A Missed Opportunity in The Acolyte, Episode 6 "Teach / Corrupt"
(spoilers for The Acolyte)
Those who read my blog here know that I'm a big fan of The Acolyte; I see it as part of "Grown Up Star Wars": a kind of thematic "trilogy" of Star Wars shows that dare to explore deeper topics in this universe, which other shows and movies only touch on or hint at.
But speaking as a writer, no work of art is beyond critique. And there's one missed opportunity in Episode 6 that I think requires special mention.
Simply put, Chekhov's Gun was shown, but never fired.
If you're new to writing, Chekhov's Gun is a principle named in honour of the prolific 19th-Century author and playwright Anton Chekhov, who gave the following advice:
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
In The Acolyte, Episode 2 "Revenge / Justice", Sol and Osha are reunited after being apart for six years, ever since Osha left the Jedi Order. In that time, she's become a "Meknek" (a mechanic that repairs space ships on their outer hull).
Sol notices that she got a tattoo on her arm, and they have the following exchange:
SOL: "What is that?" (he points)
OSHA: "Oh, this is a PIP droid. I'm trying to sync him to your ship so I can get some fuel levels and some vitals, and--
SOL: "I mean, what is that?" (he points to the tattoo)
OSHA: "Oh, uh... I got this in CorpSec. It was a crazy night with some of my crew. And you hate it.
SOL: "It doesn't matter what I like..."
But what Sol likes does matter, especially to Osha, because Sol prides himself on being a father-figure. He asked the question in part because it's clear he disapproves, and Osha feels the weight of that disapproval.
Now we come to Episode 6 "Teach / Corrupt," where Mae takes on Osha's identity. Her plan is a little light on the specifics (as Mae's plans usually are, since her defining fatal flaw is her impulsivity), but she has two main goals:
Find a way to deprogram her sister's "brainwashing", which requires first knowing what story Sol has fed her so that she knows how to undermine his credibility in Osha's eyes;
To punish Sol... somehow. Maybe by killing him? But that might interfere with Goal 1...
Just as Mae is figuring out this dilemma, mechanical problems arise on the ship. To keep up her cover, she tries to repair the ship, except that in doing so, both PIP and Basil figure out that she's an imposter, and act together to try and get her caught.
She deals with PIP by wiping the droid's memory, but not before he sprays her in the face with something oily and gross:
Basil, meanwhile, gets away. She tries to hunt him, but Sol calls her for a conversation, interrupting her search.
So the scene comes to its climax when she has a heart-to-heart with Sol, and Mae realises that he didn't tell Osha the whole story of what happened on Brendok... what' more, Mae intuits that Sol probably didn't tell anybody the whole story, and that the Jedi Order is probably as much in the dark about it as Osha herself.
That means that Sol is vulnerable to having his story exposed.
Seizing on this opportunity to hurt Sol, she tries to contact the Republic, but he stuns her into unconsciousness; Basil, it seems, got through to Sol and revealed that he's been talking to an imposter.
How the Scene Should Have Played Out
I don't like this resolution because it misses the obvious opportunity set up in Episode 2.
Instead, here's how I think it should have ended:
The beginning plays out the same: Mae is called away to repair the ship, Basil and PIP figure out she's an imposter and try to thwart her.
But in this version, Mae would have successfully subdued Basil.
Meanwhile, PIP would spray Mae with the gross oil, but instead of hitting her in the face, it hits her on her jacket, staining it.
Feeling disgusted by the oily jacket, Mae discards it, and is now wearing only her tank top underneath, which exposes her bare arms sans tattoo.
When she speaks with Sol, her body is angled in such a way that Sol coincidentally doesn't see her right arm, until it's almost too late.
At the last second, Sol notices the missing tattoo, infers that this is Mae and not Osha, and stuns her.
The end result is the same, but it lets the story offer a payoff to what it set up several episodes ago. And I think that's a more satisfying resolution.
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