EIII: ep 13 – The Acolyte S1-e8 – "The Acolyte"

[00:00:00] OK, David, this is where we are supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast, listeners can get early, ad-free access to each weekly, scene by scene deep dive,

[00:00:50] plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for teen green consumption.

[00:01:03] Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Alisha here representing both the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast and the Lorehounds today,

[00:01:36] because I'm afraid John is under the weather. But fear not, I will walk you through the recap and lore breakdown talking about those cameos as well. And then we still have one more finale mailbag episode to go before this Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast,

[00:01:49] Lorehounds Acolyte crossover series comes to a close. Once John's feeling better, we'll get his takes on the finale and season as a whole as we talk through all the thoughts and theories you guys have been sending in.

[00:02:02] After that, Lorehounds listeners are released from the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast spoiler policy, and you all have a spoiler-ific wrap-up episode coming your way on the Lorehounds feed too. I promise it will be an especially fun one.

[00:02:15] Listeners to my silo coverage have an idea of what to expect. I have a lot of plans for the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast feed too, from a chat about the old Republic myths with Marilyn,

[00:02:27] to a walkthrough of the High Republic Phase II books with John and Jean, to dives into the origin stories of key characters in the prequel films like Mace Windu, Count Dooku, Django Fett and Maul.

[00:02:40] Stay tuned until the end of this episode to hear what's going on with all of the feeds coming up, including an opportunity for Lorehounds listeners that's closing at the end of the month. But first, we're here to talk about the Acolyte, the season finale of The Acolyte.

[00:02:55] Yep, the episode got the same title as the show so you know it's the important one. And for the record, this was recorded on July 20th, 2024 and everything I'm saying now is true at the moment to the best of my knowledge,

[00:03:08] but may need to be updated later as the canon continues to get filled in. And apologies this one is coming just slightly late. I actually recorded the entire thing yesterday and then when I went to edit it,

[00:03:19] realized it was a blank file so you know sometimes podcasting is fun like that. Now just at the top my overall thoughts on the episode. I won't get too much into reviews because I'll talk through that with John when we get to record the feedback episode.

[00:03:34] But yeah, I'm very happy. I think that this was a satisfying end to the season. I got more answers than I dared to hope. Yeah, of course I will riot in a semi-respectful way if there's no season two. I thought the Plagueas cameo was perfect.

[00:03:52] Obviously we're going to talk about that in this episode and I think that the Yoda cameo is well handled too. I wasn't sure I wanted that but I think that they did it in just the right way.

[00:04:01] And I just I would urge people to stop comparing this show to House of the Dragon. I know that they're out at the same time but I just think it does a disservice to both formats because they are just two different kinds of shows.

[00:04:16] I do think that this is some of the best writing that we've seen in Star Wars personally. It asks us to ponder complex questions and maybe these questions are more complex than some of the audience is ready for in this particular franchise.

[00:04:30] But it does combine this moral grayness with peak Star Wars camp. We've got aliens, we've got compelling new characters that echo what we love about this galaxy and of course some of the most epic lightsaber fights in the series.

[00:04:42] So I've enjoyed every second of watching and analyzing this show. Now today for this episode in absence of John, I'm going to let showrunner Headland weigh in instead via post-finale interview she's given. And don't worry, I know some of you think showrunners talk too much.

[00:04:58] I steered clear of anything that might be over, explainery or there were some things that could be light potential spoilers for a season two if that happens in the Collider interview I'm going to be referring to just a heads up on that.

[00:05:13] But the quotes that I've sprinkled here throughout this recap is just some insight into Leslie Headland's perspective as a showrunner while creating certain characters or beats because some of you I know like me also enjoy this insight

[00:05:28] and it just helps us to think about the creative process and everything that's involved in it overall. So just to start this quote comes from Headland's interview with Star Wars.com and it's about her goal with the series overall.

[00:05:44] So I think this is a good place to begin. She said one aspect that I was very interested in exploring in the show was depending on the way you look at it anyone can be the bad guy and depending on the way you look at it anyone

[00:05:55] can be the good guy. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks they're the villain. Everybody is doing what they think is either best for them or what's expected of them or trying to fit themselves in a particular paradigm or ideal that is important to

[00:06:08] the institution family or place in the world that they find themselves in. Borrowing a quote from Mother Anisea, Headland adds it's really not about good or bad it's about the power and who's allowed to use it. The theme of this show is duality and reflection

[00:06:24] so the good guys also have to admit the parts of them that are bad. I don't see the Jedi's antagonists I see them as flawed and it was a story that I felt really excited to tell.

[00:06:34] And this is also one of the reasons why I particularly enjoy this show as Alicia speaking again. I just I do love exploring the nuances of morality and yeah we'll talk more about

[00:06:47] what that has meant in this episode and this series in particular. I do think though that it's important that we're able to empathize with antagonists and the stories we love because this teaches us important real-world empathy skills. We need to be better at understanding why

[00:07:04] people do the things they do and we also need to be able to admit that the people and institutions we look up to are inevitably flawed nobody or nothing is perfect and blind idealization is dangerous to ourselves and to those that we're idealizing because this

[00:07:21] doesn't challenge them to get better or to take hard looks at themselves and where they may be swerving from their good intentions. Do also keep in mind when it comes to the acolyte that

[00:07:34] this is the story or at least a link in the chain of the story of why the Jedi fall. And yep spoiler time now that we've reached the last piece of canon content in era three I can tell

[00:07:47] you the title of era four is fall of the Jedi and this is you know this prequel series and the Clone Wars show and a bunch of books and comics and other things we'll talk about.

