Voices from the Star Wars Screensaver
People generally don't seem pleased with the last episode of Acolyte. Not that many people watched it, the ratings being a new low for the steadily declining franchise. But I watched it, so I guess I'll talk about it. The gist of my impression is that, as swings of the lightsabre go, this was a whiff.
I was kind of hoping I'd find out if I was right that Mae was a Force projection of Osha's. Instead, the extent of the revelation was Sol saying the two are in fact the same person. What does that mean? Are they clones? Why did they look different as children? Can they read each other's thoughts? He says they're one person, but if that doesn't actually reflect anything that happened in the story, then it's just hot air. It's an idea but one that was never given legs.
A lot of reviews are focusing on the sloppiness of the plotting. Vernestra makes Sol the fall guy for all the murders. Presumably that includes Inara despite all the witnesses on hand to say otherwise. Mae's killer instinct had just kind of faded away a few episodes back so now, whatever, I guess she's into the rule of law over vengeance killing. Maybe it's because she and Osha are the same person, so if one is mild, the other is wild? Ah, the see-saw of duality.
I think the sloppiness of the writing is due less to incompetence than to a genuine lack of concern for plot mechanics. College literature courses nowadays are more focused on applying particular analytic theories to texts than they are on the mechanics of the story so I'm quite ready to believe the writers of Acolyte simply did not care if anything made sense except on the most abstract thematic level. It was the same with Echo. The characters have powers and they do things and if you ask how and what then, well, you're a nerd. Get out of the clubhouse. The point is that institutional authority is corrupted by hubris. The writers see their job as beginning and ending with the idea and actually conveying the reasons behind it likely seems a gratuitous exercise. So Sol doesn't say he killed Mae and Osha's mother because she looked like she was turning into a big death bird in the process of disintegrating Mae. That would be impertinent. Why did Bazil tear up the wiring in Sol's ship? Why did Osha decide to train with Qimir? Why anything? People are always just doing stuff, okay?
I will say it's very sweet how much Leslye Headland is clearly in love with her wife, Rebecca Henderson, who plays Vernestra. Most people watching wondered why the show was leaning so much into her character. The green paint and the bald head don't flatter her and make her look more like a Star Trek alien than a Star Wars alien. She has kind of a snooty governess quality. I could see her playing the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, though she wouldn't be my first choice. As a character, she never managed to do anything particularly interesting because, without any logic to the events unfolding, there's no particular weight or significance to anything she or anyone else does. But she was front and centre, she was given the quirky lightsabre whip, she got to talk to Yoda at the end. We should all be so lucky to have such an enamoured spouse as Headland is for Henderson. Headland, I guarantee you, would be physically incapable of understanding why anyone would find Henderson uninteresting.
I've cancelled my Disney+ account. I'm just not getting value for money and it is a pain in the ass for me to transfer money from Japan to my U.S. account. I'll probably come back for Andor season 2 next year but for now I'm just sticking with The Criterion Channel.