

We started to see some of the more questionable aspects to the way the Jedi behaved in the Prequels and The Clone Wars, so that's nothing new to this.

 

[kirk55555]

Another good episode. Light on action, but it really helped the mystery part of the show. We got a lot of backstory, but also a lot of unanswered questions. The girls being artificially created is interesting, I assume it involves trying to birth kids powerful in the force, although Osha doesn't seem that powerful. What we see doesn't really justify that one jedi killing himself, so there is definitely a lot of information missing. Maw is definitely a psycho though, regardless of what else happened she tried to burn her sister to death.

I did think that the jedi were kind of being jerks. What right does the Republic have to tell a group of people, that aren't part of the Republic and live on a planet not in the Republic, that they aren't allowed to have kids, and then take any they do have away? I know that the jedi in general searched for force sensitive children, but this seemed more focused and specific then that. If Ohsa and Mae had both refused, would the jedi have fought the witches? The fact that the witch leader was so accommodating when Osha wanted to leave made the jedi look worse.

Actually, I wonder if the other witches rebelled against the leader for letting Osha go and fought her/the jedi, because they didn't seem to have died from the fire or a roof collapse and the witch leader 's body was separate from the rest of the witches (or at least thats what it looked like to me).

 

[Set Harth]

The girls being artificially created is interesting, I assume it involves trying to birth kids powerful in the force, although Osha doesn't seem that powerful.

That's another odd thing. Why couldn't they get children any other way? Because they're supposedly in hiding ( but the Jedi know, somehow ) and there are no men? And where power in the Force is concerned, what if they got someone at Sabine's level? The Ahsoka show indicates such an individual would not be useless...

 

[Xerxes82]

So... that's it? Mae started a fire and everyone died? And that guy actually killed himself over it? Wha?

Why would the fire kill everybody? I've been in a fire, there were exploding windows and everything! In fact, the exploding window was what woke me up. And nobody died! And I don't even have the Force!

No, this was Osha's point of view. Notice that while she is not directly present for the entire episode, all of the major events center around her. Even her interactions with Mae are from her perspective, with several gaps in Mae's timeline within the episode, most prominently in the climax.

There are still questions to be had here, however. What was Sol doing at the Fortress? There are certainly innocent explanations. But there are also sinister ones. What really killed the Coven? There were no flames, nor smoke present in the room with their bodies, and Sol conveniently prevented Osha from examining any of them in their haste. Why did Mae try to kill Osha with fire, but then seemingly want to save her later in the reactor(?) room? On the one hand we have two, on the other we have two, but somehow everything is coming out five and it just doesn't add up.

Not going to be at all surprised to circle back around to this for the Jedi POV at some point. Because this is clearly the point at which everything goes to hell, and that doesn't yet make sense.

Also, not sure it will be relevant to the mystery plot, but am I the only one who noticed just how quickly Sol became dangerously attached to Osha? I have questions. We'll see if the show has answers when all is said and done.

And, finally, some wild tin foil hat time theory crafting! Mother Aniseya "created" the twins, while the other sister carried them. But the Jedi would be shocked/appalled/terrified if they learned the truth of how they were created. I don't think this is going to be an Anakin "the Force made them" kind of thing. I think it's going to be a Darth Sidious got himself an apprentice from the Nightsisters kind of things. The Coven did a deal with the Sith in order to avoid extinction. The twins are the result.

The Sith always intended to return to claim at least one of the girls, which is why Mother Aniseya was so quick to try and induct them into the Coven. It may even by why the Coven is seemingly in hiding in the first place. Holding out on the Sith and not holding up their end of the bargain. But the Jedi found them first, which forced the Sith to act to cover up their tracks. Hell, it may even be how the Sith found them in the first place. The Sith Lord killed the Coven, and the Jedi encountered him/her/it but failed to stop them. I also suspect that Sol and the other three Jedi learned the truth of Osha's origins, at least in so far as being tied to some dark side plot if not tying it to the Sith directly, and this will be why they have lied to her this entire time. As well as explaining why the Jedi as a whole remain oblivious to the Sith game, as the four Jedi agreed to cover it up and never reported their existence in an effort to protect Osha. Much as they buried the fact that Mae was a twin, which now seems likely to have been hidden for the same reason.

