The Acolyte - Disney Plus Star Wars Series

[electric indigo]

@Big s Not to say that it couldn't have been done better, but this needed to be an interlude episode to develop the new pairings of characters. Worked ok IMO for Manny/Osha, but Sol/Mae was so clunky.

And as a viewer with next to zero lore knowledge, I don't have the feeling that a huge amount of outside information is required to get the story.

[Big s]

13 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

Not to say that it couldn't have been done better, but this needed to be an interlude episode to develop the new pairings of characters. Worked ok IMO for Manny/Osha, but Sol/Mae was so clunky.

It didn’t need to be so badly done. Both sides had nothing really going on other than trying to tease that they have information for the sisters that wanted to kill the person they were with, but neither did. A proper interlude episode would have had some type of info given to further the story, but it was just another teaser episode.

 

16 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

And as a viewer with next to zero lore knowledge, I don't have the feeling that a huge amount of outside information is required to get the story.

This is something I totally agree with. The show is super basic and all the extra Easter eggs are just that. They even explain the cortosis or whatever an episode late, but basically explained so people get the basic idea.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I see :puke:

It's actually quite edible... just not to everyone's tastes.  Kudzu starch noodles are a popular ingredient in several traditional Japanese desserts, for instance.

 

14 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

In other words:

Eh... I'm not sure I'd say that.

It is, however, pretty inescapable that Witches in past Star Wars titles were very much in "Bad Powers, Bad People" territory to the extent that the most prominent Witches are every bit as cruel and evil as Darth Sideous.  Being aware of that tends to make the entire idea of the Witches in The Acolyte are victims of the Jedi pretty laughable.  It's especially silly in light of the one recurring Witch character outside of The Clone Wars being a fascist who aligned herself with the Empire, oppressed an entire city in The Mandalorian, and went on to help Thrawn create an army of Stormtrooper zombies.

[Mog]

Technically, it was the Witchy Threesome (and not the recurring Witch character) that made Thrawn his army of Stormtrooper zombies. 

[Big s]

25 minutes ago, Mog said:

Technically, it was the Witchy Threesome (and not the recurring Witch character) that made Thrawn his army of Stormtrooper zombies. 

Those zombies sucked worse than any zombies I’ve ever seen in anything. Even Scooby Doo did better zombies. That was another thing that made me hate Thrawn. I don’t get why everyone was so excited about that guy.

Edited July 4 by Big s

[jvmacross]

43 minutes ago, Big s said:

I don’t get why everyone was so excited about that guy.

Probably was based on the expectations of what had come before, but that was before Diseny purchased Star Wars...and several blunders after that....so yeah....the expectations should not have been that high...lol

[Seto Kaiba]

58 minutes ago, Big s said:

Those zombies sucked worse than any zombies I’ve ever seen in anything. Even Scooby Doo did better zombies. That was another thing that made me hate Thrawn. I don’t get why everyone was so excited about that guy.

Because the trilogy of Star Wars novels in which he appears as the main villain are held, by fans, to be some of the very finest writing the Star Wars Expanded Universe ever had.

Having read them, I fear that says far more about the dismal quality of the Star Wars Expanded Universe than it does the quality of the so-called "Thrawn Trilogy".

Spoiler

All in all, his appeal seems to stem mainly from being the token competent commander and strategist on the Imperial side after Endor, not pulling Vader-style "You have failed me" executions on his own side, and being a pretentious art critic who bases his strategies on insights he gains into his enemies from the art of their species.

But yeah, zombies and mind control and Hollywood voodoo are not "Good people" powers... and they're basically the powerset of the Witches in Star Wars, so the witches can never really get past their status as card-carrying villains similar to the Sith Lords.

Like, I fully expect we're going to learn, after Master Sol's big confession, that the Witches were actually up to no good and were probably allied with Smilo Ren.

[pengbuzz]

50 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Like, I fully expect we're going to learn, after Master Sol's big confession, that the Witches were actually up to no good and were probably allied with Smilo Ren.

That, or Master Sol dated one of the witches when he was a Padawan at Coruscant Jedi Junior High...

Edited July 5 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

That, or Master Sol dated one of the witches when he was a Padawan at Coruscant Jedi Junior High...