[00:08:00] But first wrapping up the acolyte I've divided this episode breakdown into four arcs so what I'm going to do is I'm going to recap each arc briefly and then pause to dive deeper into that

[00:08:12] arc with a little commentary and lore. So episode eight again called the acolyte this is the only non-pair title in the series but I would say that makes sense because it's sort of the result

[00:08:24] the pulling together of all of the ideas and the titles before it. The credited writer for this episode is Jason Mikalov he also was one of the credited writers on episode two

[00:08:35] and the director was Hanel Cole Pepper who was the director of episode six which is where this one basically picks up from so so ends the tale of Roshah and Meho Anaseya for now. Heavy is the

[00:08:51] helmet picking up where episode six left off Oshah is trying on the cartosis helmet. Kymir discovers her in the throes of an upsetting vision and she lashes out with unknown power turning his eyes black as she unwittingly invades his head in the way her mother could

[00:09:08] but he struggles through it to remove her helmet and free her from what she's seeing which she thinks is her sister holding a lightsaber but killing Saul without it. She knows where to find them and she's not telling Kymir but he's welcome to tag along. So this first

[00:09:23] interaction we see here um this is foreshadowing what we see at the end of the episode where she bleeds the chyrochris so we'll talk about what that means but where she turns her Saul's lightsaber red and we're seeing that you know Oshah's emotions are very strong

[00:09:41] and tied to this power that Kymir has seen but we haven't necessarily seen as much on screen until this end of the series especially this finale. So sub zero I just want to pull up one item

[00:09:55] from the feedback that's relevant here. Sub zero said I think it demonstrated that she has four switch powers and combined with traditional dark side powers it would make her extremely dangerous so I think that's indeed what it is because you know she's going to be we talked

[00:10:11] previously about the unpredictability and how that can throw off the Jedi who are very institutionalized and used to doing things in a certain way so this makes her yeah makes her and Kymir an interesting duo indeed as if if you don't know the internet

[00:10:30] will tell you very quickly. So this was indeed a great moment for Oshah Miershippers. People are talking about the whole quote unquote man wife thing of like where he lets her take

[00:10:42] the lead this episode which I don't really love that concept it is a little sexist to me but whatever but um for me the moment of real romance here the beginning of the episode is

[00:10:52] where he's struggling through her lashing out with power at him to help her out of that helmet and of course when we get it off we see the reflection of that red lightsaber in her eyes

[00:11:05] but she thinks that she was seeing a vision of her sister she doesn't realize what we learn at the end of the episode she was seeing a vision of herself which technically I guess we're supposed to understand her sister and herself for the same thing um that's definitely

[00:11:20] something we need a little more clarity on I think when Saul says they're the same person we don't yeah does that mean that uh we know they're twins of course but we know that further

[00:11:34] they have the same force fingerprint which is just not a thing that twins should have so does seem that they are two halves of a whole complementing each other and that definitely sets up an interesting situation for the next season where they

[00:11:52] basically swap places by the end of this episode and of course as Osha and Chimere leave the unknown planet this is where we get our glimpse of our Scythe Cave creeper friend and he's looking exactly

[00:12:07] as I would have hoped from legends granted maybe a little bit older but I suspect maybe he's looking into some rejuvenation um now this is we all suspected it it's beneficially confirmed this is Darth Plagueis and Darth Plagueis is an important character from legends continuity

[00:12:27] who's the most important Sith coming out of this age and was the master of the most important Sith of the next age so it was yeah very exciting to see him show up and also yeah he's been confirmed in canon most famously in the prequel trilogy where

[00:12:46] one character tells another character the tale the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise um which is I mean well if you don't know that uh you can look it up on YouTube John also recited it in his

[00:13:00] best Sith voice on our bonus episode mid-season but yeah this is a character who again like a lot of things confirmed in canon but not fleshed out in canon the way he is in legends so we don't know

[00:13:16] still don't know what aspects of him they're gonna take over but one thing that people were afraid that they might change is the fact that he is a Mune that's his species he's not a human he's

[00:13:27] immune and that's what we got we got immune he looks exactly as I would have hoped um in legends his real name is Hago de Mosque the second and he is a member like most of his species of the

[00:13:41] intergalactic banking clan um now this is a clan from the albario sector of the outer rim and their home planet is Scipio which is an ice planet with snowy mountains but they also colonized

[00:13:54] other planets in the sector like the more temperate Mune list and um Plagueis' planet in legends is the crystalline mygito Plagueis yeah they Mune's in general they have big brains as you

[00:14:09] can see they're quite tall they have an average height of just under two meters long heads uh and they are especially good at math hence the whole banking thing they one feature that they have

[00:14:20] that really caught my eye as soon as he showed up on screen here is they have the outer two fingers are a bit shorter than the others and I actually I don't know if this was like a detail

[00:14:31] in the Plagueis novel that I just you know read over and forgot because you know or if this is from some reference book but I looked it up and it's true that the Mune are supposed to have the two

[00:14:41] outer fingers shorter so let's go to attention detail uh one thing that's always been inconsistent with this species is the nose so we've seen anything from this very flat nose like nostril-less uh basically nose-less face that we saw in this version to a much more defined

[00:14:59] nose with nostrils I definitely prefer the version that we got in this show this is what I was hoping for and yeah glad to see it really need a second season for this in many other reasons

[00:15:10] we know that Leslie Hedlund the showrunner wants to tell his story if given the chance so I really hope that that does happen um so yeah so Plagueis he's obviously he's a smart Sith I mean a

[00:15:22] lot of Sith are I have to say on the smart side uh and like many of the Sith that came before him he's was quite the researcher he the classic Sith theme he wanted immortality he wanted to

[00:15:37] find anything that would help him extend his lifespan cheat death basically so he's studying midichlorians force diads mind transference you can imagine that ocean may whatever circumstances surrounded their birth whether he was involved or not we don't know um I tend to think not but we

[00:15:56] don't know yet uh he would be interested in any case for sure so Leslie Hedlund the showrunner said to Indie wire about him it was important in the figure's physicality and also the

[00:16:07] blocking of the shot to create the sense that Plagueis and the Sith aren't the armor clad visually imposing powerhouse villains we sometimes associate with the Sith they're hiding out the Sith in this time are fighting for survival Hedlund and a creative team wanted to infuse him

