Cinepals - THE ACOLYTE Episode 7 Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

In an age of light, a darkness rises. Join Jaby and Achara for their reaction to “The Acolyte” Episode 7. Set 100 years before the rise of the Empire, this gripping Star Wars series introduces Osha, a former Jedi apprentice turned meknek—a cosmic grease monkey with secrets to unravel. As sinister forces emerge, respected Jedi Master Lee Jung-jae faces off against a dangerous warrior from his past, Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games & The Hate U Give). This series also stars Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim), Joonas Suotamo (Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens), Amy Tsang (Velvet Buzzsaw), & Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Memento, Fido, Silent Hill: Revelation & Jessica Jones). But beware—the path they tread is shrouded in mystery, and nothing is as it seems. Buckle up for a thrilling ride through the High Republic era, where ancient enigmas collide with galactic intrigue. The Force awaits, and the stakes have never been higher.   You can watch the cut down reaction to this movie (and many others) on our YouTube channel https://www.YouTube.com/@Cinepals and the full length reaction is available on our Patreon page https://www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay   SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS ~CINEPALS~ YouTube: @CinePals Insta: https://instagram.com/TheCinePals Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCinePals   ~ACHARA~ Twitter & Instagram: @Acharakirk YouTube: @Achara  

Sena. Pals! Will Soul pour out his soul tonight. We'll find out. Here we go. Star Wars Acolyte, Episode 7. Before you throw yourself at the mercy of the council, ask yourself why you made this choice. She's really wise. Where am I? We are all no way to cross and. What happened? Well, I killed your mom. So there's that.

May I started a fire. Oh, man, the lies. The lies. Well, technically, that part's true. Yes, but it's the misleading. It's allowing her to hate her sister. It's allowing her to believe her sister was the cause. Look, which she kind of was, but like...

Look, the sister was like... I'm sorry, but she's like a perfectly reasonable. scapegoat because she was like, I will murder you. She's like, I will kill you. You are going to die here, bitch. Here's a fire. Like, yeah. I mean, I don't know.

No, no, no. Absolutely. She is the perfect scapegoat. But it was interesting watching that whole story from this other perspective, from the Jedi perspective, because yeah, it's like, what is up with Soul? Now more than ever, I am so curious about Soul's backstory because maybe it's just me, kind of filling in the blanks and trying to make it make sense. But I feel like the reason why OSHA is so important to him is because that maybe he sees

sort of like himself in her. It's almost like reparenting yourself or like if you had the opportunity and you saw a child that was in a similar situation to you when you were a kid or whatever. Like you would want to protect that child to help them or something. Maybe. I might be just going off on a weird turn. No, neither of us really know, right? So let's start with that.

Yeah. Your conjecture is that he is trying to do some sort of therapy on himself through this little girl, like a vicarious thing, right? Yeah. But why is my question? Because the Jedi is, they're recruited at such a young age. They're not usually recruited at OSHA's age. Right.

So, like, what trauma is he trying to make up for? Yeah, I know. I guess that doesn't even really make sense. I'm just trying to, you know, connect it somehow in my brain to make it make sense. I mean, it's possible he was recruited older as well. The episode definitely shed light on some stuff. It's just, it didn't shed light on all the stuff. And some things still don't make a heck of a lot of sense, but it's there.

You know, like the fire thing, it's like, everyone was like, how did all that fire happen? And the way they explained it in this episode was it wasn't that the fire burned all the stone, right? Which it still did. It's that it hit the cables and it created a short circuit. But like, that's the explanation that the, the episode gave us is that the fire hit the cables and it burned the fucking thing down. Like, that's

the explanation. Yeah. I guess that works. I don't know. I'm not going to think too hard about that. I thought it was kind of cool how you know, Mama Witch got inside the Jedi's head and we got to see that perspective. It was a whole thing going on in there, but she kept saying, ask me the question

and he's like, I want to go to Curos and I'm like, bitch, they had any question? I know. That wasn't a question. Yeah. You did a statement. That's a statement. That's not a question. We need, yeah, I wonder, though.

