Every time an episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte lands, Fantha Tracks will be giving their responses, and here are our initial gut feelings, deep dives and thoughts on episode seven of season one, ‘Choice’. Beware of spoilerific elements in here.
Ross Hollebon
“I feel she is meant to be my Padawan.” As many red flags and dysfunctional interactions that exist between the four Jedi in this episode, this declaration from Master Sol is the keystone to the tragedy on Brendok. It does not mean his intentions were not noble, but it took the entire team down a dark path.
The full episode flashback allowed new vantage points to be shown of numerous previous scenes to help fill in the blanks of what happened on Brendok 16 years ago, including the recklessness of Padawan Torbin and his desire to discover the vergence in the Force in order to leave the planet. The only real surprise to me was that Mother Koril of the coven, and the being who carried the twins to birth, appeared to escape. That could have a large impact on future Star Wars tales and Force users.
As much as each Jedi took missteps, it was Sol who did the most long-term damage. His assumptions were based on the incomplete intel he gathered and he was willing to go against the wishes of the Jedi Council.
Sol cements his own mistakes and sentences himself to be trapped by the truth with Osha when he plunges his lightsaber into the torso of Mother Aniseya, shortly after she shares the critical line, “Someday those noble intentions you all have will destroy every Jedi in the galaxy.”
The Jedi are held to a higher standard that seems nearly impossible to uphold, and Season 1 of The Acolyte shines an unforgiving spotlight on it. A series of poor decisions, primarily from the Jedi, create a deadly, almost genocidal, fiasco that eventually leads to telling half-truths to the Council. All to make Osha’s sacrifices and loss worth it—until they aren’t and she leaves the Order.
It is true that “Mae burned down the witches’ fortress and everyone was lost,” but Indara’s explanation is shrouded in deceit to keep her team free from judgment, but she can’t free them from guilt. May indeed started the fire, but the Jedi provided the gasoline and kindling of their actions to turn it deadly. And all four of them are tortured by it for at least 16 years until their actions finally catch up to them.
Dan Lo
When Marty McFly returned to 1955 again in Back to the Future II, we got to see repeats of several familiar scenes. A few were exact replays while others were from very unfamiliar angles. The latest episode of The Acolyte did something similar through flashbacks instead of a DeLorean, and from the perspective of Sol instead of Calvin Klein.
To a large degree, we now know what happened on Brendok. I admit I found the series of events to be a bit too clunky to serve as a satisfying reveal. We learned that the reason why the Jedi were on Brendok was to look for a vergence, thanks to the fact that Torbin didn’t seem to know why the mission was important and required an on-screen explanation. Why would that be? The editing in the third episode had made it somewhat obvious that Mae didn’t intentionally set the fortress on fire, so that part wasn’t a surprise. I didn’t quite understand how the detailed look of Mother Aniseya’s Force interactions with Torbin was relevant to what happened, or why it was important to see the testing of the twins again. Mae later reported the accidental fire while screaming for help, and for some reason Mother Koril responded by immediately taking a battle stance against Torbin (which admittedly made for a cool slow-motion sequence). Then for some reason Sol couldn’t yell for the twins to get off the clearly unstable bridge.
The critical turning point was much more straightforward: when Sol mistook Mae for Osha, and killed Aniseya in an attempt to protect the wrong twin. I found this to be compelling, but unfortunately it was also buried inside what felt to me like an over-engineered and disconnected chain of events. Torbin didn’t seem to do anything particularly wrong, or at least not to the point of warranting voluntary suicide. His main weakness was his impatience to get home, which happened to be what brought Sol back to the fortress and resulted in Aniseya’s death but those events didn’t feel intrinsically connected otherwise. It almost seemed like it was written in episodic order: Torbin’s character had to die a certain way earlier in the show, and he therefore needed something to feel guilty about during the flashback.
Something else we learned was how the witches all died at once, especially while the fortress was still mostly intact. The three-way duel against a possessed Kelnacca was cool to watch, but ultimately a bit anti-climatic since everyone involved was wearing plot armor. The real surprise was when Indara used the Force to break the witches’ hold on Kelnacca, which killed them though the unplugging of their minds just like in The Matrix. She then made the call to partially cover up what happened in the name of protecting Osha.
Of course, we are still left with some very major unknowns. We still have no idea how Mae survived the fall, or how The Stranger got involved in all this. He also seemed to have detailed knowledge about the bridge scene, as if he was somehow an eye witness. Maybe he was and we just don’t know it yet. Another unknown is if he wanted the four Jedi killed because of what happened on Brendok, or merely because they are Jedi. With only one more episode to go, it will be interesting to see how present day Mae and Osha’s stories will be resolved.