That's right out... part of...

Spoiler

... Qimir's Sithy sales pitch to Osha...

... is that the Jedi fundamentally can't form deeper relationships like that because their creed forbids personal attachments.  As a result, ...

Spoiler

... Sol can never be the surrogate father she wants him to be, nor could Jecki have returned her interest or affections.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Well friends, it's that time again.  Time for...

The Power of One!

The Power of Two! 

The Power of Manny!

So what's the over-under on this episode also being a tease-and-denial about WTH happened on Brendok?

Spoiler

"Choice"!  Or in this case, the illusion of it.

We get a recap of episode three to remind us that Mae's a little psycho and that that the Witches are creepy AF.

We open on a flashback to Brendok 16 years ago, with the Jedi... examining plants?  There's a wookiee with a metal detector wandering through a grassy field.

Torbin's whining about the food and complaining that they've been on Brendok for seven weeks.  We learn, via Master Indara, that the Jedi are on Brendok to study the planet itself.  Apparently a hyperspace disaster some 100 years before these events left the planet a lifeless rock.  Somehow, the planet made an inexplicable recovery and is now a verdant and thriving ecosystem again and the Jedi believe an intense concentration of Force energy is responsible.  They have a brief argument over Torbin and Sol heads up the river to search elsewhere... stumbling upon Mae and Osha as we saw in episode three.  

It seems the Jedi weren't surveiling the witch coven after all... Sol found them quite by accident, and what we saw in episode three was him only a few minutes after having stumbled across them entirely by accident.

Sol tries to call his discovery in to Indara, and then follows Mother Koril as she leads the children back home.  We see him follow them to the fortress gate, and then failing to get through the gate he opts to climb the curtain wall.  We see that he was able to watch Mother Aniseya train the girls, and that Mother Koril may have sensed him there but fails to actually spot him.  He also sees the witches chanting creepily over their obviously evil pit.  

Sol then reports back to Master Indara, indicating that the cult he found are probably witches and that he's afraid for the girls safety after observing how they are treated by the coven.  He mentions that they're preparing for a ceremony, and that the girls might be in danger.  Indara wants to call the High Council, but Sol insists the Jedi need to go see what he's found immediately.  Torbin notes that the fortress appears to be an old mining site.  Kelnacca gets busy circumventing the locks and Sol and Indara argue over whether to go in as a group or let Indara go in solo.  She agrees to go in as a team after some debate, and we see the other side of them gatecrashing the ascension ceremony.

We get to see Torbin's view of the coven's attack on his mind, which comes with healthy helpings of Evil is Cold, which apparently started well before it appeared to have in episode three.  Mother Aniseya comes off as exactly the kind of villain previous witches have been, being the leader of the attack on Torbin's mind as they attempt to prey upon his insecurities.

As expected, this episode definitely seems to be leaning towards the Brendok coven actually being the same evil previously seen in The Clone Wars and similar.

Spoiler

Back on the ship, we see Sol and Indara with Torbin... and Indara suggests Sol's request to test the children was buying time so she can ask the Council for guidance.  Sol, meanwhile, says he feels a connection to Osha.  Indara points out that they can't actually take testing the twins seriously because they're too old and that the coven will not let them leave peacefully.  She seems willing to live and let live, but agrees with Sol that Osha may be in danger because she does not seem to be a true member of that coven.  

Torbin's meditating outdoors when the witches arrive.  We see him escort Mae and ask her permission to take a blood sample.  All very civil and professional.  Mae makes a fairly obvious attempt to fail the "guess the picture" test and asks if she can go home yet.  The Jedi ask some innocuous questions about the Ascension ceremony, and she reveals she doesn't actually know much except that her mother has said she and Osha are next to lead the coven.  Sol reasonably points out that Mae was instructed to fail, and asks to try something different.  We see more of Osha's test.  

Torbin's assigned to run the bloodwork, Indara wants to talk to the council (because that seems to be all she ever wants to do), and Sol and Kelnacca are sent to get back to field work.  At night, we see them camping and Indara lets Sol know that the Council said "No" to his request and won't let the Brendok Jedi bring the twins to the temple for training.  

For all Leslye Headland's talk of making the Jedi the bad guys in this piece, the story seems to be bending over backwards now to show that the Jedi are in the right.

