Destiny (The Acolyte - S01E03) - Live Action Series

Discuss the latest Chapter! (Discussion)

The galaxy is not a place that welcomes women like us!  SPOILERS.

This galaxy is not safe! The Big Bad Wolf wants to eat you!

Much was said online about the third episode of The Acolyte in certain circles. It will destroy Star Wars. It redefines the Force. It will ruin everything. As usual they oversold things. In truth, "Destiny", the third episode of The Acolyte does none of these things. In fact, it has literally nothing that we haven't seen before. No, this episode is guilty of something far worse though: it's pure nonsense and utterly boring. The episode was so nonsensical that I seriously question what the heck is going on here! But not in a good way, as in, this is not an intriguing mystery... it just boggles my mind!

Jedi hide behind trees and secretly watch little kids in forests... who could have known!

Ok, so what is the episode all about? I will try to be brief, because the plot is nothing worth wasting too many words on. A coven of all female, apparently lesbian, space witches who all use the Force are in hiding from the galaxy, because they are not "welcome". Whatever that means. Lucas made it pretty clear that the only beings discriminated against in the galaxy are droids, the Empire had some xenophobic tendencies, but that's it. Whatever. They are in hiding because no one understands this poor oppressed minority. In the castle they all live in there are just two children, twins, Osha and Mae. We learn a bit about life there, we learn that two lesbian space witches are the mothers of Osha and Mae (every feminist's wet dream, they finally need no men anymore), one witch carried the kids, the other "created" them, apparently by means some would consider "unnatural". In short: they were conceived through the Force, similar to Anakin Skywalker. As I said, there is nothing new here. The lesbian space witches, who are never named, are a poor man's carbon copy of the Nightsisters we first met in The Clone Wars. Only they are not Nightsisters. Or at least they are never called Nightsisters.

Kumbaya!

And the Not Nightsisters have a different way of seeing the Force, they consider it a thread you can pull and they believe that power lies in numbers, the more are connected, the stronger they are. So yes, the witches redefine the Force but nowhere in the entire episode is that presented as universal truth or as some new lorebreaking definition of the Force that will supercede what we have seen in the past 47 years. Again, the hyperbole was strong with some people this past week. Just like the Nightsisters they have a different way of accessing the Force. Hardly controversial. No one threw a hissy fit when the Nightsisters were introduced... fun fact, Nightsister Merrin is even a pretty popular character, but I digress.

It's always a good idea to let little kids play with dangerous weapons, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing! Right!

The central conflict of the episode is that Mae and Osha, while being twins, have a different outlook on life. You see, their ascension is upcoming, which would make them proper Not Nightsisters. And while Mae is super eager to join Sciento... I mean the club, Osha dreams about a life of her own, she wants to see the galaxy. As luck would have it the Jedi have found the planet and the settlement. And those Jedi are Indara, Sol, Torbin and the Wookiee whose name I can't remember because it does not matter. They want to test the children. One of the mothers is vehemently opposed, the other, reluctantly relents. But not before seizing the mind of Torbin and threatening the Jedi. But the situation is resolved, the head Not Nightsister even tells Osha that she must choose her own path etc. but the plan is that Mae and Osha lie when being tested so the Jedi won't want to recruit them. I need to point out here that even this episode makes a point of it that this is voluntary and only happens with the permission of the parents. The Jedi do not, under any circumstances, steal children, even The Acolyte does not change that.

They copy pasted a scene from Ghostbusters, if you can believe it

So Mae and Osha go to the Jedi the next day, Osha lies blatantly about the pictures Sol has on his tablet and pretends she can't see the right pictures. But even though Osha lies, Sol just says "correct", think Venkman in Ghostbusters who tells the hot blonde she's right even though she's wrong. Same scene. Only without a hot blonde. Sol of course then confronts Osha and asks her what she really wants... and Lil Osha admits she wants to be a Jedi, meet lots of other kids (something she complained about before) and see the galaxy.

From a spark...

And while, until now, the episode may have been somewhat boring but at least "ok", it now enters bizarro territory. Mae is out of her mind with anger when she learns that Osha wants to leave, she insists they need to be together, that she cannot leave... and then, out of the blue, without preamble really, she says "I'll kill you". I just sat here and thought... what the fu...........???? And I rarely swear.

... to a flame

The most nonsensical things I have ever seen in Star Wars now unfold. Osha is locked in her room but manages to escape, Mae meanwhile has lit a book on fire. A small book. 5 minutes later the entire castle is engulfed in flames, some reactor thingy explodes and all space witches lie dead in the courtyard. What. The. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu.... Okay.........

I will train you!