[00:16:22] with a sense of graceful horror and make it clear even at a glance that this is a monster who wants things and I thought that he was completely CGI generated in this version if we get that second

[00:16:35] season they'll definitely do something with mocap or something like that so he can interact with people but this version was pure CGI and I thought they did a great job with like the way

[00:16:43] that the eyes just narrowed a little bit in the end as he was watching Osha and Chymere apparently this was a complete surprise to even the the cast and most of the crew not the director of the

[00:16:57] episode but she got led him but um yeah the cast when they saw this episode before they just saw a blank spot in the cave and only found out you know not long before the rest of us

[00:17:10] what was filling that blank spot so yeah um obviously a lot of people are wondering if he is Chymere's master and yeah of course that makes sense could well be um and then if that is the

[00:17:24] case then the question is has he sanctioned him taking on an acolyte um you know is he interested in that so that they can find out information about the birth of these women

[00:17:36] or is Chymere taking on an acolyte behind his back to maybe train her up to help defeat him which is kind of basically the sith way or just throwing out there another possibility that I'm leaning toward personally at the moment is maybe he's not Chymere's master

[00:17:55] at all maybe he's Chymere's rival now there is a legend's book not canon but legend so we don't know which aspects of this book are going to be brought into canon but it's called

[00:18:07] Darth Plagueis it's a good book um I've already talked to Dead Eye Jedi Bob about it and we're gonna do an episode about that in the Star Wars Canon timeline podcast feed in a couple months

[00:18:17] basically breaking it down and uh yeah what's in the book and what we think they might bring into canon one of the characters in this book is a sith wannabe I suppose called venomous and venomous

[00:18:34] he's not human like Chymere he is a bit and the bits are like the insecty looking species with these face folds um and that does play a role in the story because uh Tenebrus the master

[00:18:51] of Plagueis and venomous is also a bit and so Plagueis thinks like oh well maybe maybe venomous is Tenebrus his secret son and you know or in any case feels a bit left out for being a different

[00:19:04] species so that does does play a role but again yeah that's all legends so in canon could be human we still don't know what's going on with Chymere he's made references to being around for a

[00:19:14] long time maybe this isn't even his original body um but yeah Tenebrus is confirmed in canon venomous is not yet but one very interesting skill venomous has is levitation and that's something we've seen Chymere do a couple times including once this episode so we'll see we'll

[00:19:35] see just throwing that all out there for your information uh you decide what you what your theory is going into season two but in any case i'm more convinced than ever that the unknown

[00:19:45] planet is baldemic from that novel it's just yeah it just matches up perfectly with the cortosis and the landscape and the fact that Plagueis is there now especially so uh i do want to point out though since i've acknowledged that it is known that Plagueis has a apprentice

[00:20:02] coming out of this age is Darth Sidious um i've seen a lot of speculation online and i would just want to point out that Sidious is in canon according to the timeline's reference

[00:20:13] book his birth year was 84 bby now that's slightly retconned from legends where they said 82 bby on the keeper of the holocrons blog but yeah that's barely any change in any case that's 50 years

[00:20:26] after the events of the acolyte and i'm pretty sure Sidious is not alive at this point in the timeline especially not as an adult and i think that leslie headland if she gets the

[00:20:37] chance to tell plagueis a story she's more interested in talking about his rise you know rather than that would be more toward the end of his story okay moving on to the second arc in the episode

[00:20:51] we're going to swap to the other side of the yin to the yang the yang to the yin not sure which is which at this point uh but on soul's ship soul says that he's going to let vernezter

[00:21:03] know to meet them on bren docks because he wants to show her the vergence and the twins there side by side so that he can prove that um that something unnatural happened with their birth and that

[00:21:17] their mother was scary powerful and he hopes that this will exonerate him with a jedi but i'll also i think probably with himself from the fact that he killed their mother but may she and pip

[00:21:29] they seem to be bonding which i'm happy about and she uses pip to escape um her bindings first and then she escapes in in a smaller ship and she she decides to plunge into the debris of a ring around

[00:21:45] one of the moons of bren dock and that was for me one of the coolest visual experiences i've seen in star wars i think like the coolest one i've seen since we saw the eye and andor uh

[00:21:56] saw he's just desperate now trying to follow her into the debris with his much larger ship i don't think he realized that basal was on board uh but at some point he starts locking into may

[00:22:09] ship and we don't know if he's going to shoot her or try to like track to beam her in or something but basal is not feeling the vibes and ends up sabotaging this control panel and both ships

[00:22:21] end up plummeting to the planet below but everyone ends up being okay and all paths converge on bren dock and um in the burned out remains of the witches fortress the sisters reunite in their

[00:22:34] childhood bedroom and they confront their past they fight it out mirroring them sol and kymir have their own final confrontation and sol ends up winning slicing through kymir's saver so okay

[00:22:50] before we move on from there let's just go back and take a little deeper look at some of the details that happened during the sequence so one thing that people are talking about online i see is that may

[00:23:01] before she escapes all ships she yells out see you in hell jedi and just to point out that this is far from the first time that word's been used in star wars uh i think the first time comes

[00:23:11] from the original trilogy when han says it and we've heard others use you know taking the hell name in vain uh there is actually a hell in star wars lore although it's more often referred to

[00:23:22] as chaos or the void but um they say in legends at least they say that chaos is also called hell by the karelians karelia being a core world that is the home planet of han solo and also

[00:23:36] other popular later characters like kira and wedgantillies and some non-humans too but yeah it said this is one of those concepts that's named in canon fleshed out more in legends we don't know what's being pulled over but the way it is in legends at

[00:23:50] least is uh chaos is where the dark ciders go when they die and basically they get to just be miserable forever stewing and their losses in the void but like the hell that we talk about in the real