This will backfire later in the story, when Osha learns the truth and Mae dies. Resulting in Osha going full dark, killing Sol, becoming the titular acolyte and taking her place in the Sith order. (Unless Sol is revealed to have been the Sith all along, which I still think is unlikely but cannot rule out entirely at this stage.)

 

[Set Harth]

Is Osha the true Chosen One?

 

[kirk55555]

That's another odd thing. Why couldn't they get children any other way? Because they're supposedly in hiding ( but the Jedi know, somehow ) and there are no men? And where power in the Force is concerned, what if they got someone at Sabine's level? The Ahsoka show indicates such an individual would not be useless...

I would have thought it was just the Star Wars equivalent of test tube babies, because like you say they have no men and seem to want kids to continue their traditions, but the show really brings attention to the circumstances of the birth in a way that feels like there was some specific thing related to their birth that goes beyond just a couple of women having kids with artificial help.

 

[Crewman6]

As someone who dug the first two episodes, the latest installment was kinda "meh." Some cool world-building with the Coven, but the reveal of what "actually" happened fell flat for me. Weren't we all expecting that the Jedi got up to some bad shit? But, unless there's still more to reveal, it was kind of a big, fat nothing.

 

[Reverend]

Very interesting episode. Unlike the previous episodes that had duel titles; this episode just has the one: 'Fate'. Seems appropriate as clearly this is only part of the story as told from Osha's perspective, not the whole story, and like any good mystery is begs as many questions as it answers. What was Sol doing at the fortress that night? How was Tobin injured? (It's out of focus, but in the final scene you can clearly see the wound that'll later leave a scar across his face and eye is quite fresh.) Where was Mother Koril? I didn't see her body amongst the dead. How did Mae survive the fall and how did she escape the planet?

The first thing that jumped out of me is that this planet has a lot of old ruins; there was a small henge next to the ruins of an old building up by the clifftop in the opening shot. There were broken but ornate stone wheel looking objects around the bunta tree, and of course the fortress itself looks very old. Given that the coven aren't from this place, but fled there to hide after being exiled (by whom, still remains a mystery) means that all of this was just deserted when they arrived. Indeed the ruins may be the reason the Jedi were there in the first place, assuming they were in earnest about believing the planet was uninhabited. They could have been investigating the site because it has some history with the dark side, or even the Sith specifically.

The episode certainly implies quite a bit without being explicit; there's more than one allusion for the audience's benefit to the whole "Darth Plagueis the wise" thing, and Anakin's conception by midichlorians. Throwing around words like "unnatural", "there was no father", and of course, literally saying they were created.
Whether that ties back into the Sith or the Chosen One remains to be seen, but it does make Qui-Gon's belief that Anakin was conceived by the midichlorians rather less of a leap if it's something that happened before. It certainly seems like the two girls are each more inclined towards one side of the force than the other (Mae to the dark, and Osha the light) but since this is told from Osha's perspective, we could be dealing with a Rashomon type situation.
Indeed though it seems like Mae is raising a few young psychopath red flags; being possessive and controlling, trying to impose her will on her sister, even seems to enjoy tormenting small animals (apparently not fir the first time.) Osha could also be seen to be selfish and individualistic. Prioritising her own wants and dreams over everything else . . . depending on one's point of view.

As for what actually happened that night; it looks like the majority of the coven were killed when the power core surged, shortly before it exploded. They were right there opposite the doors to the shaft, and said doors were bent outward from the explosion. But why were they all seemingly gathered in that spot in the middle of the night with a fire raging? Aniseya's body on the other hand, wasn't with them, but out in the courtyard, meaning she was killed separately, by something (or someone) else.

My suspicion is that Mother Koril's whereabouts is the missing piece in all of this. Perhaps she would rather kill everyone else than let the Jedi take one of her girls? They did go to pains in the previous episode establishing that bunta is a poison from this world, and reminded us of it again at the start of this episode. Perhaps she poisoned the others and planned to flee the planet with the girls, using the malfunctioning generator as a cover? Thinking that the Jedi wouldn't follow if they believed them all to be dead?