Mark Newbold
How does one walk back a terrible mistake, one that has infused into their very being at every level, and one that eats away at them the more they try to fix it? That’s on our minds as we return to Brendok 16 years past in the seventh episode of The Acolyte, and the aptly titled Choice reveals the extent to which a key decision by Master Sol has had devastating implications not only for himself, but for his Jedi brethren and the Order itself.
We’re retreading the events of the third episode Destiny, but in classic Star Wars ‘from a certain point of view‘ fashion we’re looking at it sideways, with the emphasis on alternate angles to the devastation wrought in that first flashback episode. Here we learn that the Jedi, while believing to be well intentioned, are the invaders. Their ‘authority’ giving them a belief in their actions that are not shared by everyone. Far from it, they are the interlopers here, the ones who landed on Brendok for an extended spell of research (anyone want to buy a wookiee metal detector from Amazon?) who not only have to deal with the clearly distracted Torbin but also the discovery of the twins Mae and Osha. This is a necklace that requires delicate untangling as the actions of Torbin cause a domino effect that leads to the death of Aniseya (understandable in the moment, she did shockingly turn into a black fog of witch magic without warning right next to a clearly perturbed Sol) and Mother Koril encouraging Mae to channel her best Drew Barrymore and become a twisted firestarter.
The sorrow of the situation is written all over it, the weight of wrong choices clear but more than that is the obsfucation of the truth. Lying, when Jedi of good conscience should own up to their mistakes and hold up their hands, rather than – again – doing what many Jedi do and justify their actions as being for the ‘greater good‘. Here, Sol is young, raw, less seasoned and wise than the man we know in the ‘present’, but he is clearly shaped by what happened on Brendok. What next weeks final episode will reveal is unknown, but the ramifications of the decisions made on Brendok are certain to haunt and underscore that final chapter of season one.
Further, the Jedi and their entire structure seems to be built on sand, and as a wise former Jedi once said ‘I hate sand‘. Empires are built on lies; could it be that the foundations of the Jedi are similarly underpinned?
Eric Onkenhout
Choice begins 16 years earlier on Brendok. Indara, Sol, Kelnacca, and Padawan Torbin are researching what has caused life to return to Brendok after a hyperspace disaster destroyed everything. The Jedi believe a vergence brought life back, but need to find evidence to support their claim.
While walking through the forest, Sol happens upon two girls who are then joined by an adult female Zabrak. He immediately notifies Indara. Sol follows them back to a large structure, which is built into the side of a mountain. Sol reports back and convinces the other three to come with him to take the children away to become Jedi. He believes they are in danger. The four Jedi meet the witch coven led by Mother Aniseya, where the girls live. The Mother, Aniseya, briefly takes over Torbins mind as she tries to rid the Jedi of the presence. While Mother Aniseya is more nurturing and peaceful, Mother Koril is more warrior-like.
Sol believes the girls who are twin sisters (of sorts), Osha and Mae, were created by the Force much like Anakin was a hundred years later. It is revealed that Osha and Mae are twins but are from two different symbiotes, which, Torbin says, is impossible without manipulation. Any sort of Force manipulation has always had dark undertones. The dark side is at work here and clouds what’s really happening.
I’m not sure why Sol believes the girls aren’t safe. He mentions that Osha doesn’t have the ceremonial marking like Mae does but they quickly jump to the conclusion that she resisted being marked. And why Sol feels such a connection to Osha is also unclear. After such a brief meeting how can he have such strong feelings? Sol’s feelings may be misguided or being misread.
Koril encourages Mae to get angry and use that to get her sister back. Sol kills Aniseya but seems shocked at the outcome because as Sol thrusts his saber forward Aniseya transferred into a mist. Koril, full of rage, attacks Sol, but he refuses to fight back. Koril also transforms into a mist and corrupts Kelnacca’s mind from the netherworld. What’s scarier than an angry Wookiee with a lightsaber? Finally, Indara is able to cure Kelnacca, while Sol rescues Osha from the fire. Mae is thought to be lost.
A lot is going on, not just in this episode, but in this entire series. The Jedi’s grasp on the Force is weakening. They can feel it slipping away and aren’t sure how to handle it. Everyone seems to have their own thoughts on how it should be handled. Not only that but the Council is so far removed from what is going on in the field, they can’t possibly advise with any confidence. But they do and that’s their problem.
Sander de Lange looks at all the reveals and easter eggs in The Acolyte – The Guide: Episode 7 ‘Choice’.
Mark Mulcaster and Mark Newbold discuss the seventh episode on Making Tracks Reaction Chat: The Acolyte S1 Eps 7 & 8 – ‘Choice’ & ‘The Acolyte’.
- Hardcover Book
- Mann, George (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 512 Pages - 09/24/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House/Star Wars (Publisher)