Spoiler

Sol and Torbin are making fairly cogent arguments that the Brendok coven are dangerous based on their unprovoked attack on Torbin and their obvious dark side affiliation, while the Jedi Council and Master Indara are actually quite happy to leave the coven alone to go about their business unmolested.

Torbin finishes running the bloodwork and discovers that the twins have extremely high "m-counts" but that their midichlorians are exactly the same... meaning they were created artificially.  Likely through the power of the vergence in the Force that they're looking for.  Torbin jumps on this and freaks TF out, saying it's their ticket home.  He takes off on a bike.  Sol goes after him, while Indara and Kelnacca come after him in the ship.  

We get some more repeats of scenes with Osha and Mae from the previous flashback episode, and some new ones too.  Mother Koril drags Mae away, and tells Mae to stop Osha if she wants to, and that the Jedi will not warn anyone before they attack.  Koril is definitely DEFINITELY unhinged, as we see her take a few swings at Mae, encouraging her to get mad.  We see Mother Aniseya being a fairly reasonable leader as well, trying to honor her child's wishes over the objections of the coven.  Mae is in full on gremlin mode smashing the door controls, and we see Mother Koril basically rallying the witches to attack the Jedi.  Just in time for Torbin and Sol to roll up and sense Mae's telling Osha they'll never leave and her subsequent attack on her.

Indara and Kelnacca fly their ship over to try to stop Torbin before he does something stupid, and Mother Koril and Mother Aniseya have an argument about using violence.

Mae starts the fire by burning the book, then panics and drops the lamp... causing the fire to spread rapidly along the inexplicably flammable stonework.  She runs for her mother, presumably to get help.  

Torbin and Sol gain entry into the fortress and confront the witches, and despite Koril's provocation Sol actually stays on topic and manages to ask where the twins came from.  Then Mae bursts onto the scene shouting about the fire and asking for help, which sets the grownups off and has Torbin and Koril draw on each other while Mother Aniseya tries to stop them, only to get shanked by Sol after he misreads the situation.  A dying Aniseya tells Sol she was going to let Osha go, and then collapses.  Koril understandably loses her sh*t and attacks Sol, who nonchalantly sidesteps most of her attacks before taking a few hits to the face.  He's actually refusing to fight her, as he seems to have realized he screwed up, and she's screaming mad.  The place starts exploding, seemingly with no connection to the actions of anyone present except maybe Mae.  

The witches possess Kelnacca and turn him against the other Jedi.  Torbin's scars in the future are from Kelnacca's claws.  Kelnacca smacks them around a bit before Indara gets there and pushes the witches out of Kelnacca's mind, which seems to knock them all out.  Sol tries to explain himself, and Indara tells him to get the twins.  We get to see the blame scene from Sol's perspective, and he fails to hold them both up, choosing to save Osha over Mae. 

We see the ship in hyperspace.  They're headed back to the temple, with Indara chewing Sol out for his thoughtless actions.  They actually struggle with each other for a bit, and then Torbin asks what they'll tell the Council.  Indara decides to tell them the truth... that Mae burned down the witches fortress and everyone died.  Sol's guilt is now recontextualized as protecting Osha from potentially losing her place as a Jedi by refusing to let him confess his crimes to the council.

The writers have pretty definitively weaseled out of actually making the Jedi the bad guys here... exactly as predicted.

The credits have a pop song instead of the usual orchestral music... which feels very out of place IMO.

 

To make a long story short...

Spoiler

This episode basically revealed that the Brendok Jedi were essentially well-meaning idiots and busybodies not villains.  

They had no idea the planet was inhabited, they weren't surveiling the witches in any way, and they weren't actually responsible for the destruction of the coven.  Torbin flew off the handle and poked the bear not out of malice but because he saw a shortcut to going home after being tempted by the witches.  Koril was already primed for a fight and clearly doing her best dark side corrupter routine encouraging Mae's worst impulses, but it wasn't until Mae startled both sides of the confrontation by rushing out in a panic shouting about the fire that the prejudices of both sides led to a fight.

