Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Acolyte’ On Disney+, A ‘Star Wars’ Prequel About A Former Padawan Looking Into Suspicious Jedi Deaths

Star Wars devotees know what the High Republic era is about; it’s an era of relative peace, which took place about a century before the events of The Phantom Menace. But no franchise movie or TV series has examined stories from that era — until now. The newest series in the franchise not only takes place during this heretofore unexplored era, but it’s a pretty meaty story about revenge, redemption, and long-lost family.

THE ACOLYTE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a description of the time period — 100 years before the rise of the Empire — where it mentions that in some dark corners of the universe, people are learning The Force in secret, and one lone assassin seeks revenge, we see someone walk up to a village on Ueda.

The Gist: The woman (Amandla Stenberg) walks into a tavern and challenges a Jedi named Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) to attack her. She is seeking revenge, but for what, we don’t know. The woman seems to have a grasp of The Force, but when she gets face-to-face with Indara, she needs to use knives and some trickery to kill the Jedi knight.

On a cargo ship, a meknek named Osha Aniseya (Stenberg) is awakened by an alarm; she finds her multitool droid Pip and goes to work to fix the shield generator. The ship is boarded by a Jedi knight named Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and his padawan; they’re looking for Osha, a former padawan herself, in relation to Indara’s murder.

Osha studied with Yord before she left the order six years prior, which is why it’s hard for him to have to bring her in. But a woman fitting her description was identified as leaving the scene of Indara’s murder. Given she knew Indara and studied in the order, Osha wonders why anyone would think she’d kill a Jedi knight. But the tavern owner personally IDs her, and she’s hauled onto a prison transport ship, despite being told that they’re making a mistake.

On Coruscant, a Jedi master named Sol (Lee Jung-jae) is informed by Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson), a senior member of the Jedi Order, that his former padawan Osha has been taken into custody. Sol is doubtful that his former student did what she’s being accused of, but pledges his support.

The droid-flown transport Osha is on crashes on the snowy planet of Carlac after the other detainees mutiny and use the escape pods. When news of that gets to the Coruscant, Sol insists that he go and bring her back. Vernesta reluctantly agrees; he takes his current padawan, Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), and Yord with him.

In the wreck of the transport ship, Osha has a vision that her twin sister Mae is still alive, and she’s the one seeking revenge. That seems to be impossible; sixteen years earlier, Mae set a massive brush fire on their home planet, killing herself and her and Osha’s entire family. It was right after that that Sol took Osha under his wing. Sol, who never told anyone about Mae, talks to Jecki about it on the way to Carlac, When Sol, Yord and Jecki catch up to Osha, she tells Sol that Mae is still alive, to which Sol responds, “I believe you.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We can throw The Acolyte in with all of the Star Wars franchise TV series, but it’s the only one that takes place in what is known as the High Republic era.

Our Take: The time period where The Acolyte, created by Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) takes place is an important detail, because we don’t get many glimpses into the world before the events of The Phantom Menace. It’s interesting to see a world where things are in relative peace and the Jedi Order is treated with respect, reverence and a little bit of fear.

Despite the presence of the side characters, this story really comes down to Stenberg, playing both Osha and Mae, and Lee, who plays Sol. In a lot of ways, it’s a cat-and-mouse murder story, sort of along the lines of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty; Osha and Sol need to find Mae before she completes her revenge mission, and they have to figure out who trained Mae in the force and sent her on this mission. As we find out in the second episode, the mission will hit close to home for Sol, so there’s more at stake than just a murder investigation.

But there’s lots to unpack here. Just what went on between the sisters when they were kids and how did Mae survive when everyone, including Sol and Osha, thinks she didn’t? What ultimately made Osha decide to leave the order, and will the search for Mae bring her back into the fold? And just what will Osha and Mae do with this information that the family they thought they never had actually exists?

It’s those issues, plus the confident performance by Stenberg as both twins, that makes The Acolyte different than most of the franchise’s series. Because it’s so separated from the rest of the franchise’s timeline, it’s not mired in the mythology that so often bogs down the other series we’ve seen. We’re not really trying to make connections to the parts of the franchise we know; we’re just there for the story.

Lee, who won an Emmy for Squid Game, is impressive as Sol, who is as empathetic a Jedi Master as we’ve seen. English is not his first language, and he had to learn it to play Sol, but he conducts himself well, especially given that he has a fair amount of dialogue. He conveys Sol’s empathy and his ability to connect with his former protege without the audience realizing that he’s speaking a language he’s not familiar with.

Are there storytelling hiccups along the way? You bet there are. Osha’s mistaken identity storyline is thrown away pretty quickly when everyone involved realizes that her twin is still out there. And it feels like, despite the best efforts of Barnett and Keen, their characters are more along the lines of the one-dimensional side characters we’ve seen in this franchise. But the first two episodes show more than enough promise to keep us watching.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Mae goes to her unseen master, who tells her that “An Acolyte kills without a weapon. An Acolyte kills… the dream.”

Sleeper Star: We like how Pip is a multitool droid, just like any good handyman or mechanic would have in his or her pocket. Oh, and Manny Jacinto shows up in episode 2 as Qimir, a former smuggler and confidant of Mae’s.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jecki keeps asking Sol if she has “permission to speak freely,” and eventually Sol says, “you don’t have to keep asking.” But she wouldn’t ask if she wasn’t instructed to do so, right?

Our Call: STREAM IT. The unique time period and straightforward story of The Acolyte make for an excitingly refreshing trip into Star Wars lore. We just hope the storytelling issues we saw in the first two episodes don’t plague the entire series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.