The Acolyte is centered around the story of two sisters, Osha and Mae, who are not really sisters but the result of a phenomenon called the vergence, which was allegedly accessed by their “mother,” Aniseya. While the use of Force was limited to the Jedi, a coven of witches, called the Nightsisters, decided to settle in Brendok and wield the Force the way they wanted to. This was reason enough for a group of Jedi, which consisted of Sol, Indara, Kelnacca, and Torbin, to wreak havoc and aggravate an already volatile situation. This led to the death of the entire coven and the separation of Osha and Mae. While Osha grew up under Sol’s watchful eye, Mae’s grief and hatred festered in the company of a Sith called Qimir. But, after the midway point of the show, there was a switch as Osha learned the truth about her past while Mae goaded Sol into accepting his sins. The final and eighth episode of The Acolyte takes things back to Brendok, where all things pent-up come to a head in the most satisfying yet heartbreaking way possible. So, let’s talk about it.
Spoiler Alert
Sol Is Dead
The Acolyte‘s finale opens with Osha tapping into her witch-like powers, almost incapacitating Qimir, and looking into the future. She predicts that Mae is going to kill Sol without using a weapon, and Qimir thinks that that means that Mae has become what she was training to be. Osha says that, even though she has seen the future, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be influenced. So, they head towards Brendok because Osha knows (or senses) that that’s where Sol and Mae are, and she is right. After leaving the orbit of Khofar, Sol has arrived at Brendok with the intention of proving that there’s a vergence on the planet. No, he doesn’t want to confess that he and his gang committed a crime there 16 years ago. He wants to prove that their actions were right by providing Osha and Mae as evidence that the Force was being unlawfully used on Brendok.
Mae manages to free herself with the help of Pip, and she uses the escape pod to try and get away from Sol. But both of them run into an asteroid belt and land in Brendok. Before going after Mae, Sol turns on his GPS device so that Vernestra and the Jedi can reach there and learn the truth. Osha and Qimir land in Brendok, and while Qimir goes after Sol, Osha goes for Mae. An unhinged Sol overpowers Qimir. Mae tries to convince Osha that she has been lied to her whole life. When she realizes that Osha won’t listen to reason, she leads her to Sol and then gets him to confess that he is the killer of Aniseya. This shatters Osha’s worldview, and she Force-chokes Sol to death. Yes, we’ve been following these characters over the course of eight episodes, and that’s why it’s sad to see some of them perish. However, what really sells the complexity and devastation of the moment is Sol saying that it’s okay for Osha to kill him. It shows that, although he has been striving to prove a lie that he has been maintaining for over a decade, what he truly wants is freedom from this life. And it’s fitting that he gets that from Osha, i.e., the pupil that he failed.
Qimir Has Wiped Mae’s Memory
There’s a monumental shift in Osha and Mae’s characters. Until this moment in The Acolyte episode 8, all Mae has strived for is revenge. As per Qimir, she didn’t even hesitate before accepting his offer to be trained by him like Osha had. She has followed Qimir’s hate-filled directives to the T, and yet she wanted Sol to legally pay for his crimes because she felt that death wasn’t enough for him. She wanted the Jedi to be dismantled because it’s a house of lies. Meanwhile, Osha, who has been trained in the ways of the Jedi, succumbed to her baser instincts and allowed her rage and grief to govern her actions. And since this is peak Star Wars, we saw the poison that was forming inside literally bleed into the Khyber crystal of the lightsaber that belonged to Sol, thereby confirming that she has, in fact, turned to the Dark Side.
Before Osha, Mae, and Qimir can ponder what their next step should be, Vernestra and her army of Jedi arrive on Brendok and make their way to the Nightsisters’ castle. Vernestra immediately senses Qimir’s presence. So, he just cuts and runs. Mae and Osha do the same, and Mae leads her to the Bunta tree in the hope that they’ll be able to hide there while the Jedi is done with their search. Qimir shows up again and tells them that if he is capable of finding them, the Jedi will eventually get to them too (especially with the fantastic Bazil on their side). Osha, Mae, and Qimir come to the conclusion that they have a better chance at survival if they go their separate ways, while giving the Jedi a dead end in the form of an amnesiac Mae. In yet another heartbreaking moment in the episode, Qimir wipes Mae’s mind while the sisters embrace each other and try to complete their signature vow before only one of them is capable of remembering it.
Master Vernestra Does Another Criminal Cover-Up
While Mae is captured by the Jedi, Osha and Qimir return to the unknown planet where Qimir has been residing in all this time. FYI, yes, there’s another Sith on that unknown planet, and it’s probably Darth Plagueis. What’s interesting is that we were made to believe that Darth Sidious (Palpatine) was Plagueis’ only apprentice. But, given how the show takes place at a time when the concept of a Master and an Apprentice is still being formed, and the Sith is just starting to become a thing, it makes sense that Plagueis has Qimir as his pupil. Everything about this guy is shrouded in mystery, and, if we’re lucky enough to get a second season of The Acolyte, hopefully, we’ll get to know more about the rise of Darth Plagueis and the dark romance between Qimir and Osha (Oh yes! It’s a romance and you can’t convince me otherwise). On the flip side, Vernestra proves that the Jedi are somehow more insidious than the Sith because they can’t help but lie. When Vernestra is confronted by Senator Rayencourt, he pretty much underscores the fact that the Jedi’s “goodness” and “piety” are a charade to hide their true intentions. He essentially says that the Jedi are like a frat club where everyone is a criminal, but only because they are talented; they are protecting each other so that their real faces aren’t exposed to the public. Now, you’d think that after this scolding from Rayencourt, Vernestra is not going to repeat Sol’s mistakes and stick to the truth. Does she? No, she does not. She paints Sol as a “rogue Jedi” who killed his own and the Nightsisters so that the Jedi aren’t dismantled. She burns Sol’s body so that nobody can access his memories or take a peek into the shadow of his actions that are usually left behind by a Force user. And then she turns to the mind-wiped Mae to help her find her old pupil, Qimir.
In The Acolyte‘s ending, we get a brief cameo from Yoda. It seems like Vernestra will try to get his approval to launch a mission to find Osha and Qimir before they become powerful under Darth Plagueis’ training. Whether or not Yoda will sanction this mission is a huge question mark. The return of Mae’s memory is also debatable, but if you have seen enough movies and shows about amnesia, you know that, in the world of entertainment, if one can lose one’s memory, one can regain it too. So, maybe it’s only a matter of time before Mae remembers everything. However, the circumstances under which she will recall her past will define her character going forward. I was assuming that we’ll get a Qimir versus Vernestra fight in this season, but I guess they’re saving it for later. I have a feeling that, eventually, Osha and Mae will become the same person. I know that sounds like a stretch, but if you focus on that rhyme that Osha and Mae keep saying, it alludes to the theory that they were one soul in one body before being divided into two. What’s stopping them from becoming one again? In addition to that, The Acolyte leaves us with a bunch of questions like, why did Aniseya make Osha and Mae? How did Mae get to Qimir? How did Darth Plagueis find Qimir? Where is Mother Koril? At the time of writing this article, Disney hasn’t announced a second season of The Acolyte, even though it has been doing great. I genuinely hope that we do get more seasons of this show not just to get the answers to the aforementioned questions, but also to see a flawed depiction of the Jedi and to truly feel the seductive nature of the Sith.
