‘The Acolyte’ series review: A ripping thriller from the galaxy far, far away

Leslye Headland's The Acolyte delves into Star Wars lore with Jedi, Sith, and a mysterious Force-powered mystery.

Like all good stories, Leslye Headland’s The Acolytealso begins in a bar, or should we say cantina considering it is on the planet of Ueda, on a galaxy far, far away? So while everyone is quietly burbling about their business, a hooded person skulks in. Gosh, was that a baby Gungan (Jar Jar Binks is from the same species) behind the bar?

The stranger asks about a Jedi master called Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) and there she is, very calm and Zen, but one can sense the Force coiled within her. The stranger provokes her and even though reluctant to start a fight, Indara — a Force fu expert — is giving as good as she gets with gravity-defying kicks and swings. The stranger, however, overpowers Indara and vanishes.

Elsewhere, a meknek, or grease grubber, Osha (Amandla Stenberg), is working on spaceships with her droid Pip. In the capital of the galaxy — the beautiful, bejewelled city planet of Coruscant — senior Jedi master Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) discusses the attack on Indara with fellow Jedi master, Sol (Lee Jung-jae). The assailant is identified as Osha, Sol’s former padwan.

Sol and his padwan, Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), and newly minted Jedi knight, Yord (Charlie Barnett), set out to find and bring Osha in for questioning. Following the death of a second Jedi master, Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman), at a Jedi temple in Olega, Sol figures out that there is a connection between the deaths and what happened in Osha’s home planet of Brendok, 16 years ago. Sol, Indara, Torbin and Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo), a wookie Jedi (maybe he howls in weird syntax!), were on a mission in Brendok when things went terribly wrong.

The Acolyte is set a “100 years before the rise of the empire,” according to the opening crawl, before the time of the prequel trilogy. Headland sought to look at the saga from the perspective of the villains—how the Siths came to be the force they did. In The Acolyte, also according to the opening crawl, “it is a time of peace. The Jedi order and the Galactic Republic have prospered for centuries without war.”

The Acolyte has many things going for it, including the solid mystery apart from strange creatures and worlds as well as a welcome matter-of-fact approach to the Force. If it is Star Wars, there should always be the rakish rogue and in The Acolyte it is Qimir (Manny Jacinto), a smuggler who gets anybody anything they need for the right price.

Apart from Indara’s Force Fu—a Force-powered Kung Fu—there is a coven of Force witches led by Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) on Brendok. Just like X-Men ‘97, The Acolyte works for dedicated Star Wars fans and newbies alike. Headland’s ploy of including fans of the original trilogy in the writer’s room, and of drawing on Dave Filoni’s work (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ahsoka, Star Wars: Rebels), proved to be a sound one.