[00:24:02] world um not everyone believed that chaos was a real place for example pleagus did not according to the naboo people who we've talked about that's jar jar's planets and uh where we're

[00:24:15] going to meet a queen amidala according to their mythology they say that chaos is a pit held back by six impenetrable gates so this is a motif you see sometimes popping up in star wars stories

[00:24:29] when they're somewhere really scary and there'll be six gates around it so yeah i love that like i said that may is bonding with pip now um the kind of the way osha must have once upon a time

[00:24:40] you know i i called her resetting him the most evil thing that she's done and i think that yeah this is just part of their maybe there's a sort of ebb and flow between the sisters in terms of you

[00:24:52] know dark sidedness light sidedness or maybe she just realized how useful pip is too but the interesting thing is by the end of this episode may like pip her memories also wiped so

[00:25:05] they're going into this new situation side by side in the same sort of state where they've lost a lot but they're also they also have a clean slate so they're gonna be building their story from

[00:25:18] here together so that's another thing i really want to see so yes this is also when osha is using her mech neck skills to get into the witch's fortress and she's like well the only way

[00:25:29] in is to do this or to climb up the mountain referring to sol of course uh and kai meh was like oh really and then we hear his voice echo away that was him i think doing his levitation

[00:25:39] powers again to get in and then yeah that mirrored fighting sequence was so cool first we see the sisters you know if they're the same person of course they're using the same moves on each

[00:25:49] other even though they've had different training and stuff they're just they think the same apparently um but then we also not only get like their movements mirroring each other but then the way that they're fighting ends up being mirrored in the fight that's going on between

[00:26:03] their masters and it's also very noticeable this is a scene where it really stands out that the girls have swapped their color schemes you know that they're really swapping sides for the

[00:26:14] fight that's going on outside with sol and kai meh i just want to point out that kai meh this time he is using jar kai which is using two sabers and so he's got the long saber and

[00:26:24] he's got the short one the shoto but he's not doing we talked about before that he did terracotta before when he killed jackie he did something called a flash and slash

[00:26:35] and um yeah we didn't see him do anything like that this time you know we talked about how that's considered a somewhat dishonorable move uh but if anyone actually did terracotta this

[00:26:46] time it was sol he did the unbalancing block move which is where you're you have your sabers locked with someone like we saw here uh and then you know he suddenly turned his saber off

[00:26:59] and that threw kai meh off balance and that's how he was able to come around and surprise him and slice his saber off so yeah it's considered dishonorable to do a move like that but um

[00:27:10] i also can we really blame him like if if you're fighting a sith and or a wannabe sith or whatever kai meh is how and where do you have to draw the lines for yourself in terms of you know

[00:27:24] what you do or don't do to stay alive and to end this fight in your favor i just one of the many gray questions that this show asks us and uh i'll let you ponder over a quick break

[00:27:37] and then we'll be back to talk about the final confrontation and the day new mo and what to expect from the channels in the coming weeks and months see you on the other side okay let's

[00:28:10] get into the final confrontation so given the chance to execute sol with his own weapon may toss his lightsaber away because she no longer hungers for revenge she wants justice and she wants sol

[00:28:21] to admit what he did to the high council uh but sol he admits to her killing their mother not realizing that osha walks in hearing this who with shocked eyes and sol turns to her and instead

[00:28:35] of apologizing he's adamant that he did the right thing to protect the twins and this confession it pushes osha over the edge she trusted him and he lied to her face for 16 years raising her

[00:28:47] to believe his version of the truth and blame everything on her sister and of course she obviously had no idea about the killing her mother part so she tells him to stop talking

[00:28:56] and when he doesn't she stops him from talking her anger not only leads her to force choke her former Jedi master to death but she without seeming to realize it channels that rage and despair into

[00:29:07] the kyber crystal of the lightsaber she's holding her father figures lightsaber and the lightsaber that killed her mother and when she turns it on the blue blade bleeds red the stranger we all know is kymir finally has what he wants a powerful acolyte

[00:29:23] and osha makes a deal that she will train with him if he lets may go and may agrees to a mind wipe so she can't find them erasing all memories of the last 16 years and of her sister may returns

[00:29:37] to Coruscant with Jedi where she is not as much used to them as they'd hoped and osha returns to the unknown planet with kymir where the two look out across the ocean toward their future

[00:29:47] with hands clasped around her new lightsaber so i thought that this was personally a visually stunning end to the season and of course yes there is gonna there is another scene we're

[00:29:59] going to talk about we're going to talk about the whole ver nestra arc next but just see how them standing next to each other hands clasped lightsaber between them looking out apparently they were supposed to be looking out in that way you know giving you the sense

[00:30:15] that they're equals but it was many Jacinto's idea to reach out and hold hands and i think that was a really nice touch i agree that a kiss would have been too much at this point but that just

[00:30:25] adds it's something to show osha maybe giving herself over to this relationship for better or worse and i'm sure a lot of people think for worse but definitely a lot of people

[00:30:37] want to see this play out um yeah the the fighting here was just spectacular overall we got those yeah crouching tiger hidden dragon influences of course many Jacinto's background and dance but

[00:30:49] certainly put to good use the whole thing felt like a dance together some of the most elegant fighting we've seen in star wars so this is the part where headland said she rewrote the

[00:31:00] finale because she thought there would be riding in the streets if there wasn't a final face-off between sol and kymir after she saw many Jacinto's screen tests and training and she said that

[00:31:11] his level of performance actually raised her own game as well she told collider mani was giving this incredible performance all through this so i'm like how do i live up to this my wife asked what

[00:31:22] do you want to say i was like i want to say that people don't want me to exist as a gay woman as a woman in this particular space working in this wild sandbox there was a whole crew of people

[00:31:34] who believed in me but deep down i felt like i am unaccepted for who i am because of what i believe and in wanting to wield my power the way i'd like without having to answer to the legion of people

[00:31:44] that just exist out there by the way i think everybody feels this way i think that's why it resonates when you're honest about yourself and you get personal about it when he says i want

