The Acolyte finale postmortem: Will there be a second season?
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Acolyte season 1, episode 8.
Last night, Lucasfilm’s The Acolyte wrapped up its eight-episode debut season. The series, created by Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland, went out with an action-packed episode that brought many of its storylines to a close and simultaneously set the stage for a bigger and potentially darker next chapter. The finale wasn’t The Acolyte‘s worst episode to date, nor was it the show’s best. Instead, it’s a mixed bag — much like the series itself — of impactful-on-paper moments and twists that don’t all land with the weight that Headland and company clearly intended.
The episode raises multiple questions about The Acolyte‘s future, though, and it also sheds some further light on the problems that have dragged its first season down these past few weeks. With that in mind, here’s what Star Wars fans should know about The Acolyte‘s season 1 finale, how it sets up another chapter of the show, and what the likelihood is that it will even be renewed.
What happens in The Acolyte’s season 1 finale?
In the final act of The Acolyte‘s eighth episode, the truth finally comes out and Mae’s (Amandla Stenberg) mission is fulfilled, though not by herself. The episode’s climax fittingly takes place in the ruined fortress of Mae and Osha’s former coven, and it’s there that Sol (Lee Jung-jae) finally admits out loud for Osha (also played by Stenberg) to hear that he killed her mother, Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith). As Sol tries to defend his actions, Osha tells him, “Stop talking.” Her request becomes an order when she uses the Force to strangle him — killing her former Jedi Master without a weapon, just like Qimir commanded Mae to do before The Acolyte season 1 began.
In the aftermath of Sol’s death, Jedi Master Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) arrives on Brendok with a number of other Jedi and immediately detects Qimir’s presence. Despite knowing that Sol was likely killed by a dark Force user, though, Vernestra covers up the events of The Acolyte season 1 by pinning all of the deaths throughout it on Sol. She tells the Galactic Senate that Sol ultimately killed himself out of guilt — effectively kick-starting the Jedi Order‘s transformation from a benevolent religious order into a politically minded, corrupt organization.
Osha, meanwhile, demands that Qimir (known officially as “The Stranger”) let Mae live in exchange for her taking her sister’s place as his new apprentice. Qimir agrees and wipes Mae’s memory of both him and Osha — leaving her to be found and questioned to no avail by her eventual Jedi captors. He and Osha subsequently return to his Sith hideaway with Sol’s lightsaber, which Osha turned red when she inadvertently used her negative emotions to make the kyber crystal within it bleed. The Acolyte‘s season 1 finale then ends with Osha and Qimir shifting their gaze to the future together.
Darth Plagueis and Yoda: How The Acolyte’s finale sets up a second season
While The Acolyte‘s latest episode wraps up a lot of its first season’s overarching plot threads, it also introduces several new storylines for the show to follow moving forward. The episode’s biggest reveal comes early in its runtime when it cuts away from Qimir and Osha to show a mysterious alien figure watching their ship set off for Brendok. The character’s name is not stated in the episode, but ??given his Muun-like appearance, The Acolyte‘s setting, and the ominous mood of his introduction, he is almost certainly none other than Darth Plagueis, the powerful Sith who goes on to teach and be killed by Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid).
Plagueis’ brief appearance in The Acolyte episode 8 suggests that he is likely Qimir’s Sith Master, whom Star Wars fans had already begun to speculate hadn’t been killed yet. Either way, the character’s live-action debut opens the door for a second season of The Acolyte to potentially pit Osha and Qimir against Plagueis, which is a conflict that presumably wouldn’t go well for the two younger characters. It won’t, after all, be another 100 years from when The Acolyte is currently set that Plagueis is ultimately defeated and killed by Palpatine.
In addition to its Plagueis Easter egg, The Acolyte‘s season 1 finale also confirms that Qimir is an old pupil of Vernestra, who seems greatly unnerved by her discovery that he’s still alive. The episode’s final scene even sees Vernestra willingly seek out Jedi Master Yoda for advice. Taking that into account, it seems safe to assume that — if The Acolyte does return with new episodes — its second season will split its focus between Qimir’s training of Osha, Plagueis’ behind-the-scenes Sith machinations, and Yoda and Vernestra’s ongoing investigation into the violent return of the latter’s former student.
Is The Acolyte season 2 happening?
As of this writing, Lucasfilm has neither renewed The Acolyte for a second season, nor has it canceled the series. Unfortunately, it may be a few days, weeks, or even months before we learn more about the studio’s plans for the show. The Acolyte has certainly emerged as a divisive talking point in recent weeks, but it’s unclear whether Lucasfilm views the series as a success or not yet. While it was initially met with positive reviews from critics, the show’s most recent episodes haven’t been received as well. The critical conversations surrounding it have, consequently, been an intense mix of both positive and negative.
Lucasfilm’s decision may, therefore, come down solely to the studio’s belief in Headland’s vision for The Acolyte. If it does come back, here’s to hoping that the series manages to straighten out some of the pacing, tonal, and structural issues that plagued its first season. At different points, The Acolyte season 1 felt alternately like a two-hour movie that had been stretched to accommodate eight episodes and like a 13- or 20-chapter TV season that had been cut down to its barest self. Its finale didn’t do much to fix that issue. The climactic installment sends the season out with a handful of largely predictable confrontations and twists, nearly all of which only work half as well as they could have if they had been developed more thoroughly and executed more intensely.
With all that said, The Acolyte still has the potential to reach some truly great heights — even if its first season decidedly didn’t. Only time will tell whether or not it’ll get the chance to try again.
The Acolyte season 1 is streaming now on Disney+.
