“At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge!”
Darth Maul, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The following contains spoilers from The Acolyte. You have been warned.
I must say I am super excited with the most recent episode of The Acolyte. The mysterious Sith Lord has revealed himself to the Jedi and is about to fight them. The way this Sith revealed himself was creepy and haunting. He used the Force to float from the treetops to the ground behind Osha and the Jedi. This gave him the demeanor of the grim reaper, which symbolizes him as a harbinger of death. The Jedi did not know who or what he was and ordered him to stand down and identify himself. The Sith ignored the Jedi and showed clear interest in Osha. As he stared at Osha, the Sith drew his red lightsaber. In response, the Jedi ignited their own lightsabers and charged at the Sith. With the slightest gesture, the Sith flung Osha out of the way before turning his attention to the attacking Jedi. With one Force Push, this Sith blew away eight Jedi! That was where the episode ended.
This scene lasted only a minute and yet a lot happened and I was left with a lot to analyze. Considering this Sith Lord is an adherent of Darth Bane’s Rule of Two, he is the culmination of the dark side knowledge and power the Sith have been accumulating for the past nine centuries. The fact that he could send eight armed Jedi flying with a mere gesture is evidence of how strong in the dark side he is. Throughout the Star Wars franchise, the dark side of the Force has been described as feeling cold. With this in mind, I imagine this Sith Lord’s dark side presence must have felt colder than any blizzard to the Jedi. Since his entrance gave him a demeanor like the grim reaper, it is safe to say that the coldness the Jedi are feeling is not just the dark side. That coldness is death approaching them! I expect we will see a one-sided massacre next episode. Now that this Sith has revealed himself to the Jedi, he cannot allow them to live. There must be no witnesses if the Sith are going to achieve their Grand Plan a century later.
The Sith Lord was visibly interested in Osha based on how his gaze was fixed on her when he arrived on the scene. I think it’s not just because Osha looks like her sister, Mae, but also because of the unique circumstances of Osha and Mae’s birth. In Episode 3, it was revealed that the sisters were born without a biological father just like Anakin Skywalker. The witches who raised Osha and Mae used an unknown method to impregnate one of the witches with the Force. Later in Episode 3, the witches’ coven was wiped out, Osha was taken in by the Jedi, and Mae was presumed dead. I think the Sith found out about the witches’ secret, manipulated the emotionally vulnerable Mae to start a fire, wiped out the coven, and stole the witches’ secret for themselves. In the years after, the witches’ secret would eventually fall into the hands of Darth Plagueis, who was a Sith Lord who discovered a technique called midichlorian manipulation. Midichlorian manipulation was Darth Plagueis’s attempt to bend life to his will and cheat death. If the witches’ secret fell into Darth Plagueis’s hands, he must have done his own modifications to it in order to create what would be midichlorian manipulation. In Legends, Darth Plagueis’s experiments with midichlorian manipulation eventually resulted in the birth of Anakin Skywalker. The Acolyte must reveal how the Sith found the secret that would lead to midichlorian manipulation.
There is also something to consider with the events in the most recent episode. The only other person with Mae who is affiliated with her is the potion maker by the name of Qimir. The possibility exists that he could be the mysterious Sith Lord who trained Mae in the ways of the Force. If that is the case, Qimir is obviously too young to be the true Sith Master, which means he is actually the Sith Apprentice. With this in mind, who and where is the true Sith Master? Who and where is the true Dark Lord of the Sith? If Qimir is the Sith Apprentice and is this strong in the dark side, how strong is the true Sith Master? If Qimir is the mysterious Sith Lord, it should be noted that he was face to face with multiple Jedi and they never suspected him for being a Sith. He would be so skilled at playing the fool because who is going to look twice at a fool? This would also highlight that the Rule of Two Sith have spent centuries perfecting the ability to hide in plain sight even when in the presence of the Jedi. Palpatine himself will have mastered this technique to its highest level in the Prequel Era.
The thing to keep in mind is that Mae is only an acolyte and not a true apprentice. As an acolyte, Mae is merely a candidate for apprenticeship, which makes her expendable and replaceable to the Sith. She’s just a tool used to do the Sith’s dirty work like Asajj Ventress was when she was trained by Count Dooku. If Mae fails in her trials, she will be cut loose and the Sith will turn their attention to someone more useful to their designs. Since Mae was born through the Force without a biological father, I think the Sith are testing her to see how strong a being like her would be against Jedi. Whether she succeeds or fails in her trials, she will provide the Sith with the results they seek for their experiment.
Overall, I am both excited and curious about what to expect as The Acolyte continues. The haters can whine and complain as they always do, but I enjoy this show completely.
Grady P Brown - Author 