[00:31:55] freedom that's what i want i just want freedom i want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist i want to be without having to answer to anybody that's

[00:32:04] why i feel so close to him so she says that he is an avatar for her in some ways in the series and i get that and you know john and i have made the jokes about i use the term villain fucker

[00:32:15] but what i really mean if we're being a bit more serious about it is just the idea that there is some part in all of us that feels chafed by you know what we are

[00:32:27] expected to be and we and this is why we can often identify with a character who we may call villains or antagonists or however you want to put it but people who fight back against expectations

[00:32:40] and now we definitely have a quite interesting one here not that we should of course emulate his behavior nobody's saying let's let's go murder people but it is it is a there's a reason why

[00:32:55] we are drawn to watching these characters on screen yeah so we do see also both sisters in some way they give up a part of themselves they sacrifice a part of themselves the way that their mother

[00:33:06] said that they would have to when they were talking about the ascension ceremony and in other ways they reclaim a new version of themselves that they want to be so first we see may she rejects

[00:33:18] this path that she had been on by throwing away the saber she says you know i feel like i've been misled um this is not what i want i want i just want justice it's in the end she realizes

[00:33:30] all she ever wanted was justice and yeah also of course that throwing away the saber is a key moment the camera zooms in on it and at first i saw the casing crack and i thought oh another broken

[00:33:43] lightsaber okay so we've got two lightsabers down fine um and i didn't realize until we saw that close-up of her clenching the lightsaber and you can see of course you see the crystal is morphing

[00:33:57] from blue to red but also you can see that the crystal is poking through the casing and touching her hand and that is really key because the way that a sith makes their saber in canon and this

[00:34:10] is a change from legends and legends they had synthetic crystals and as i've talked about with john before i love all the lore from legends about lightsaber colors except for the sith ones

[00:34:22] i much prefer the canon version where they call it bleeding a kyber crystal uh so uh we've had this described bleeding a kyber crystal number of times now i think the first time was actually in the

[00:34:33] asoka canon novel from 2015 um which is one of my favorite books definitely gonna be talking about it on the ken and timeline podcast and then we've actually quote-unquote seen it in some

[00:34:44] comic books like in a dark vader comic book in a kylo ren comic book and also in the jedi survivor game we see a character bleed a kyber crystal and the way that we see it done in these cases is

[00:34:57] they take the crystal out of the lightsaber they um bleed it in their hand i'll give you a quote that'll define that a little better in just a second and then they put the crystal back

[00:35:08] and when they turn it on the blade is red so we haven't really seen this like progressive bleeding up of the blade like this but i think that that was a great visual choice a great storytelling

[00:35:17] choice and i really love that that's one of the visuals from the finale that's going to stick with me so as far as what the bleeding of the crystal actually is um i'm going to quote a canon

[00:35:32] reference book called star wars the secrets of the sith and this is a quote attributed to darth city as who again is the main sith of the next era and he says since kyber crystals are

[00:35:42] naturally attuned to the light side of the force those who serve the dark side must follow a different path first they must seize a pure crystal from the lightsaber of a jedi they have

[00:35:52] vanquished in combat for the saber of a sith is not given it is taken then they must infuse that crystal with their pain anger and hatred bending it to their will this corrupts the crystal

[00:36:04] aligning it with the dark side and making it bleed with unbridled crimson power the bleeding process can yield unpredictable results some crystals shatter making their energies unstable and unpredictable others resist their realignment refusing to be bent toward the darkness once a

[00:36:21] crystal has been properly bled the primal power it releases becomes not only a deadly instrument in the hands of a sith lord but a symbol of their true strength in the dark side

[00:36:32] so yeah this is obviously the moment that kymir realizes that osha is his true acolyte and just in case anyone brings up a certain famous fallen jedi from the next era uh fyi i said

[00:36:45] that this was in a darth vader comic and um people want to know why when we see the scene where this character falls in the movies why the blade doesn't turn red then and simply it's because

[00:36:58] yeah these conditions have not been met first it has to be a uh the saber of someone you've vanquished which we see obviously that's what happened with the ocean saw here um and you have to

[00:37:09] be touching the crystal which is what we see and also i well i won't spoil that but but yeah that's why uh in a certain film when somebody does something one of the worst things that

[00:37:22] anyone does in all of star wars um their saber doesn't immediately turn red because they haven't met those conditions at that point it's something that they take care of later and for the record you can also reverse this process it's called purifying the crystal and after purification

[00:37:40] the blade the lightsaber blade will be white so if you see someone with a white blade which do turn up in that star wars canon then that means that they have purified crystals

[00:37:49] we're definitely going to be talking about this and uh there's a short coming up in the next or i i guess the beginning of era five actually and then an even better book um and yeah we find

[00:38:02] out with a killing without a weapon means apparently it's force choking which is not even new at this point in the timeline so i'm like okay i guess i mean is that's not a weapon

[00:38:12] but poison is sure i'll go along with that um i do still like the idea that destroying someone without a weapon is destroying the reputation and we do obviously see that also

[00:38:22] happens with soul so i guess it does work both ways but what i really want to call attention to here is that osha demonstrates why turning someone away from a group or an institution for experiencing

[00:38:36] negative emotions can be dangerous because when this person feels like an outcast they will seek belonging with other people who share these negative feelings and that tends to amplify each other and this is where we can get groups who can cause trouble like this

[00:38:54] but yeah we get uh we we get a bunch of answers in the sequence including we now know how may survived and got out and that was actually foreshadowed or at least uh at least set up

[00:39:04] in episode three when we saw osha escaping also through these um through these tunnels under the compound but i i just imagine may waiting by the tree for osha for god knows how long

[00:39:18] i really want to find out what happened after that between sitting next to the tree how she got off the planet and when she met kai mere but we see here um a nice conclusion to maize arc

