Star Wars: The Acolyte: Episode Five: Night

[Culhwch]

Spoiler

Well, damn.

 

[Dave]

Another very short one.

Count Binface is revealed (he is who everyone expected.) I was spoiled by reading online comments, but let's face it, no other characters were introduced, and everyone else has died, so it could only be him really.

I'm getting a little tired of people being left for dead, who aren't dead. It happened a lot, but in this episode it becomes silly. And those creatures were wasted. I don't see the point of introducing them if they were that easy to defeat.

Osha witnesses the mysterious warrior kill all the Jedi except Yord, Jecki, and Sol. Sol saves Osha from the warrior and demands he reveal his identity, but the warrior claims that he has already met Sol before vanishing into the forest. Jecki captures Mae, but the mysterious warrior arrives to kill Mae for trying to betray him. Jecki cuts away the warrior's mask before she is killed, revealing him to be Qimir. Sol arrives and questions Qimir, who claims to be a Sith. He intends to leave no witnesses to keep his existence secret. Yord ambushes Qimir but is quickly killed. Sol fights Qimir again and overpowers him, but is stopped from killing him by Osha. She plants a light on Qimir that causes the forest bugs to attack him and carry him away. Mae uses Osha's stun gun on Sol so she can speak with Osha, but they end up arguing about each other's choices and Mae uses the Force to knock Osha unconscious. Mae steals Osha's clothes and poses as her sister when returning to Sol, who takes her to their ship. They are followed by a suspicious Bazil. Qimir frees himself from the bugs and comes across the unconscious Osha.

 

[Culhwch]

I was intending to come back last night and add in some thoughts, but I got sidetracked.

I wish this had been combined with the previous episode to create one longer episode - and then we could have returned to consistency in naming: 'Day/Night'. I get why they wanted the cliffhanger, but it would have vastly improved last week's episode.

No surprises as far as the reveal of Darth Smiley goes - but I still thought it was executed fairly well, and I liked the way the actor played the two characters, Qimir and the Stranger. I also like that we still have quite a bit of the mystery to resolve, and I think having the reveal now and not later gives it a bit more weight, particularly with how strongly it was telegraphed (potentially intentionally).

One of the more brutal episodes of Star Wars television - and even films, perhaps, though the end of Rogue One might have something to add to that conversation. I did not expect as many Jedi deaths as we got - I figured there were some obvious redshirts, but for Jecki and Yord to check out, too. I thought the fight scenes were well-executed, some of the better lightsaber combat we've seen in live action, and Jecki's fight and subsequent death did hit me a little.