The Acolyte – Episode 4 “Day” Recap & Review

Day

Episode 4 of The Acolyte begins on the planet Khofar, where we get a look at our Jedi Wookie. He lives alone. However, Osha and Qimir make it to the planet and set out to kill him. They have 3 hours of sunlight left and so they need to be quick. Remember this, it’ll be important.

Over on Coruscant, Osha watches as the Jedi continue to train. She’s leaving now, after seeing her sister and knowing she’s alive. She believes Mae is the Jedi’s problem and is going to slip out without even saying bye to Sol, believing that she’s caused him “enough trouble”.

Meanwhile, Sol and the other Jedi discuss Mae and who her Master may be. They contemplate whether this is a splinter cause and after killing two Jedi Masters, there are rumblings that it may be a Jedi that’s trained her all this time. They decide not to alert the Senate for fear of causing riots, and instead Master Holden is tasked with extracting Kelnacca from his post and intercepting Mae. The other Jedi are also going to tag along too.

Sol speaks to Vernestra, who grills him over Mae still being alive. Sol contemplates whether they can bargain with her, given she won’t come quietly. Sol speaks to Osha and decides she needs to join the Jedi as an advisor so she can get closer to Mae. He doesn’t want Mae to get hurt and believes she can come back to the Light Side. She’s also still family too, and eventually she’s convinced.

On Khofar, Yord wants Osha to hand over her gun but she refuses. Instead of using the Force to jut take it from her, he gives up and they continue on their way. While walking, Yord explains that he just wants to help her and keep her safe. Osha though, points out that Yord needs to be ready to potentially kill Mae if it comes to that.

With the Jedi using Bazil as a tracker, they continue on their way through the forest but they soon lose him and end up stranded. Unfortunately, Osha ends up falling behind too, despite being the crucial component to this plan, and the group are confronted by a winged creature.. Sol immediately brandishes his lightsaber to destroy one of them. And that’s the end of that.

Meanwhile, Mae starts to doubt her mission and is losing her nerve. Qimir decides to give her some time alone to rest… despite her initially claiming they need to hurry and suggesting they run in the first place. Anyway, as soon as he leaves, Mae traps him. She’s decided not to do her mission anymore, despite killing two Jedi Masters already. She’s going to turn herself into the Jedi and defy her master. She’s convinced that she’ll be fine if she divulges what she knows.

Mae finds Kelnacca’s house, and also finds Bazil right outside too, who calls out in the forest loudly when he comes into contract with Mae. The Jedi bust through the woods, thankfully very close by, and Mae heads into Kelnacca’s house for refuge. When she does, she finds that Kelnacca has been sliced by a lightsaber. Such a shame that he wasn’t just impaled through the gut, he could have survived that!

Anyway, while Mae looks to be the culprit, everyone convenes outside the house where they find Mae’s master approach out the woods. The Jedi immediately brandish their lightsabers, but this masked Sith uses the Force to knock back every Jedi outside.

The Episode Review

While episode 3 was hilariously bad, episode 4 is just a complete snooze fest. Despite being only 28 minutes long, the whole chapter feels like filler. There’s such terrible dialogue throughout this show, and it’s not helped by the fact that characters act so irrationally. So Mae has killed 2 Jedi and only now she’s questioning what she’s doing. And she initially wanted to hurry but now she’s tired and needs to stop? And Yord wants Osha’s gun but then changes his mind 3 seconds later?

It’s not helped of course by Amandla Stenberg’s acting (fi you can call it that) which fails to emote any sense of gravitas or, well, emotion, while there’s no style of depth to anything that’s being shown on screen.

The fact that we’re halfway through this show and there’s no sense of drama, stakes, mystery, comedy (unless you’re laughing at the hilarity of it all) or action is indicative of how much of a mess this show is. At this point, it seems that there’s absolutely no chance of this one turning things around.