[00:39:30] for the season because we saw um in their childhood that she was the one who was trying to block osha from doing what she wanted to do you know she wanted to cling so hard that um she didn't want

[00:39:43] osha to make her own decisions because it meant leaving her and now at the end may asks osha what she wants when we get this emotional tender moment of wiping maize memory um and i think as

[00:39:56] much as kai mere proclaims to want to kill may he does seem to have a real fondness for her though i think he definitely sees osha as an upgrade and we also see yeah that a may and kai

[00:40:07] mere both are seem genuinely genuinely worried about osha worried that the jedi will kill her like they killed their mother once they once a jedi realize how powerful on the dark side she is

[00:40:19] um we get a little tidbit pointed out where the girls don't know who made up the rhyme that they have been saying back and forth all season i like to think that they spontaneously generated

[00:40:31] it together um i've been noting that so far we've seen uh the rhyme going the same way where in both cases it was osha giving osha to may and in this case it was reversed this last so as may was i give

[00:40:47] you you you know it was may giving may to osha so it really is yeah may is ultimately the one sacrificing the most of herself at this moment i think it's going to be interesting to see

[00:41:00] if the if the scales rebalance in future seasons and then may's left with the memories of an eight year old so 16 years of experience wiped away that's two thirds of her life um this is a mind

[00:41:14] wipe on par with the one that we talked about in nights of the old republic uh in that game and the all you know in the second era that revin underwent um otherwise i don't think we've

[00:41:26] ever seen a mind wipe this powerful so this is far from the first impressive force feat that we've seen kami or do he's obviously quite strong but i think it also makes a difference that may let him

[00:41:38] wipe her you know she completely opened her mind to it she didn't fight it at all and also it can't hurt uh from a real world psychology perspective that uh they're standing next to the bunta tree

[00:41:48] which is the last thing she now remembers from when she was eight years old so that just kind of lines up a nice continuity to make this work better all right going into the fourth and last arc

[00:42:01] of the this episode that we're going to cover uh that would be vernestra's mission so meanwhile while all this is going on with everybody else senator rey and court surprises vernestra with a visit pressing his campaign for an external review of the jedi vernestra finds out where

[00:42:18] sol is and she gathers jedi knights to seek a resolution to their investigation into the murders and so she takes his team to brenda where she recognizes a presence in the force that she

[00:42:31] thought was that she did not realize was still alive but she's too late she finds sol's body and realizes she has the opportunity to place the blame for the entire situation pin all the

[00:42:43] murders on him calling him a rogue jedi who killed to keep the secret of the murder of the witches of brenda vernestra hopes this will help the jedi escape senate intervention led by loudly jedi

[00:42:55] skeptical senator rey and court and in the final scene though vernestra turns to perhaps the only jedi master alive more powerful than herself and at more than 750 years old to vernestra's about 115 likely more wise grandmaster yoda and the final words of the season are she says

[00:43:15] sorry to disturb you master we need to talk so first of all i have to give a shout out to mog who i'm not sure if he's supposed to be vernestra's patawan or just her assistant i'm

[00:43:26] inclined to say patawan but somewhere i saw assistance so i don't know um but anyway he's growing on me you know i called him like the wish version of yord but uh the way he

[00:43:35] responds when she's like you let you let rey and court into the control room uh yeah i look forward to seeing more of him i do have to ask so what happened to yord's patawan the sygirian

[00:43:47] tessie loa that needs to be answered because she was there in the beginning and then she just wasn't involved in anything after that so i want to see more of her was it like difficult

[00:43:56] makeup or why why did she seem to get cut out um a lot of people of course in the sequence are talking about what senator rey and court said because a lot of people are identifying with it

[00:44:07] you know not just in terms of what he's saying about the jedi but how it translates to the real world so just to quote him quickly he says i think that jedi are a massive system of unchecked power

[00:44:18] posing as a religion a delusional cult that claims to control the uncontrollable vernestra response we don't control the force and he says not the force your emotions you project an image of goodness and restraint but it's only a matter of time before one of you snaps

[00:44:33] and when not if that happens who will be strong enough to stop him vernestra says that's certainly an opinion and not one shared by the rest of the senate he responds the majority of my colleagues

[00:44:44] can't imagine a galaxy without the jedi and i can understand why when you're looking up to heroes you don't have to face what's right in front of you so yeah incredible quote on point in this

[00:44:55] world and the real one but i do wonder like are his intentions as noble as they sound or is it possible that he's being influenced by anyone uh that's another question i'm gonna have going into season two

[00:45:12] about the whole idea of the jedi and people worrying about it being tarnished headland said to collider i think it's very clear that this is not a blanket jedi are the bad guys

[00:45:22] it's saying i think that you have too much power i'm not saying you guys are bad guys i'm saying you have too much power and it's something that no one is looking into right now so yes

[00:45:32] i have a vendetta against you we also see rey and court taunt vernestra about her tummy in hyperspace and she responds it's my head actually so a reminder for all the non-hydropublic readers vernestra gets hyperspace visions this has been referenced obliquely a few times

[00:45:51] like this in the season so i would expect it to play a role in season two i also want to point out just because the star wars data bank points it out that the chancellor drelik who's the chancellor

[00:46:03] leading the senate meeting that vernestra has um his species is a tarcent and we also saw a youngling tarsen studying was all um at the beginning of the series but drelik is like the

[00:46:15] third tarcent diplomat or so featured in star wars um they're from a planet of the same name in the mid rim they look like friendly monkeys with long beardy mains and a lot of

[00:46:25] long face and big nostrils but we don't really know much about them they seem to have an affinity for politics and diplomacy though i think one of my favorite moments of this episode though

[00:46:36] relating to vernestra is when she shows up on brendak and she realizes like oh i sense a presence in the forest i didn't think was around anymore and kai meir gets his helmet on real quick

[00:46:47] when he senses that she's there oh i saw someone somewhere suggested that this might be the moment where vernestra decided to lie about the whole situation um that maybe it's not so much about