The Jedi fought defensively, and only actually killed one person (Mother Aniseya).  Most of the fight was between the Brendok Jedi, thanks to the witches deciding to try to possess Kelnacca.  It seems most of the witches either died in the fire or died overusing their Force abilities to control Kelnacca.

It seems there are only two people who can really claim credit for the Brendok massacre... Mae, whose arson may well have actually killed everyone, and Mother Koril who did her best to ensure everyone was gung-ho to start a fight.

 

[jvmacross]

With one episode to go....I don't see how this mess can be redeemed....

For me...I don't feel floating hippie Jedi had a good enough reason to kill himself...leave the order, probably...but to off himself?  I understand why Kelnacca self exiled himself...but I think leaving the order would have been a reasonable way of dealing with the "guilt" too...

And Indara...well, she did what she had to to protect her team...still....it was a lame reason for all of them to have perished at the same time....

I guess reaveling the "truth" from a certain point of view to the council was barely an inconvenience.....just need to find out how Sol gets killed....guessing at the hands of off-brand Nebula...that way she is the only one left with full knowledge of the Dark Side user.....or she herself will also need to be killed...

Hopefully, she runs into the show's real Sith Master in pursuit of Darth Manny and Darth Plagueis does them both in...leaving Osha as the last person with knowledge of the Sith....then she can either end up as the next Sith apprentice or simply dead....

Wait...I forgot...Mae is still tied up by the creepy Sol...she is also a witness...so she has to get killed too....no way both Sister can survive this crap.....right?  It'll all be over soon....

 

 

Edited July 10 by jvmacross

[Roy Focker]

Haven't watched it yet but that spoiler review you posted sounded really stupid.

[Seto Kaiba]

Eh, yeah... considering The Acolyte's writers have been relentlessly teasing and building up to this episode as The Big Reveal, it's a truly underwhelming answer to the show's central question: "What happened on Brendok sixteen years ago that drove Mae to murder?"

This is just my ignorant hot take, but in hindsight it honestly feels a bit like executive meddling to me.  Someone in authority stepped in to ensure the Jedi couldn't really be the bad guys.

[Mog]

Eh, I see it as

Spoiler

Sol and Torbin screwing things up, just as badly as the coven.

If they all had listened to Indara and Witch Mother, a lot of the drama could have been averted.

And as in real life, the bigger crime is in the cover-up.  Hiding what really happened doesn’t exactly put those four Jedi on the moral high ground.

 

[pengbuzz]

I think this fits:

Spoiler

 

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Haven't watched it yet but that spoiler review you posted sounded really stupid.

Yeah, it’s mostly a rehash of an older episode with bits from another perspective. And the parts that were new were really predictable 

Spoiler

It’s basically as thought out that one of the Jedi would be controlled, but the Jedi went in totally stupider than anyone could’ve guessed. 
 

Unfortunately for me , I had to see more screen time for the shaved wookie, but that was mostly stuff from the preview way back before the show started.

Spoiler

I guess that matrix lady killed the witches with her mind, that was a little different, but kind of a weird power for a Jedi to have.

Definitely not the worst episode of the show, but still a letdown episode. I’m guessing that the next episode might fill us in a bit on what Mae did post fire hole not death scene.

I didn’t notice in the corpse pile

Spoiler

If bad mom was there or not

Not really too eager on a rewatch of this episode though to find out

[Big s]

3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I think this fits:

  Hide contents

 

 

It’s far better than that stupid song at the end of the episode that totally felt way out of place.

Although Merciful Fate’s song Into the Coven would’ve been more fun.

Honestly, today’s been an odd day of terrible soundtrack choices. First was that out of place song on the Gladiator 2 preview and then this one at the end of the episode. They both were not only bad songs, but just didn’t fit the subjects. It made hearing Beastie Boys on a Star Trek soundtrack seem like a perfect choice 

[Roy Focker]

Okay I watched it.

Yeah, it was pretty stupid. I'm thinking what's her name had to survive because how else would Mae get off planet without some help. Sol's and Tobin's motivations seemed rather rush. I'm wondering maybe they should have started the season in the past. Have the Jedi and Witches to interact over period of time. Allow Sol's bond to grow. His concern and instant bound for Ohsa seem freaking weird.

 

[Big s]

11 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Okay I watched it.