If that's the case though, it's a bit of a coincidence that Mae would also choose that night to get all murdery . . . unless Mae wasn't in her right mind and Koril was doing to her what Aniseya did to Tobin? Osha's dream of Mae in the first episode did have her eyes go all black like Tobin's. That could also explain both Sol's presence and Tobin's injury if Koril or even Aniseya were controlling him again; perhaps to try and implicate him in the slaughter, and the other Jedi were forced to subdue him? We're still missing pieces, but I feel like I at least have a sense of the shape of them.

 

[FPAlpha]

I think i'm out.

The show just doesn't click for me. The plot is kinda there ( force sensitive twins take different paths, don't understand how some reviews make it seem like a super twist that the show would feature twins), the Jedi are at the height of their arrogance because it's their way or the highway which ultimately led to their downfall as we know and i know it's very bad form but i'll still say it - child actors in Star Wars are almost always a miss including in this show ( they don't deserve to have their lives ruined like poor Jake Lloyd but man does SW need better casting people).

I can't imagine this show having to say something new or bringing something new to the table ( and by now i'm close to physical pain whenever someone trots out a "classic" line like I've got a bad feeling about this - just give it a rest okay?). This female group seemed to be like proto Dathomir Witches ( if they are not direct precursors) and that one Master glimpsed in the pilot will likely be a Sith or closely related ( possibly that merchant guy in another "shocking" twist).

I had very high hopes for TV Star Wars after Mandalorian knocked it into the stratosphere but ever since it was mostly disappointment for me with the exception of Andor that i might rate even higer than Mando and on general is beyond Star Wars good.

 

[Set Harth]

The episode was called Destiny, not Fate.

and how did she escape the planet?

One thing that I noticed about the first two episodes is that we never see Mae's ship or how she's getting from planet to planet, for whatever reason. Maybe the showrunners don't see it as important.

 

[Reverend]

and by now i'm close to physical pain whenever someone trots out a "classic" line like I've got a bad feeling about this - just give it a rest okay?).

Pretty sure that unless you count some 'Visions' shorts, or Jacen's partial quote in 'Ahsoka' last year; nobody has said that since Lando in tRoS . . . three and a half years ago. I think I'd call that a non-trivial rest period, given the volume of media released in that time.

 

[Set Harth]

( and by now i'm close to physical pain whenever someone trots out a "classic" line like I've got a bad feeling about this - just give it a rest okay?)

What happens when you hear "may the Force be with you"? Do you end up on the floor shaking in the fetal position?

 

[Tuskin38]

child actors in Star Wars are almost always a miss including in this show ( they don't deserve to have their lives ruined like poor Jake Lloyd but man does SW need better casting people).

I thought their acting was fine

But, unless there's still more to reveal,

There is.

So... that's it? Mae started a fire and everyone died? And that guy actually killed himself over it? Wha?

There's more flashbacks coming based on the trailers.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

( they don't deserve to have their lives ruined like poor Jake Lloyd but man does SW need better casting people).

I strongly disagree on this point. As I noted in my review, I enjoyed Leah and Lauren Brady's respective performances so much that I found myself wishing the adult versions of them were also played by twins (despite how much I adore Amandla Sternberg's performances).

 

[Set Harth]

But – couldn't they have dressed the twins in different outfits at least? I couldn't keep track of who was who.

Their faces looked different. But I gotta admit that giving them the exact same hairstyle was a bit much

 

[Commander Troi]

I really enjoyed that. I wonder what the relationship of this coven to Dathomir and the Nightsisters is. Perhaps their precursors came from another galaxy (per Ahsoka) and then split into various colonies. Interesting how different the sisters were/are from each other. Loved this different take on the Force. It makes sense there would be different views of it in different groups. This coven was very communal. Where did Osha learn the Jedi were good? The Jedi definitely didn't come off well here. I've always had some problems with the whole "taking very young children from their families", but this made me wonder how much say the families have in the whole thing.

 

[valkyrie013]

So.. you can leave the order.. seemingly whenever.. by choice or by washing out.. but can't opt out when the baby Nappers come a calling? huh.. GET OFF MY LAWN!