[00:47:01] hiding about uh jedi dying but the bigger threat that she's worried about is them finding out about kai meir yeah definitely i think one of the folk folk eye of a season two that i would

[00:47:15] most look forward to is finding out more about her relationship with kai meir um but just to address people who are worried about changes in vernestra the character from the books that were set during

[00:47:27] her teen years um she was yeah she was a jedi prodigy as a teen and she was quite idealistic and now she's apologizing to the body of her friend and she gives him a jedi funeral pyre

[00:47:41] even a floating viking style one this time and then she stabs his memory in the back um so she might not have been revealed to be a sith but her pile of secrets is definitely growing and now she's

[00:47:52] enlisting may like to help find kai meir who she calls a pupil of mine before he turned evil which is interesting wording because it echoes wording that darth vader's old master uses before uh to describe him in the original trilogy so yeah leslie headlin definitely subscribes to

[00:48:11] the sentiment star wars is like poetry at rhymes we'll talk about the main theory going around about the link between vernestra and this former pupil as she calls him in the mailbag episode

[00:48:25] but it does make me wonder if plegis and or kai meir might have already progressed in the mind transference experiments because kai meir did say at one point that he was a jedi a long time

[00:48:36] ago and he doesn't look old enough to have been a jedi a long time ago so many many questions including just a rhetorical question but i i'm asking myself is vernestra's betrayal of sol maybe

[00:48:50] the biggest in the series i think i it must feel that way to the soul patrol mariland let us know to me this is indeed the real killing of sol without a weapon even though vernestra she obviously

[00:49:02] feels terrible about it she describes she says sol's her friend to may and describes him as a kind brilliant and compassionate man who did a terrible thing well now vernestra's doing a terrible

[00:49:13] thing as well and what's worse this is only making the jedi sound even scarier to the senate so the only reason she would be throwing her friend under the bus like this is if she has bigger

[00:49:23] worries so what does vernestra know headlin said about vernestra to collider a vernestra's arc to meet juxtaposes an arc like osha's osha is so lonely and broken at the beginning and by the end

[00:49:37] she has really embraced this rage almost feral aspects of herself to fulfill her destiny to me it was just so cool to do this tragic arc for vernestra which is that she goes from this prodigy optimistic inventive and creating her light whip her hyperspace visions there's

[00:49:52] just these beautiful specific things about her and then to see her move into the space where she's no longer an adventurer she has had to fill a role which is to protect this institution i think with

[00:50:03] vernestra her version of balance is that administrative keeping everything together making sure that there's protection around the jedi order she's seen a lot of people go through there being the

[00:50:13] age that she is i think that also speaks to her age and i say maturity in her stature i think that anyone who is part of that for as long as she is at some point evolves into it's like when a tree

[00:50:25] grows around something i think it's just something where you wake up one morning and you realize you're that person which is yeah similar to how i've been reading it you know that um you often

[00:50:38] as people often as people age they grow more conservative this is something that we see a slight tendency toward in in scientific literature and um in this case she's been through a lot and

[00:50:53] that can make you more protective of yourself of your identity as a jedi in this case so yeah i i don't think it's out of character for vernestra to be like this but um i do hope

[00:51:06] that she has a little bit you know that she comes out looking a little bit better next season fingers crossed on that another reason we need to season two and yeah i was not at all surprised

[00:51:17] to see yoda i was glad that they kept it that minimal last final shot we just saw the back of his head in his ears um this is clearly then who vernestra contacted earlier in the episode

[00:51:28] and in the next era yoda knows about the rule of two um i think he tells mace window about it in the prequel trilogy so maybe we're gonna find out what he knows and how he knows it

[00:51:42] um i know some people are worried that this might like quote unquote ruin yoda but i just have to say he's always been flawed and he's always he's participated in multiple cover-ups in the

[00:51:51] past and the future from this point but always he does these things with his heart in the right place not unlike sol but yoda does have the extra wisdom of many centuries uh he's already

[00:52:03] well into his seven hundreds by the acolyte we talked uh in depth about yoda and his species in the young jedi adventure season one episode if anyone wants more information on that and we're

[00:52:14] going to talk about him more in the first character origins episode in era four now about this season two that i keep saying i want um in terms of renewal prospects we obviously don't have any

[00:52:26] word yet i do think that there is a strong chance um leslie heathlin has said if you know people want it renewed which he asks people to do is you know talk it up online tell more people to

[00:52:38] check it out and watch it um i do have to say that hashtag renew the acolyte has been trending on twitter and threads since episode seven aired so there is a lot of love for it there's also

[00:52:50] obviously we've talked about it we don't need to dwell on a lot of hate for it online we just have to remember that the lovers and the haters are both just small slivers of the

[00:52:57] viewership and um there was a recent report that went around with viewing numbers and they said that the acolyte started as the strongest of the star wars shows and it fell off and the i think like

[00:53:09] 30 in week to 10 the week after that uh went up a little bit later but um we can't really judge these numbers it was comparing them to shows that where they had 12 weeks of viewership

[00:53:21] numbers and there hasn't been 12 weeks for this show yet so we're going to have to wait for that to make a final decision because of course you have to take into account i know

[00:53:29] several people are binge watching it right now because some people just prefer to consume media that way so we'll see but i think you know this has definitely been one of the most talked about

[00:53:42] shows online and that's not going to go unnoticed i think our chances are quite good and i think this is an important story to tell you know we need to know the origin of plague is yeah and

[00:53:52] there's so much room for morgueh's storytelling so there is uh san diego comic con coming up next week and some people are hoping that maybe we'll get a renewal announcement there i honestly think

[00:54:06] that might be a bit too soon i think they're going to wait it out make a sweat a little bit longer we do have d23 at the beginning of august i still think maybe that's too soon

[00:54:18] with isoka we didn't get the season two renewal announcement until three months after the show stopped airing and that's pretty typical for other shows that i follow so yeah we should just temper