Yeah, it was pretty stupid. I'm thinking what's her name had to survive because how else would Mae get off planet without some help. Sol's and Tobin's motivations seemed rather rush. I'm wondering maybe they should have started the season in the past. Have the Jedi and Witches to interact over period of time. Allow Sol's bond to grow. His concern and instant bound for Ohsa seem freaking weird.

 

Yeah, it’s a very stupid show and the reasoning is very awkward and creepy. There’s a lot about this show that could have been better if it was completely reworked and if they could’ve hired better people to write and direct, but I guess they didn’t want to and just followed the Disney fail plan all the way

[pengbuzz]

7 minutes ago, Big s said:

Yeah, it’s a very stupid show and the reasoning is very awkward and creepy. There’s a lot about this show that could have been better if it was completely reworked and if they could’ve hired better people to write and direct, but I guess they didn’t want to and just followed the Disney fail plan all the way

Probably Disney's revenge for The Black Hole not doing as well as Star Wars back when they released it in 1979...

[Seto Kaiba]

It seems like, after the episode's debut, the majority of the discussion and theorizing is now about whether...

Spoiler

... Mother Koril, the obviously evil parent who we see actively encouraged Mae's tiny psycho behavior, survived the events on Brendok sixteen years ago.

Since she turned into a mist and escaped the immediate area the same way Mother Talzin was so fond of doing in The Clone Wars, there are a few competing fan theories doing the rounds like:

• Mother Koril took direct control over the other witches and died when Master Indara forced them out of Kelnacca's mind.
• Mother Koril fused with Mae and has been manipulating her mind in order to get her to pursue her murderous revenge against the Jedi.
• Mother Koril fused with Kelnacca and/or all four Brendok Jedi, and will reappear when all four are dead.  (Evidence cited for this is the many witch marks that we see Kelnacca doodled in his cabin in the woods on Khofar.)
• Mother Koril orchestrated these events, even impersonating Mother Aniseya in the attack on Torbin's mind, specifically to engineer the coven's destruction in a bid to create a scandal that would destroy the Jedi.

 

Nobody seems to be surprised that the story bent over backwards to get the Jedi off the hook, though.

Spoiler

We see in this episode that the witches attacked and controlled Torbin through his desire to go home to Coruscant, and that same desire that they manipulated drove him to investigate the coven when it became clear they were probably aware of or controlling the vergence in the Force the Jedi were looking for... so the witches are technically on the hook for Torbin's arrival and the provocation that caused in combination with Mother Koril's agitating for a fight.

We see that the fire that seems to be responsible for the destruction of the compound was, in fact, set by Mae albeit unintentionally at Mother Koril's instigation... so the witches are responsible for that.

Only one witch was actually killed by the Jedi directly.  Sol killed Mother Aniseya when he mistook her use of her Always Chaotic Evil dark side powers to go to her daughter's aid for an attack.  That one's on the Jedi, but anyone familiar with witches from past stories is going to put that one on the witches precisely because "Bad Powers, Bad People" is in full effect.

The rest of the witches, possibly excluding Mother Koril, were seemingly killed either when Master Indara forced them out of Kelnacca's mind to stop them from forcing him to murder Torbin and Sol or killed in the explosions touched off by the fire Mae set.  In either case, that one's on the witches.

So when all is said and done, since Master Indara reported the fire that destroyed the coven the only thing that was actually covered up was Sol's accidental killing of Aniseya and the ensuing fight where the Jedi didn't actually kill anyone themselves.

 

[tekering]

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Disney's revenge for The Black Hole not doing as well as Star Wars back when they released it in 1979...

The Black Hole (PG) was released in direct competition with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (G), and their respective MPAA ratings ensured that parents took their children to be bored by Star Trek, rather than frightened by The Black Hole.  If Disney wanted revenge, Star Trek would therefore be the likely target. 😉

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It seems like, after the episode's debut, the majority of the discussion and theorizing is now about whether...

  Hide contents

... Mother Koril, the obviously evil parent who we see actively encouraged Mae's tiny psycho behavior, survived the events on Brendok sixteen years ago.

