Star Wars: The Acolyte Episode 5 Review – Shocking and Shallow

The fifth episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte is a prime example of how flashiness and flair can be a distraction for a lack of real substance. Despite the rocky start of the series and the lukewarm reception from viewers, The Acolyte continues to stumble through its story is set during The High Republic era. While there are some big reveals and lightsaber action within this episode that will draw some attention, the unfortunate truth is that it is not enough to address the major issues the show has suffered from. The shocking outcomes for various characters are higher points of the episode but are very short-lived when you see them in the greater context that The Acolyte has presented to its audience.

Episode five of The Acolyte picks up immediately after the end of the previous episode, showing the battle between Mae’s master and the group of Jedi on the planet Khofar. As Osha recovers from the force attack the masked red lightsaber user initiated before, she sees the Jedi clashing blades with the masked figure. The Jedi appear outmatched as multiple begin to fall to the red lightsaber of Mae’s master, who eventually comes face to face with Master Sol. As the two of them fight, Jecki Lon finds and tries to restrain Mae in hand-to-hand combat, while Yord and Mae meet up as the battle rages. Yord is instructed to take Osha back to the ship, but the two of them eventually turn back to help the others in hopes of taking down the masked enemy. Unfortunately, events take a massive turn for the worse as friends are slain in front of Osha and the identity of the masked figure is finally revealed. But things are far from over by the time things wrap up and everyone is in a different place than before.

Compared to previous episodes of the show, episode 5 has the most aggressive and brutal fight choreography. With the addition of lightsabers being ignited, it definitely has a stronger feel of being in a galaxy far, far away. Much of the hand-to-hand combat in The Acolyte’s previous episodes was decent, but those fights lacked the extra ingredient that makes Star Wars battles so appealing to fans. Some of the shots of the masked figure fighting the Jedi look action-packed, including when blows are exchanged between both sides. Seeing multiple Jedi killed off using a combination of slashes and force powers is both visceral and surprising, since the show has been so reserved with displaying that up to this episode.

The outcome of this conflict between the Jedi we’ve met up to now and the masked figure is devastating for all those involved. However, there’s a severe lack of emotional connection to some of the characters we see killed off by lightsaber. While most of the Jedi group are killed off very quickly at the start, the others we see taken down are drawn out in some scenes. Yord is one of the victims in this episode, whose death happens towards the latter half but is teased earlier on.

In one scene, Yord is on the ground and near death at the hands of the masked enemy, only to be interrupted by Osha firing a stun blast at the masked figure, causing him to pursue her. It has multiple moments like this that keep happening throughout the fight that make little sense when the masked figure could’ve ended Yord right then and there. The same thing happens again with Jecki Lon, who is also killed off, in different parts of the episode. When her death takes place, it’s alongside a reveal that is supposed to be shocking, but ends up being hollow after a drawn-out fight.

What makes these deaths all the more disappointing is how the build-up for each of them wasn’t executed very well. Previous episodes wanted the audience to care about these characters and emphasis the importance of them to main characters like Osha and Master Sol. But when Yord and Jecki and killed by the enemy, there’s hardly any reaction or after-effect of their deaths on anyone, making their presence in the show feel like a waste. Master Sol displays some reaction to them, but it’s not presented well enough to show a real sense of loss. Some viewers may feel bad for the loss of both characters, but it could have been handled a lot better if both Yord and Jecki had a substantial effect on everyone else once they died.

The biggest part of this episode is the reveal of the identity of Mae’s master, the masked figure with a red lightsaber. Although it’s meant to be shocking in the moment the audience is shown who it is, the reveal itself is very predictable after the previous few episodes. Qimir is Mae’s master, and reveals himself to be a Sith after taking out Jecki Lon and talking with Master Sol. What drags down this reveal isn’t only due to the obvious predictability of it, but the greater implications to the rest of the Star Wars franchise as a whole. Because Qimir flat-out tells Master Sol that he is in fact a Sith, there are very serious questions that are brought up related to how close The Acolyte gets to messing with the greater Star Wars canon.

In no scenario would a Jedi decide not to tell the Jedi Council that a Sith is running around freely, especially after killing off more than a few Jedi so quickly. It makes one wonder if those who created this show really thought of the repercussions these events would have on the galaxy, let alone if they make sense within the timeline of Star Wars.