[00:54:29] our expectations but i think that there's a good chance now as for what we'll be doing on our feeds now that the acolyte is done first up there's going to be of course we're going to

[00:54:42] have the feedback episode where we get john's takes and we're going to hear from a lot of members of the community and all the different reactions to the entire season and final theories

[00:54:50] and all that fun stuff and then we're going to have next week a season wrap up um it's going to be on the lorhounds feed and the canon padawan feed and uh this is going to be a fun kind of

[00:55:03] game show style just to reflect on the season and the spoiler restriction is going to be completely removed all star words will be spoiled so if you haven't seen the animated series

[00:55:14] beware um the next star wars coverage in the lorhounds feed well i think the i assume the guys will continue their film club when things are quieter um things do seem to be quite busy for

[00:55:28] the next few months but the next big live action show for star wars is skeleton crew coming out late this year we don't know exactly when yet uh this is jude law and and it has

[00:55:38] a good cast um i just saw the list of directors for some of the episodes and that's looking really promising like the daniels who did everything everywhere all at once brice dallas howard

[00:55:49] the director of twisters yeah it looks like a good lineup but i don't know if we'll be doing weekly coverage because it is quite kid focused uh we'll see i think it just depends how busy we are

[00:56:01] at the time and how it um edges up with the holidays but definitely there's going to be some sort of coverage there it will not be covered on the star wars canon timeline podcast live because

[00:56:11] it's much later in the timeline uh era seven uh it's the same part of the timeline where the mandalorian the book of boba fat and asoka take place there will definitely be some lorhounds

[00:56:22] coverage of it at least uh no spoiler policy we'll see what form the coverage takes as we get closer and then of course in the meantime on the star wars canon timeline podcast

[00:56:33] the contents will be continuing the episodes are now going to be released about every two weeks and so just released this week soon to be backdated to the old republic part of the timeline is the

[00:56:45] sith legends of the old republic episode looking at three episodes of the visions animated anthology series uh next up on the canon timeline podcast feed in two weeks is going to be canon myths

[00:56:57] of the old republic with marilane so it's going to be more sith information in there also some werewolves and a flood myth check the canon timeline podcast feed notes for which stories will be included

[00:57:08] if you don't have time to read them all yourselves don't worry we will fill you in on what you need to know and then following that there's going to be two more visions episodes looking at the

[00:57:19] echoes of the sith in the high republic there's going to be mailbag episodes mixed in with those you're going to hear from bob again and uh we're also planning an episode covering the

[00:57:29] high republic phase two books comics and short stories uh so we're going to be covering phase two first because that's first chronologically in the timeline and so we'll come back and cover phase one later phase three again won't be complete until spring 2025 um also coming up soon

[00:57:46] there's a young jedi adventures season two part one releases august 14th so sometime after that i think probably bob and i will be talking about uh that new part of the season and also like i said

[00:57:59] we're going to be we're going to do an episode about the legends darth plague it's a book because that seems quite relevant for everyone to know and it's a good book so and then uh once yeah

[00:58:10] we've done these flashback episodes were caught up with the end of era three the high republic like i said this is the last piece of canon content in the high republic the acolyte

[00:58:22] so it's time to start era four and as i said at the beginning of the episode that is called the fall of the jedi that's what we've been setting up here um era four includes the prequel movies and

[00:58:33] the can and the clone wars show but before we get to these i'm going to dive into the origins of certain key characters one episode at a time so there's going to be an episode for yoda dooku

[00:58:44] and mace windu an episode for quigan and obi one one for maul one for jango fet and the mandaloreans and a mini isoka episode in there as well so i will release in the not so distant future

[00:58:57] an era four overview with more details about what exactly is going to be included in that and what the era four content or what coverage plan is going to look like for anyone who wants to follow

[00:59:07] along and watch read or or listen as we go as well i mentioned that there was an opportunity for potential lorehound subscribers it was closing at the end of the month so i just

[00:59:18] wanted to mention that quickly here and basically what that is is um we've decided to close our three dollar tier of subscribers on patreon and supercast just because the amount of bonus material we've

[00:59:30] been putting out for subscribers has gone up quite a lot and there's three of us to support now and all of that so um what this means is if you are in the three dollar tier which is now called

[00:59:40] the lore founders tier by the end of july so before august 1st 2024 then you are grandfathered in and you can stay in that tier whether you do annual subscription or monthly subscription you can

[00:59:54] stay there for as long as you want um if you leave the tier if you know if you stop being a subscriber and then you come back later then you'll be asked to rejoin the next

[01:00:05] lowest level tier which is the five dollar tier which we're now calling the lorehounds tier so just fyi um that that option is open to you until like i said august 1st is when it closes

[01:00:18] okay well on the rest of the network obviously the big news right now is um is all of the house of the dragon coverage uh Jean and I have made our plans to cover um the new deadpool and

[01:00:32] wolverine movie on the lorehounds feed the week after it comes out and uh john's gonna be joining us to for the opening of that episode as well so looking forward to that and um yeah well i think

[01:00:43] since you're gonna be getting another episode from john and i this weekend going through the mailbag we can talk a bit more than about what else to expect in the near future on the network

[01:00:52] that was enough news for now okay thank you guys see you shortly with john and toe for his final thoughts on the season and all of yours as well in that mailbag episode coming your way in the next few days

[01:01:15] okay David this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black john my soul is as black as night your turn i am black for life so we're not fighting i thought this is where hbo wanted us to like

[01:01:46] pick sides and fight and stuff don't worry i'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod but we seem to agree on one thing we both really like this show the politics the drama the lore it

[01:01:57] was made for the lorehounds and since we just finished recapping season one we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons and with the season pass option

[01:02:07] in supercast listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections see you in the lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot but probably positive takes the lorehounds house of the dragon

[01:02:25] coverage is also safe for team green consumption side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by george r r martin dragon seeds may experience burning