Since she turned into a mist and escaped the immediate area the same way Mother Talzin was so fond of doing in The Clone Wars, there are a few competing fan theories doing the rounds like:

• Mother Koril took direct control over the other witches and died when Master Indara forced them out of Kelnacca's mind.
• Mother Koril fused with Mae and has been manipulating her mind in order to get her to pursue her murderous revenge against the Jedi.
• Mother Koril fused with Kelnacca and/or all four Brendok Jedi, and will reappear when all four are dead.  (Evidence cited for this is the many witch marks that we see Kelnacca doodled in his cabin in the woods on Khofar.)
• Mother Koril orchestrated these events, even impersonating Mother Aniseya in the attack on Torbin's mind, specifically to engineer the coven's destruction in a bid to create a scandal that would destroy the Jedi.

 

Nobody seems to be surprised that the story bent over backwards to get the Jedi off the hook, though.

  Hide contents

We see in this episode that the witches attacked and controlled Torbin through his desire to go home to Coruscant, and that same desire that they manipulated drove him to investigate the coven when it became clear they were probably aware of or controlling the vergence in the Force the Jedi were looking for... so the witches are technically on the hook for Torbin's arrival and the provocation that caused in combination with Mother Koril's agitating for a fight.

We see that the fire that seems to be responsible for the destruction of the compound was, in fact, set by Mae albeit unintentionally at Mother Koril's instigation... so the witches are responsible for that.

Only one witch was actually killed by the Jedi directly.  Sol killed Mother Aniseya when he mistook her use of her Always Chaotic Evil dark side powers to go to her daughter's aid for an attack.  That one's on the Jedi, but anyone familiar with witches from past stories is going to put that one on the witches precisely because "Bad Powers, Bad People" is in full effect.

The rest of the witches, possibly excluding Mother Koril, were seemingly killed either when Master Indara forced them out of Kelnacca's mind to stop them from forcing him to murder Torbin and Sol or killed in the explosions touched off by the fire Mae set.  In either case, that one's on the witches.

So when all is said and done, since Master Indara reported the fire that destroyed the coven the only thing that was actually covered up was Sol's accidental killing of Aniseya and the ensuing fight where the Jedi didn't actually kill anyone themselves.

 

...none of that matters anymore or ever did...not when there is a Not-Sith running around that took out several Jedi without breaking a sweat...Ki Adi Mundi said there hasn't been Sith sightings for a Millenium.....nothing about Space Witches....this show is pointless unless they resolve how the existence of "Sith" was "correctly" surmised at the time of the Prequels Era....and I put the word correctly in quotes because the Jedi were oblivious to the Sith's survival until this sh!show was released...this is the Disney Way...to explain stuff that know one was asking to be explained....then making things worse...

Oh well...It all comes down to the final episode....

Edited July 10 by jvmacross

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

The Black Hole (PG) was released in direct competition with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (G), and their respective MPAA ratings ensured that parents took their children to be bored by Star Trek, rather than frightened by The Black Hole.  If Disney wanted revenge, Star Trek would therefore be the likely target. 😉

Then they would have bought Paramount, not Lucasfilms.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

The Black Hole (PG) was released in direct competition with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (G), and their respective MPAA ratings ensured that parents took their children to be bored by Star Trek, rather than frightened by The Black Hole.  If Disney wanted revenge, Star Trek would therefore be the likely target. 😉

In the profoundly unlikely event Disney wanted revenge over a nonevent film like that... well... surely they'd realize that the best revenge is to let Alex Kurtzman et. al. finish flying the Star Trek franchise into the ground with series concepts nobody wants and cancellations for the shows that are actually doing well.

 

26 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

...none of that matters anymore or ever did...not when there is a Not-Sith running around that took out several Jedi without breaking a sweat...Ki Adi Mundi said there hasn't been Sith sightings for a Millenium.....nothing about Space Witches....this show is pointless unless they resolve how the existence of "Sith" was "correctly" surmised at the time of the Prequels Era....and I put the word correctly in quotes because the Jedi were oblivious to the Sith's survival until this sh!show was released...this is the Disney Way...to explain stuff that know one was asking to be explained....then making things worse...

Oh well...It all comes down to the final episode....

Yeah, you're probably right.

This latest episode's "big reveal" would've meant a lot more several episodes ago before Mae's arbitrary heel-face turn and her Sith master entering the picture.  Mae herself is now headed towards irrelevance either because her master is the greater scope villain, his master is the greater scope villain, or because she's been replaced, so her motive for murder now doesn't really matter much.