But there are a few other issues with Qimir revealing himself to be a Sith. He tells everyone he doesn’t have a name or the Darth title, and wants to freely use his powers and take on an apprentice without fearing discovery by the Jedi Order. Those familiar with Star Wars know that Sith has various titles and names they take on, such as the title Darth before a name. There’s been multiple examples of this in Star Wars canon and in Legends, like Darth Maul and Darth Vader.

While the lack of a Sith title is confusing (the show may have just not told us what it is yet), Qimir’s reasoning doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The Sith don’t want to risk discovery by the Jedi, which causes them to hide for nearly a millennium in canon. So unless the show explains this or shows that Qimir may not be a real Sith, the entire series of events calls into question a lot of the established canon for the series. Never mind the fact that it’s possible for Jedi alive at this time to sense the death of a group of Jedi taking place, but any Jedi alive after a conflict like this would immediately inform the Order of this.

A smaller, but equally annoying aspect of Qimir’s reveal is the armor he wears. His helmet and the bracers he wears appear to protect him greatly from lightsaber attacks. But the show never explains why or how. In some shots, Qimir appears to be unaffected by lightsaber slashes and stun blasts, while in other spots later in the episode he’s seen being injured. This is because Qimir’s helmet and bracers are possibly made of a material called cortosis, a metal that is said to be resistant to lightsabers and even short them out in battle. The show does a poor job of explaining why this is, mostly because it hasn’t been referenced beforehand.

We never hear or see anything related to the material whatsoever in any of the show’s previous episodes. Without any prior knowledge of cortosis from other Star Wars media prior to watching this episode, it would seem like Qimir is inconsistently invincible in some cases, while vulnerable in others.

The outcome of Qimir’s fight with Master Sol and Osha towards the end is also very lackluster. There’s a callback to the bugs from the forest of Khofar, which are attracted to light. Despite Qimir being shown to be dangerous as a fighter, he’s completely hoodwinked and carried off by a group of bugs after Osha plants a light on his back, bringing the fight to an end.

It’s an outcome that feels very out of place and not well-planned. It’s nearly too much of a cartoon ending in juxtaposition to the serious character deaths that take place just before and undermines whatever the tone was supposed to be in that scene. The resulting outcome from this at the very end of the episode also makes the whole event feel insignificant, where Qimir finds an injured Mae, or so he might believe.

The ending of episode 5 of The Acolyte will be divisive among viewers. Both Mae and Osha meet up and have a conflict between them, which leads to Mae switching places with Osha to fool Master Sol. The entire sequence of events is comically bad because of how Mae once again changes her motivations after the previous episode, opting to turn towards evil once again. There is a real sense of whiplash with how indecisive Mae has been just within the last few episodes, as well as Osha in this episode. There’s a lack of any definitive ruling on what these characters want for themselves, let alone for each other. And despite a struggle between them with words exchanged, it doesn’t seem like the writers of the show wanted to commit to one thing or another for how both Mae and Osha will ultimately turn out.

The switching places scenario is something that also narratively makes no sense, especially for those it’s meant to fool. Multiple times it’s referenced that Master Sol can read the thoughts of others in and out of battle, which makes this entire ploy of switching places obsolete. Mae’s deception could have been discovered immediately when Master Sol met up with her and asked what happened to her sister, but that’s not all. Mae has a large visible mark on her head that should be completely visible to anyone looking at her, which makes this scenario all the more foolish.

The same thing can be said for Qimir when he discovers Osha on the ground injured and wearing Mae’s clothes. He should have also been able to sense who it actually was or see the lack of marking on her face, completely dissolving Mae’s supposed plan. It’s a very glaring thing that is poorly written and so obvious to the audience that it can take anyone right out of the episode, overshadowing everything else that just happened. Things can be explained in the next episode really easily, but that doesn’t take away from how poor this is here.

Star Wars: The Acolyte Episode 5 has a lot of flashiness with its lightsaber duel and shocking turn of events, but that’s all it really is, flashy. There are underlying problems with the events that take place, which drag down the series further in quality. It’s a real shame to lose characters that we have seen since the beginning, but it’s an even bigger shame to have the loss of those characters not be as impactful as they should.

The big reveal of the masked figure was all too predictable and squandered by other issues within the story that will leave many disappointed. Star Wars fans love to see lightsaber fights happen, especially if they look good and have emotional weight behind them. But a decent lightsaber battle is still no answer to many deep narrative problems that have been lingering for some time. There are decent parts to Star Wars: The Acolyte that some fans might enjoy, but this episode does not help to bolster any good reason to stick with the show, and it further continues to not make a good case for anyone to remain within The High Republic era.

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