Mae finds Osha, but Mae falls into a pit and is believed to be dead. Sol is in the castle - no other Jedi is! - and rescues Osha, he takes her back to his ship, some tears are shed and he promises to train her in a scene lifted more or less from The Phantom Menace. Yet another troubled child joins the order. In the last scene we see Mae, who of course survived, standing in front of a tree. And that's it!

I genuinely do not know what to say...

Theory A: the writers of this show were high on crack and coke when they wrote the show and are all hacks.
Theory B: the entire series up to this point is told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator (think Fight Club), none of the things we have seen thus far are true and the real events are very, very, VERY different and the second half of the season or so shows us the real events. UPDATE: further examination of a key scene towards the end confirms this theory! More about that in the updated section further below!

If theory B is true then it is still badly written and nonsensical, it would also mean all the episodes thus far are a blatant waste of your time. If theory A is true there's no point in watching this either.

Why would Torbin feel so much regret and guilt and commit suicide? When he literally did nothing? At least based on what we see here? He's a nothing background padawan with one line of dialogue, he's not even in the Not Nightsister castle when the fire breaks out and Sol rescues Osha. In fact, Mae is just plain evil and started the fire herself. So why on earth would Torbin feel guilt, not speak to anyone in 10 years, grow a fake beard and wear a terrible wig and then swallow poison? It does not make sense. At all. In fact, none of the Jedi did anything even remotely wrong. Ok, a demented crazy person could blame them for being there and giving Osha these dreams of being a Jedi, something Mae does not want, she wants to be some kind of force dyad lesbian space witch with her twin or whatever.

So I wonder... who are we supposed to root for here? The Not Nightsisters? Mae? Mae is portrayed as a crazy person who needs therapy and needs to be locked up for her own good. The Not Nightsisters are an inconsequential sect of Force users the Jedi do not even mind, they are not there to dissolve them or tell them not to use the Force. So... why is Mae on this murder rampage? Other than "because she's plain crazy"?

Another thing is that at times this feels like fan fiction. I was very involved in the Star Trek fan fiction scene once and I have read a lot, and I mean a lot of fan fiction. Contrary to belief Mary Sues are not common, in fact they are rare. No, one hallmark of fan fiction is that the author may use the set pieces, the universe and insert their own topics and agendas that are all about themselves or their pet topics. So it is some kind of self insert, but not of the Mary Sue variety. And you can see, when you read some interviews of Headland, how she turned Star Wars into her own therapy session. The twins and the very strained relationship between them, to the point Mae and Osha are polar opposites? Based on Headland's own estranged sister she has not talked to in years. Lesbian Space Witches who are not welcome... based on her queer identity, as she pointed out almost from the very beginning. I do not think Star Wars is the right outlet for therapeutic writing, maybe go to an actual therapist and work out your family issues... do not use Star Wars for that. But this is not really the worst thing about the show.

No, the worst thing is that the acting is wooden, that the story makes literally no sense and that it's mostly boring. I do think episode 3 was actually better than the first two, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, I was somewhat intrigued to learn what terrible thing the Jedi committed so that they all deserve death and Torbin even willingly takes his own life... turns out: it's nothing. Literally. Again, there is still a chance we learn in the next five episodes that everything we saw was a lie that all the episodes are a weird fever dream a mentally ill Osha is having who is wearing a straight jacket and sits in a padded cell on Coruscant, whatever. But even then it would still be bad, I do not think even a Fight Club twist would make any of this retroactively better. Maybe even worse, because if you cheat and lie to your audience you need to be VERY smart.

I won't talk too much about the kids here who play Mae and Osha, let's just say they could have easily also been in The Phantom Menace and Jake Lloyd would not have been the only child actor struggling... this is of course always to blame on the director. And NOT on the kids. One thing though: I find it utterly hilarious how the two kids are not twins, they look visibly different, but how adult Mae and Osha look exactly the same, because here they use the same actress. Unless of course Headland wants to be smart and that is a clue and Mae does not exist... but this is contradicted by the last scene in this episode where Mae is on her home planet and stands in front of a tree she and her sis used to play at. Also, too many things in the first two episodes contradict this theory. Osha is literally on another planet with Sol when Mae attacks Torbin for the first time. So unless she is the most talented Force facetimer ever and much better at it than Luke (he's just a man, after all), Mae must be real. So my money is on "what you see is what you get". And it's nonsense. I won't even dwell too much on minor nonsense, like Sol giving his lightsaber to a child. Who does that? Or Sol lurking in the forest, watching little kids like some creep. Why was that scene even in the episode? Or how the Jedi randomly appear on this planet, just when the kids are about to have their cray cray ritual so they too become cray cray space witches. Who is this for? Most casual fans will find it boring and tune out. Hardcore fans will hate it just because.