Spoiler

Unless the last episode reveals Mother Koril is involved with Qimir somehow... which would be in-character for a witch to farm coven members out to the Sith as apprentices.

 

Edited July 10 by Seto Kaiba

[jvmacross]

16 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In the profoundly unlikely event Disney wanted revenge over a nonevent film like that... well... surely they'd realize that the best revenge is to let Alex Kurtzman et. al. finish flying the Star Trek franchise into the ground with series concepts nobody wants and cancellations for the shows that are actually doing well.

 

Yeah, you're probably right.

This latest episode's "big reveal" would've meant a lot more several episodes ago before Mae's arbitrary heel-face turn and her Sith master entering the picture.  Mae herself is now headed towards irrelevance either because her master is the greater scope villain, his master is the greater scope villain, or because she's been replaced, so her motive for murder now doesn't really matter much.

  Reveal hidden contents

Unless the last episode reveals Mother Koril is involved with Qimir somehow... which would be in-character for a witch to farm coven members out to the Sith as apprentices.

 

I was thinking about how these witches, or at least the horned witch, seem to "vanish" and then apparently can "possess" their target.....what exactly is going on there?  Do they literally become one with the Force...errr...Thread...and their physical body gets suspended until needed again?  If so....wouldn't that be exactly the kind of "Unnatural" ability Darth Sidious has been shopping for ever since he supposedly (since now nothing can be just taken at face value or logically assumed) killed his own Master?   The ability to just assume control of another's body would solve all of his "immortality" problems....surely there would be any number of "volunteers" ready and willing to give up their bodies for the Emperor....no need to bother with cloning either...and apparently even the "M" count is preserved or can be easily manipulated....

It just muddles up everything that has come afterwards...in terms of the in-universe chain of events....

Maybe the story should have been the Sith trying to gain the knowledge that only these witches had and their attempts at trying to flee from him (them?) and keeping their "secrets" from the Sith.....in the end perhaps one succumbs and joins the Sith but only manages to share the ability for artificially creating a "Vergence" before getting killed....and not sharing the secret for transference into another's body.....thus the Sith not having the total package needed for immortality...

When the show was first announced I thought....finally...a show just about the Sith....no Jedi....but nope

[Big s]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

...none of that matters anymore or ever did...not when there is a Not-Sith running around that took out several Jedi without breaking a sweat...Ki Adi Mundi said there hasn't been Sith sightings for a Millenium.....nothing about Space Witches....this show is pointless unless they resolve how the existence of "Sith" was "correctly" surmised at the time of the Prequels Era....and I put the word correctly in quotes because the Jedi were oblivious to the Sith's survival until this sh!show was released...this is the Disney Way...to explain stuff that know one was asking to be explained....then making things worse...

Oh well...It all comes down to the final episode....

I honestly haven’t taken this show or its horrible writing and directing team seriously at all. When Smilo Ren said he wasn’t exactly a Jedi, I knew that was the end of that conversation. Even though it shouldn’t be. I doubt they’ll hint much more about Sith . Technically he’s everything a Sith would be, just without a name. He even wants an apprentice. Who knows, he may have been trained by bad mom and might be searching for a way to kill her just like a Sith would, but I kinda doubt this show would be that interesting.

[Roy Focker]

I'm afraid that the final episode will be cliffhanger. Don't give this show a second season please. 

[Big s]

8 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

I'm afraid that the final episode will be cliffhanger. Don't give this show a second season please. 

I think they already said it was one and done 

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I think they already said it was one and done 

Yeah...I think I read somewhere that the producer's intent was to make it a stand-alone....too bad it chose to stand in quicksand!

Guess I'm a glutton for punishment...but if they end on a high note...like everyone that has direct knowledge of what happened on Witch Mountain and of the not-Sithlord...all die at the hands of either of the Sithlords supposedly active during this time....maybe I would want a second season....but it would have to make a time skip to when he recruits a young Palpatine....but then again...what am I thinking...they'd frakk that up too....

 

[Thom]

Spoiler

Calling it now, Smilo-Ren is young Palpatine!

