So, while Sherin focused on the first two episodes of her review of The Acolyte, I’m going to focus more on the second two episodes – episodes 3 and 4. I won’t spoil much, but I know some people even say a title can be a spoiler. As you may know, especially now, this is the first live-action show or movie that takes place in The High Republic era of the Star Wars canon. This peaceful era with non-sith antagonists already has many stories, from prose to comic books. The era was set from 500 years through 100 years or so before the Prequels. Here, the Jedi and the Galactic Republic are ballin out of control. Things are great and expanding; the Jedi is pushing the Force using and getting their martial arts poppin. Yoda is around there somewhere cause he’s hella old, but he’s not in this, from what I know. This show, though, takes an interesting lens in that this is a police story, and it’s one where, so far, the actions of the police cause great turmoil for a community that a person can never forgive.
After the first two episodes, I felt they needed to delve into what got us here; the third episode is mostly a flashback where we get to see many of the characters we’ve seen younger and how they initially met. This is very welcomed as they allude to events so much in the earlier episodes; seeing these events helped to improve my thoughts on those episodes. Lauren Brady and Leah Brady have great performances in this episode as young Osha and Mae and have some great scenes with Jodie Turner-Smith as Mother Aniseya. Episode 3 does show the differences between Osha and Mae, and while it doesn’t ultimately show how the Jedi divides them, it makes for a compelling origin story. Their community is very interesting and will remind some Star Wars fans of recent stuff we’ve seen from Lucasfilm entries. Episode 4 is a shorter episode that feels a bit like a transition episode as it’s a mostly walking and talking episode that builds up to a very great cliffhanger that changes the series in many ways for the second half. Amandla Stenberg’s Osha really ties the whole Jedi task force together. Lee Jung-jae’s Sol is a nice bright spot as he really captures the type of Jedi Master we’re used to, but it is also one that is hiding something that is visibly causing so much regret inside. His performance made me really invested in where his character is going to go.
Dafne Keen’s Jecki Lon works well with Stenberg’s Osha with their former padawan and current padawan dynamic. If Jedi could have feelings you could see they’d be the homies for real. Yord isn’t working for me yet, but it’s no fault of Charlie Barnett; it’s just that the character is very dry at this point. I do very much like the set design in this series so far, and the locale made up for episodes three and four feels familiar but still looks great. In episode three, a society living in a cave and the technology incorporated into the stone felt different for me from what I usually see in Star Wars. While episode four is more outdoors but feels more like a set, I like that it looks a lot more as it feels more like good genre TV. I like the feel of the droids and how ad-hoc they look even as the ships and the other tech look further along than the droids do. It feels a lot like looking at older cars – the transition from the late 70s into the 80s. It gives it a different character than the lived-in junk of the OG movies or the super slick prequels. Much of the costumes don’t stand out to me so far, but the makeup and the designs on the characters look great. Those in Osha’s background look very well thought out, and Dafne’s character looks unique, even compared to all the stuff we’ve seen before in Star Wars.
Now, I want to return to my point that this is a cop show. The High Republic is where the Jedi really get into their peacekeeping bag. I know there might be a few of you out there who might read the stories coming out for this period, and there are things in this show that work in concert with what has happened. It also works with what has been added since the prequels, specifically The Clone Wars, and one is the arrogance and failure of the Jedi Order as they moved to Policing and Military institutions versus the religious martial arts order that it started as. These Jedi are at the core here, and the order on Coruscant in this show shows you how corruption is not an evil one but one of bureaucracy. While I’m too early to know precisely what they did with how the first four episodes ended up, I’ve seen this story in films or shows before, and I have a good idea of what themes these showmakers are going for. There are things at this point of the series that connect to other recent shows and characters in the Star Wars shows that are building more to an overall plan for really expanding the universe and ideas about what the Force is and who can use it. Both the Jedi and the Sith and the two diametric sides of the Force, while simple, might not be enough anymore with Nightsisters and characters like Bendu changing how we view both sides of the “Light” and “Dark,” it’s allowing these post-Lucas years to push the War part of the Star Wars than we’ve seen even during the Sequel trilogy.
While I think this story might’ve worked better as a film so far, I can’t deny that the way things are going with cinema might’ve not done as well as it will as a series. I think this show will be more critical to the overall story than some might like. While for me, this series, especially episodes three and four, really pulls itself together and begins being something new and different from the Star Wars shows we’ve gotten with likable characters and engaging mystery.
Score: B+
READ SHERIN’S REVIEW OF EPISODES 1–2
RIOTUS 