The Acolyte – Episode 7 “Choice” Recap & Review

Choice

Episode 7 of The Acolyte begins with a flashback sixteen years earlier on Brendok. Sol and the other Jedi Masters, including Kelnacca and Indara, continue searching for someone. They’ve bee here for seven weeks and haven’t found anything yet. They’re looking for a Vergence, which is apparently a concentration of Force energy around one location. Apparently it could create life and it’s a noble mission given they want to try and protect it.

Sol eventually finds a young Mae and Osha out in the woods and watches as they control the Force. Sol watches as the kids are taken back to the spooky coven, but he can’t get through to Indara so he decides to go alone. He climbs up the stone settlement and watches as the cult continue to work on Mae and Osha, trying to guide them into using the Force.

Sol returns and points out to Indara and co. what is happening. He’s worried for the girls and believes they’re in danger. They return that night but Indara wants to go it alone. Sol says no so they head up as a group instead. They meet Aniseya, who takes control of Torbin’s mind and starts to break him. She claims he’s a strong and good Jedi, and seduces him into submission, claiming she can give what he needs. Eventually he cracks and she makes him kneel. This is when Torbin is taken control of in episode 3.

Back in the ship, Sol claims he feels a connection to Osha and believes she is meant to be his padawan. He worries that Osha is not safe, given Mae has been given a “dark mark” and could be killed. He wants to try and save her.

Torbin takes a sample of Mae’s blood as she’s led onto their ship and Indara tests her. While they talk, they learn of Ascension and how everyone must be sacrificed to fulfil their destiny. Mae doesn’t take the test seriously and eventually leaves, but Sol takes a different approach with Osha. This time, she gets the pictures correct… or well, one anyway.

Apparently the council refuse to allow the twins to come to Coruscant, but it happens off-screen and with Indara deciding this alone. Apparently they’ve interfered too much already and need to head home… even though their mission was to find Vergence. Apparently the twins’ genes are exactly the same and this is when they learn a vergence has been used to split them into twins.

Torbin realizes that their proof of vergence stems from the twins and he races off to find them. At the same time, Aniseya decides to let Osha go, deciding to be a mother before a leader. Mae, in the midst of all this, angrily smashes things up after her fight with Osha. Mae takes the firelight and burns the stone settlement. She burns stone. Stone. With fire. 180 million dollar budget, folks.

While the stone settlement burns, Sol and Torbin show up in the courtyard. Aniseya turns into a dark smoke monster, as does Mae. Sol uses his lightsaber on the smoke and stabs Aniseya. It’s only one through the gut though so she could still be alive, based on Disney Star Wars rules.

When Aniseya collapses on the ground, Mae is overcome with grief. Sol notices her mark on the forehead, while Osha escapes out her chamber while the stone burns. Meanwhile, Koril turns into a smoke monster as well and infects Kelnacca, forcing him to fight against the Jedi.

The choreography is woeful, of course, but as Sol and Kelnacca fight, Indara shows up to save the day. She single-handedly manages to save Kelnacca and stop the cult. She demands Sol bring the twins, who are stuck on either side of the bridge. Sol arrives alone and has to make a choice over which side of the bridge to keep up and he chooses Osha, allowing Mae to fall.

Back on the ship, despite finding out that these loonies were murderous space witches and in possession of very strong, Force-sensitive children (and also the source of their Vergence, which is the very mission they were sent there to achieve), Indara chews them out for what’s happened.

The trio decide that they’re going to tell the truth, that Mae burned down the stone settlement and that all the witches are dead. Sol is also going to confront the council, and as he makes that choice, Osha wakes up and Sol tells her that Mae started a fire.

The Episode Review

Well, now we know it was Mae who started the fire inside the stone settlement and that apparently fire can burn stone, as well as being able to blow like the wind in outer space. Crazy the things we’re learning from this 180 million dollar budgeted program!

In all seriousness though, The Acolyte continues to deliver terrible writing and poor dialogue. The story tries to get us to empathize with the witches, believing that they’re just in some way for allowing Osha to leave. However, this episode actually reinforces their manipulation and the danger they pose, given they can mind control their subjects to do their biding, which as we find out in this episode, is for nefarious means.

We’re supposed to believe here that the Jedi are the bad guys but ironically, the writing is so poor that it just reinforces that the Jedi – and in particular Sol – did the right thing. The Jedi show up at a seemingly abandoned planet, and find out about a strange manipulating Coven that are splitting souls, manipulating the force and turning them into powerful force babies.

Aniseya then turns into a smoke monster so Sol stabs her to protect the twins and then leaves with Osha, the one remaining living child after Mar (who was being seduced into becoming evil and erratic) was lost. The only mistake here is possibly Sol not telling Mae to jump over to the other side of the bridge or using his force powers to keep the bridge upright. Or, even better still, not using his mindreading skills (which we learned about in episode 2) to check if Aniseya and co. are actually evil.

Even worse though, the Jedi touched down to find a vergence, and Torbin – although perhaps very rashly – carries out his mission by heading to the coven. But for some reason Indara has cold feet and decides they should just leave? Much like the rest of this show, episode 7 is a mess.