Edited July 11 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, jvmacross said:

I was thinking about how these witches, or at least the horned witch, seem to "vanish" and then apparently can "possess" their target.....what exactly is going on there?

"Magick."  They spell it with a "k" so you know it's serious mystical stuff and not that silly Harry Potter kid stuff.

As you might expect, the powers of the Witches aren't explained any more than the powers of the Jedi are.  They just work.  The closest we get to any kind of explanation in The Clone Wars, where witches featured most prominently, was that "magickal ichor" is somehow involved and they seem to be able to turn themselves into it like Dracula turns into mist.

 

5 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Maybe the story should have been the Sith trying to gain the knowledge that only these witches had and their attempts at trying to flee from him (them?) and keeping their "secrets" from the Sith.....in the end perhaps one succumbs and joins the Sith but only manages to share the ability for artificially creating a "Vergence" before getting killed....and not sharing the secret for transference into another's body.....thus the Sith not having the total package needed for immortality...

When the show was first announced I thought....finally...a show just about the Sith....no Jedi....but nope

Thanks to The Clone Wars, that idea would probably be a non-starter.

Even a century later, both the Jedi and the Sith treat the Witches as a largely inconsequential group of primitive weirdos from the space boonies whose worship of the Force (via the Dark Side, mainly) is seen as backwards and quaint and almost harmless.  So much so that wiping them out is one of the rare occasions General Grievous and his comically ineffectual droid army got to chalk up an actual win in The Clone Wars.  It kind of says a lot that the most powerful and dangerous Witch who didn't also have Sith training ended that series being defeated by the incredible duo of Mace Windu and Jar-Jar Binks.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

Yeah...I think I read somewhere that the producer's intent was to make it a stand-alone....too bad it chose to stand in quicksand!

There’s just a lot of nothing in this show. Not sure, but I hear next week is already the last episode and it feels like so much time was wasted that if it is the last, then it’s gonna feel super rushed. There’s still the whole who trained Smilo and who’s calling the shots and OSHA being temper by an old helmet full of Smilo’s musk. It’s a lot to cover in one episode that probably will just be another fail

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Magick."  They spell it with a "k" so you know it's serious mystical stuff and not that silly Harry Potter kid stuff.

As you might expect, the powers of the Witches aren't explained any more than the powers of the Jedi are.  They just work.  The closest we get to any kind of explanation in The Clone Wars, where witches featured most prominently, was that "magickal ichor" is somehow involved and they seem to be able to turn themselves into it like Dracula turns into mist.

 

Spoiler

So pretty much: you could defeat them with a box fan?

Or even better:  the Power of MANY boxfans?

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Thanks to The Clone Wars, that idea would probably be a non-starter.

Even a century later, both the Jedi and the Sith treat the Witches as a largely inconsequential group of primitive weirdos from the space boonies whose worship of the Force (via the Dark Side, mainly) is seen as backwards and quaint and almost harmless.  So much so that wiping them out is one of the rare occasions General Grievous and his comically ineffectual droid army got to chalk up an actual win in The Clone Wars.  It kind of says a lot that the most powerful and dangerous Witch who didn't also have Sith training ended that series being defeated by the incredible duo of Mace Windu and Jar-Jar Binks.

There's sad,  there's "the entire universe hates me" sad, and then there's "I'm Anakin and the entire universe is made of sand" sad.

That goes in the third category.

[Duke Togo]

You know, I thought this was going be a story from the Sith perspective. Or, at least, from the dark side. I thought that's how they were selling it, and we got all of one episode of that.

Outside of the one Sith-centric episode (which I really dug), the show has fluctuated between ok to forgettable. Sure, it's better than Boba Fett and Obi Wan, but that's a low bar.

Outside of Andor, the Star Wars shows have really felt hamstrung. Even Mando as it's gone on. Not just by their runtime and budget, but by the small part of the sandbox they're actually allowed to play in. The Feloni-ization of Star Wars. Everything must tie into the same story, mostly in support of Clone Wars in some way or form.

They have a huge SW EU/RPG nerd showrunnung Acolyte and they could have done something really interesting there. Something new, something that's outside of the Feloni box. But instead we got another show really seems to tie back into the Anakin/Prequels/Clone Wars story.