What remains? "Destiny" does not destroy Star Wars. It does not redefine the Force. It's not destroying anything. Why some Youtube folks misrepresent things is beyond me... clicks... attention... money... sure, it's boring, it's nonsensical, but it does show us literally nothing we haven't seen before. Do these people not know Star Wars? Have they never heard of the Nightsisters and their own way to use and interpret the Force? We even last saw them in Ahsoka. How can you forget that? And this is another major disappointment here: at the end of the day Headland gives us nothing, literally nothing new. Nightsisters, children who were conceived via the Force, Jedi who want to test and train kids, turn them into Jedi, if the kids and their parents are ok with it. There is nothing scandalous, outrageous or offensive in this episode at all. Yes, the lesbian space witch thing is a bit heavy handed maybe, their weird ascension ritual reeks of crazy cult and I wonder if Headland wanted us to sympathize with the witches here? Because they are clearly presented as a weird cult and Mae is outright evil and crazy even. The Jedi are 100% the good guys here. They do nothing wrong.

So anyone who hoped to be outraged needs to watch something else. Talking about watching something else: I am currently rewatching Babylon 5, that 1990s SciFi show... and I can only recommend that folks in general watch some genuinely good shows, because it makes the utter mediocrity of current era Star Wars all the more painfully obvious. Only Andor is really on a top level here. Everything else veers between being silly, nonsensical and at times maybe mildly entertaining. Relying on memberberries... and just remixing old Star Wars tropes. The Acolyte is nothing new. We have all seen it before. Only better. And this is the most tragic thing about this show. They made a 180 million dollar Star Wars mixtape with some added trap beats maybe. This is neither stunning nor brave. This is stupid. This is boring. This is copy paste Star Wars once again. And even if all of this turns out to be some riff on Fight Club... then it would be just that... a riff on Fight Club, more carbon copy. But my money is still on "it's true, all of it". No wizard behind the curtain. I could be wrong of course, but this is not a mystery that I find very engaging. The Acolyte is, after three episodes, my biggest Star Wars disappointment ever since the sequels. Nothing beats the sequels when it comes to nonsense and stupidity. But The Acolyte tries its damn hardest to come very, very close. Watch Babylon 5 instead. Or The X-Files. Or Deep Space 9. Something that is actually good. The Acolyte is mostly just a waste of time really. I wish it were offensive. Because then it would at least be fun to talk about it. Or as great as Andor, then it would be enjoyable to watch it. It's just painfully mediocre and boring, and when it's not boring it's nonsensical. Next week: custom pronouns. Which we already had before in Star Wars too. I am so tired of people outraged about everything. Get a life. Also, stop being such pussies and hyperventilating about literally nothing. You give fandom a bad name. Nothing here is offensive, other than offensively stupid maybe. And if you think The Acolye is brilliant... good for you! I wish I could enjoy it. But this cannot hold a candle to the true genre greats. Again, do yourself a favor and watch Babylon 5 instead to see what a good show is. A much better use of your time. Now I will unsubscribe 200 YouTube channels and put them in the same box Mike Zeroh resides in.

1.5 holocrons btw. I feel generous today. But honestly, do yourself a favor and watch Babylon 5 instead.

UPDATE

I rewatched a few scenes for science and found definitive proof that we will get a Roshomon style second flashback to the events of this episode later in the season! When Osha regains consciousness on the ship you can notice a small detail that is super easy to miss, you are not meant to see it, the action happens in the foreground with Sol and Osha, so your eyes are drawn towards that. But out of focus, very blurred, you can see Indara and Torbin for one or two seconds in the background, just standing there. And Torbin now has a severe facial wound, what looks like a slash to his face and a wound around his left eye, i.e. the exact same wounds fake beard Torbin had in episode 2. I took a screenshot and tried to enhance it, I think you can clearly see it here:

Torbin is wounded

His left eye is all dark and bruised, and you can see the slash across the left side of his face. This means he, and almost certainly Indara and the Wookiee, were at the temple (as suspected) during the fire, but this was conveniently omitted from this episode for dramatic effect. My suspicion is that either a) the Jedi saw the fire and tried to help, but a misunderstanding (maybe the witches felt the Jedi are responsible for it all) resulted in a fight and the Jedi wiped out the entire coven or b) the Jedi are portrayed as plain villains, maybe they sense the witches are aligned with the dark side and decide to take them out. This would also explain why the four conspired to never tell the Order about the real events or that Osha has a sister, they need to cover up either a severe blunder or evil act and this makes Torbin go space hermit with an oath of silence for a decade. Either way I have a bad feeling about this. And no, I do not think any amended version of the events where we see the full truth will make anything retroactively better, the dialogue, the acting, the story are just not there. But at least we now know for sure that The Acolyte is borrowing from Roshomon. What do you think about all that?