The Acolyte - Episode 8 Season Finale Discussion (Spoilers)

I liked the show. It was refreshing to watch some Star Wars that wasn’t all about the Skywalkers, and came with a new setting in the timeline of Star Wars.
Definitely shows how arrogant the Jedi had become, and I can now much more clearly see how & why the Jedi fell. Pretty sure I saw Plagueis, so hopefully we get another show that expands on him. (I don’t care about the books, I’m dyslexic & this comment is already a trial)
Sol should have done nothing, and left those kids alone. He knew they were too old to be trained, and it’s irrelevant, to me, how they were created, since it was two women, the ones that are typically responsible for creating life, who gave them life.
There was a lot that could’ve been resolved just by talking more transparently: the entire plot with Mae & Osha, Indara sticking to her gut/instincts instead of giving in to her party, the vergence could have been found by asking the Sisters instead of being colonialist & pretentious towards them.
It could’ve been better, and it could’ve been worse, but that’s what most Star Wars has always been: imperfect & endearing. It was very much Star Wars, and it expanded the Star Wars universe to all the fans that just want to watch the shows & movies without getting into the other media, the Legends books, or reading Wookiepedia.

the Green Jedi woman
You mean Jedi Master Nebula?
- I most certainly do mean Jedi Master Nebula :D
  
  Ho ho ho, green Jedi!

The lightsaber choreography was awesome. Otherwise I felt like the show was pretty meh. I feel like they were trying to show that Jedi and Sith aren’t just good and bad, and rather that they’re complicated and nuanced, but at the end I didn’t feel like that message landed at all, especially with the cameos you mentioned but even without them. The black and white costuming was really heavy handed, too.
- The light saber fight in the ruins was the highlight of the otherwise mediocre season. Very nice to see the martial arts roots of Star Wars embraced. Otherwise the twists and turns in the finale were almost all unbelievable and out of character.
  
  Yes, I think you nailed it. After a whole lot of fairly un-nuanced character development for Osha and May, it was like they just switched brains in the last episode. What the heck? And there was definitely no payoff to any of the one/two stuff.

I did not dislike the show, but I'm confused who it was for. My wife is not as deep into Star wars as I am and thought it was boring and could not connect with the sisters at all. I thought a lot of the lore stuff was interesting, but everything I'm seeing online and on YouTube is complaining that the lore does not match their expectations from Legends. I mean Legends doesn't count, but you can't pitch a show for people who are super into deep Star wars lore and not figure that you have to be consistent with legends or else you're going to make them mad. I guess I'm just not sure who this show was for?
- Despite the advertising,
  the show wasn’t made for any particular audience or demographic. It was made to make Disney money.
- I've yet to see a lore complaint that has any actual merit to it. They incorporated a bunch of shit from legends, so anyone deep into the lore that went in with an open mind probably enjoyed it, I certainly did. The only thing that was hard retconned was Mundi's age, and who honestly cares about that beyond the memes?
  It just goes to show how powerful the nonsense outrage machine is online.
  
  I've seen so much "that's not what a sith would do" and "that's nothing like a true Jedi" complaining
- A certain very loud segment of Star Wars "fans" will be angry no matter what they do.

How did it take me 8 episodes to understand that defeating them without any weapon was of course leading up to force choking?
- I know right. What was the logic that convincing the meditating Jedi to kill himself didn't count? I guess we're all used to force choking, so the reveal wasn't mind-blowing, but the poison was more clever.
- Which makes me wonder what snapping their neck counts as.

PLAGUEIS.
Okay so is Darth Bortles Plagueis’s apprentice, or is Plagueis hunting down Darth Bortles?
Are we to understand that Osha/Mae are the blueprint that Plagueis uses to learn to create life, the experiment that leads to the creation of Anakin?
I like the idea that Osha/Mae were able to be created because they are balanced. One is light while one is dark. As Mae learns to forgive, Osha is pushed to the dark side. And while Osha was training to be a Jedi, Mae agreed to be Darth Bortles’s acolyte immediately.
Plagueis attempting to create and prolong life from the Dark alone triggers, accidentally, the Force to create Anakin to bring balance. IIRC that’s what we see in the book Plagueis, which is of course no longer canon.

