The Acolyte Epsiode 5: The Master's Reveal, A Major Book Reference, And Other Easter Eggs (2024)

The length of live-action Star Wars TV episodes has been a point of debate ever since the first season of The Mandalorian was full of sitcom-length episodes. And now The Acolyte is here to stir this debate again. Though we've got a little bit more clarity than usual because this episode, which runs for about 27 minutes without the opening recap and end credits, plays very obviously like the second half of last week's episode. It's frustrating, but the sick fight scenes between Mae's newly emerged master and the Jedi who invaded Khofar, not to mention the big reveal of that mysterious villain's identity, go a long way toward making up for it.

Warning: This article will be nothing but spoilers for Episode 5 of The Acolyte, "Night."

Last week's episode, which was the same short length, saw every main cast member arrive on Khofar, and then they all came together at the very end of the episode. And then this week, they fought. The audience would have been better served by having this story as one hour-long episode, instead of having a week-long intermission in the middle for no real reason. It's a puzzling phenomenon, and it makes it somewhat harder to take this series seriously when it undercuts its own rhythm that way.

Fortunately, the particulars of the action this week, in which Mae's mysterious master finally reveals their face and slaughters most of the Jedi that came to Khofar with Sol and Osha, are pretty awesome. These sequences are a blast, with lightsaber and hand-to-hand battles that have a much different sort of vibe than we've ever seen before in live-action Star Wars. This sequence does not go well for this Jedi. While Jecki in particular puts up a good fight, this crew just isn't ready for this--and every Jedi, aside from Master Sol, are all slaughtered. Yes, Jecki and Yord are super dead.

And Mae's master, it turns out, is Qimir. It's not the most shocking revelation after this guy, who had been pretending not to have Force powers, made a reference to the Sith Code a couple episodes back, but it's nice that it's not some completely random other person we didn't already know. Now I can't help but wonder where Qimir's own master is, but there may be a complication there. We'll come back to that shortly.

Among all the fighting in this episode is a scrap between Osha and Mae. Mae tells Osha that there's a lot more that happened at the witch coven when they were kids than she knows, and that Osha shouldn't trust the Jedi. But Osha is too straight-laced and can't make that choice. She tries to arrest Mae, but Mae is by far the better fighter and is able to subdue her. And in a strange move, Mae gives herself a haircut and goes to meet Sol while pretending to be Osha. And then Qimir finds Osha. Now that is a switcheroo.

While the episode was annoyingly short, it did have the decency to be pretty wild and entertaining. And we've also got some interesting details and Easter eggs to mull over as well, such as the live-action introduction of a really cool item from an old and beloved Star Wars novel. Let's take a look.