Star Wars: The Acolyte Episode 3 Review – Questionable Choices

Expanding upon a long-running franchise is not an easy task, but it can be done when handled with a level of care and reverence. Unfortunately, Star Wars: The Acolyte episode 3 does not have any of that on display. While the episode goes out of its way to take very big swings at challenging fundamental aspects of established Star Wars lore and concepts, none of it works out the way you would think. But that’s only a fraction of the problems that viewers will struggle through when watching this episode. We have a bad feeling about this, and you should as well.

Episode 3 of The Acolyte jumps back sixteen years into the past on the planet Brendok. A coven of witches lives on the planet with a young Osha and Mae, both of which are the only children there. They prepare them for a ceremony called the Ascension, where both Osha and Mae will become witches and inherit powers from them, but only one of them wants to go through with it. Mae is committed to the ceremony, while Osha has doubts and has a desire to do something else. Before the ceremony is complete, four Jedi arrive at the planet and meet with the witches to discuss children being trained illegally. The agree to have the children tested to see if they have the potential to become Jedi padawans, but a major tragedy occurs and leads to disaster.

Although we are given some answers to what happened in the past that caused the older version of Mae to hate the Jedi Order, there are still major gaps in the events that take place. A lot of the information we’re given is partial in some cases, which may or may not be further revealed later in the season.

However, what we are shown in the episode happens through major leaps in logic that the show expects us to accept without question. Why is it a problem for the Jedi that children are being trained, and who or what is the coven of witches? None of this is ever fully explained or detailed when it really needs to be. The events that happen here are important enough to explain why present-day events for Osha and Mae have become so dire, but the episode leaves everyone hanging.

But that’s not the biggest problem for Episode 3 of The Acolyte. The worst thing is how much the episode tries to present a new interpretation of The Force without much explanation. Unlike other pieces of Star Wars media that introduce new ideas into the universe with comparison and contrasting views, this episode expects audiences to accept a new definition of the Force without that.

The explanation given is that the Jedi are wrong in how they view the Force, which the witches rename as The Thread, and that it is a power used for anything and everyone to use. Nothing more or less than that. At the same time, the powers of the witches are never truly defined and shown to let them do things that feel inconsistent, even in the context of the episode. And before we can get any sort of grasp on how this can be, the episode ends with the group being completely wiped out.

This simply does not work and results in massive leaps in logic that you need to accept in order for the episode to make any sense. Over 40 years of Star Wars stories have shown audiences what the Force is and how it works within the universe, as well as comparing it to other views that match up to the established physics and rules within Star Wars. Simply stating that the Jedi are wrong in their view and this is what’s actually right, as well as not showing why in the episode, is not acceptable or enough to make audiences believe in something brand new.

There needs to be more details and a better exploration on how or why these powers are supposed to work. And unfortunately, the episode does a terrible job of that. And that’s not even getting deep into Mae and Osha’s creation, which brings up questions of vergence in the Force and what that might entail. Long-time Star Wars fans will immediately be pulled out of the episode, questioning how any of this is supposed to match up with the established canon of the franchise.

Outside the lore-bending issues, other massive problems with the dialogue between characters will dampen anyone’s view of episode 3. Much of the line delivery from multiple characters we see is poor and lacks emotional weight behind their words. The one exception to this is Mother Aniseya, who in most scenes appears to speak with a level of dimension more often than not.

But even her words are plagued by other missteps in the writing of the episode, which greatly impact everything. Every other person we meet in this episode with the twins sounds like they could’ve used an additional take in the scene when speaking. The two young girls brought in to play the young Osha and Mae do the best they can with the material they’re given, but the lines and direction they have are not great to begin with. It leads to multiple moments where things sound awkward or just plain lackluster.

This is compounded by writing that feels very removed from the Star Wars universe in multiple ways, let alone this specific story in the episode. The conversations between multiple characters feel as if the writers are talking directly to the audience, rather than the characters speaking between themselves on-screen. This is a major problem that hasn’t been present in the first two episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte, let alone any of the previous Star Wars Disney Plus shows. Some moments within the episode have characters making statements that feel as if they’re speaking on a topic outside of Star Wars and the episode, going into the territory of direct commentary on current world issues.

While Star Wars stories are no stranger to allegories or thematic parallels, they were never obnoxiously delivered in a way that pulls audiences out of the story. Whether true or not, it presents the possibility that the writers were more focused on delivering a personal view rather than telling an interesting story to the audience. That is not a good thing for the franchise, nor something that will help get audiences to resonate with the show.

And then there’s the continuing problem with how The Acolyte presents the Jedi Order. While this perspective on a galaxy far, far away is skewed towards a more pessimistic view of the Jedi, it does a terrible job of presenting why that is. The tension between the witches on Brendok and the Jedi isn’t detailed as thoroughly as it probably should be, given this episode is a flashback. This is directly related to how The High Republic has been shown in the show thus far, with little to no concrete details on important aspects of the Jedi or the Republic itself.

The Jedi Order is presented as police department-like workers who impose on others, but the show hasn’t made a convincing case for why that is. Why is it illegal in the Republic for children to be trained, when many other Star Wars stories have shown that isn’t an issue for anyone? What in the galaxy has been different to make that a major problem for a group of Jedi to investigate an uninhabited planet? It’s questions like these that lack any compelling argument within the episodes up to this point that make it hard to believe whether the Jedi are deserving of this criticism. This could still be due to details that have yet to be revealed in full, but it would’ve been helpful to have at least one character in the episode allude to or explain parts of this.

By the time episode 3 of The Acolyte concludes, viewers will have many more questions and grips about the show than before. In the coming episodes, more details about the events that transpired in this flashback will hopefully be unveiled and give more context to what happened. But that doesn’t alleviate the fact that this episode has the most problems thus far, and will dramatically impact whether audiences will continue watching or not.

Many will look at The Acolyte episode 3 and debate on whether this was the point that the show made too far a leap for both Star Wars fans and new viewers to get behind it. For some, it will be exceptionally difficult to recommend The Acolyte to others when many of the swings it takes to do new things don’t land well. But for others who have been following Star Wars shows for a while, this will be one of the lowest points of the franchise to date. No matter where audiences will land on it, this simply was not a good episode of The Acolyte at all.

The Acolyte is streaming now on Disney+, with new episodes released weekly each Tuesday.