Watched it last night. Really enjoyed it but I have several questions
Why did Osha and Mae actually fight in their old room? Mae saying "hey, Sol actually killed our family, not me. Let's go have a civil discussion with Sol" would have really negated the need for a fight. UPDATO - Mae tried, Osha didn't listen. Gave into dark side emotions.
Why doesn't anybody ever mention the significance of bleeding a kaiber crystal?? Afaik, this is the first on screen appearance of that phenomenon. A Star Wars game has this casually happen also. No character given any context or background to it. An episode in Visions has a control-z of bleed crystals, but they don't talk about the significance. If what we have come to know as the Dark Side of the Force is just semantics, why would that affect a kaiber crystal?
Who is the Stranger besides Vanestra's old Padawan? Did they have a falling out? How did he turn Sith?
How did the Stranger learn about Cortosis and why don't the Jedi know more about it?
Is Vernestra covering up some other stuff? They mention her headaches in hyperspace twice, but give no mention about her Force Visions while traveling in hyperspace *Why was "no weapons" a rule? I didn't see any significance or context to this requirement. UPDATE - it's attunement to the dark side of the Force. It's implied with the Force Choke.
What happened to that Nightsister who survived, Mother Koril?
Why did people not like Yord? Backstory was insinuated and then he died without much characterization :[
Did they abandon the search for the Force Vergence on Brendok? Vanestra and all the other Jedi were at the fortress where it may have been. But nobody really cared or looked for it. Was it the Bunta tree? If not, was the Bunta tree significant at all?
Why was Sol initially driven to Osha and Mae? He saw some kids in an uninhabited planet using the Force, but he would have known they were too old to be Padawans. What would have driven him to discern they were the same person created by the Force Vergence upon just seeing them? If he saw that so clearly, why wouldn't other Jedi draw the same conclusion?
Why not more lightsaber whip? It made a 0.75 second appearance, once. Come on Vernestra :[
- The dark and light side of the force are not Jedi specific.
  The son/daughter clone wars episodes explain this.
  The force has balance, the dark side being evil is a Jedi construct.
- Why did people not like Yord? Backstory was insinuated and then he died without much characterization :[
  That was just Jecki. Yord's kind of a fop and Jecki is super serious and stuffy, so they don't gel great.

Who was that guy at the final scene of the finale? Was he the Glup Shitto that I’ve heard so much about?
- It was Yoda

couldn't stand this show. It also pretty much spits on the prequels and regardless of people saying "thank god it's a star was story outside of the skywalkter saga" uh no, it's trying to shoe horn it's way into that saga. This is a Skywalker Saga Prequel.
in TPM when confronted with the possibility that the Sith have returned Ki-Adi-Mundi states that the sith have been extinct for over a millenium. Mace says it would be impossible for them to return without them knowing. and Yoda says nothing.
Are we meant to believe that Vernestra told Yoda the same thing she told the Senate? "So my apprentice that I fucked up likely killed Sol and is probably a Sith but.....yeah we're not going to tell the Sentate that the Sith have returned cause the Sith Wars were pretty bad" Yoda: "Good Idea, that is"
The Acolyte takes place 100 years before TPM. The Acolyte makes Yoda look like an absolute moron if indeed Vernestra tells him what's going on. What else would she be telling him? Those twins? yeah they were a vergence in the force and Sol wanted to train them even though we know it's a bad idea. 100 years later? "Ok Obi-Wan go ahead and train that vergence in the force because it'll probably go better than it did 100 years ago...huh? this happened before you ask? uh...yeah...didn't go well but I'm sure you're more qualified than Sol"
Like does no one see this? Either way you swing it, it makes the events of the prequels look like an absolute joke and shows that the Jedi are just a bunch of clowns running a clown school.
The Acoylte is trying to be a Skywalker Saga Prequel and if you can't see it then I don't know what to tell you. The Twins are the beta version of Anakin. With the introduction of Darth Plagueis which we should have all seen coming a mile away and now Yoda being involved it's just all so painfully obvious.
It takes what happened in the Prequels with the downfall of the Jedi, the vergence in the force, the return of the Sith and says "yeah fuck all that, lets do the same thing and set it 100 years earlier" it's unorignial garbage. It takes what happened with Anakin and pretty much says he isn't special, this happened before with many of the same people involved.

I tried to avoid discussion about the series for most part but something is on my mind and I don't see people talking about.
Why this season feels like nothing? Like all thing that I find interesting of "a show set 100 years before the prequels, the High Republic, when the Jedis are in their peak" will probably happens in the second season and not in the first one? Plagueis, the Sith training, the start of the fall of the Jedi and the politics of the Republic with the Jedis. We only see glimpses of this things and the show focus on characters that I not invested. This season seems like it could be the lettering of season 2.
- It feels like nothing because it is nothing. The jedi are incredibly stupid and incompetent, jedi are just cops with magic, what they portray and have characters say are generally different, characters are blank plot devices with no intrinsic motivation, time doesn't flow properly in action scenes, massive amounts of time is wasted...

I watched this and then House of the Dragon immediately after and wow. You really can tell that the latter is light years better quality. It’s a knockout. Everything is masterfully executed, makes sense, you root for characters, acting is very good. It’s joy to watch.
I wonder if we can get good sw content some time again since andor instead of media that feels like you have to clench your teeth to push through or a guilty pleasure b class show