But, like, I can kind of understand what was going on. Because a lot of the time, I don't know, with a lot of the lore and stuff that I've read, not specifically Star Wars stuff, but in terms of, like, potentially magic and witchcraft and stuff like that, or even just possessions and whatnot, you have to allow the other entity in. I wanted to ask you about that in the middle of the episode. I thought it was something like that, like letting the vampire into your house. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like you can build a

mental fortress, but whatever these other external forces are, they have to find a way to kind of find the chink in your... Is that what it's called? The chink in your armor. You racist? You're racist? Yeah. I was like, what? It is called the chink in the armor. Yeah. You just have to find that

that little gap to kind of come in and like mess with the person's head until they kind of give up and the defenses fall down. And then that's when you're like truly in and I just thought I don't know man I'm watching this and I'm like you know what sign me up for the coven they look so cool like I want to I want to join a force you know coven yeah force and witchcraft at the same time why not the witches weren't even surprised when the jedi walked in like not one was like hey how'd you get in here I know the password macaroni potato

like you know like not one person asked anything I guess they expected it like they sort of knew what the Jedi were going to do, but not new enough to know that they were all going to die. So. Yeah, that was, I felt really bad, actually, for Endara, because I just feel like in this whole episode, she was kind of like, guys, this is what we need to do. And then Seoul was fighting her all along the way. And then her, her Padawan wanted another thing.

And, like, no one was doing what she was saying, even though she's the leader of the expedition. and clearly the more experienced one and the more senior one. And then in the end, she has to kill all these women because she has to save her Jedi colleague. And I could kind of see, and maybe, you know, maybe I'm projecting or whatever, but I felt that what Carrie Ann Moss was giving me in that moment was like, dang. I have to clean up your mess.

And this sucks. I don't want to do this. We didn't have to go down this path. but now you're making me make these choices. Yeah. And then now she has to live with the consequences. And what were the consequences? She ended up being killed for it 16 years later.

Yeah. I wish that the episode was a little bit more focused in terms of. Soul seemed to have this obsession with OSHA. It begged a lot of questions. Like, okay, how long have you been watching this little girl? Like, why are you so obsessed with her? I think the answer is just like he felt a connection with the force, maybe. Perhaps. I don't know. There's just something that feels weird. He just became obsessed the way Taylor Lottner was obsessed with the baby in Twilight. It was like that level of obsession immediately. And I'm like, what is happening here? And it seemed like creepy, honestly. The way he's like so upset. Oh, I got to protect. Like, you don't even know this girl. Like. And so from the young Jedi's perspective, it actually started to make a little bit more sense because he was looking at it from like a different angle of.

of like, oh, this is evidence, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, if that's how you're coming at it, all right, cool, I get it. He's just obsessed with her. And so that kind of threw me a little bit, and I thought maybe by this episode, you know, it'll be explained in a way that middle, that'll make more sense to me.

And I'm like, I still kind of don't get it. In episode one with Quigon Jin, his whole thing was about the prophecy about the one who will bring balance to the force. And so he was convinced that Anakin was that, he's the chosen one. There's nothing like that being talked about here. So, like, the obsession.

Quigon had with Anakin made more sense to me. This is just like, what is it about? It's like some sort of emotional connection or something. You know, we've been remarking on how soul is so much more emotional than many other Jedi that we're used to seeing. Like I think Andara comes across as like your quintessential Jedi. She's very calm. She's very measured and all of that, you know, like thinking about all of the possibilities and things. that could happen with the choices that they make.

And so I guess what they're trying to show us is maybe what happens when as a Jedi you get too emotional. Well, okay, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. They did explain in the episode that, you know, he doesn't have a Padawan, and he felt like for some reason, it's his destiny for OSHA to be his Padawan. Like, that was said in the episode. Yeah. I just, I guess I didn't connect with it, you know, emotionally.

it just was like things are just happening and I'm like okay but it was neat to get a deeper perspective on things yeah to I don't know that this whole I don't know what the word is I'm looking for the method of how the story is being told the delivery method

yeah that's not the word I'm looking for but you know that'll that'll suffice so there is a structure to the story okay like Memento right where in Memento you have your forward plot and then you have the reverse plot and eventually they kind of meet in the middle.

And so that's a very neat way to tell that story, that device. And here, the device is this sort of nonlinear storytelling of perspectives, because that's what people have been saying in the comments, is sort of loosely based on or inspired by Rashomon, which I haven't seen. And so I knew we were going to get a different perspective at some point. I just don't know that it necessarily helped this story is ultimately the long-winded thing what I'm trying to say. It's like, you know, you're taking me all around here to have this perspective here and

this perspective here. And it's like, okay, is it really more gratitude? Gratifying to get the story that way is my question to you. Like learning this way later as opposed to earlier. I don't know if it's more gratifying. I think it's interesting. It's definitely brought up some stuff that I feel is going to be very important information later on. Like the fact that the twins were created from a virgin.

I kept hearing virgin the whole time. That's what I heard the first time too. I'm like, oh, they were created from a virgin? I was like, oh my gosh, it's like the Virgin Mary. So they were created by this special thing, which like they kind of touched upon a little bit in the show already. But I really like the idea of them kind of being one consciousness split into two. And so I wonder if that's going to come into play, perhaps in the next episode, where maybe they will merge and become one person or either they'll merge their powers and do something really cool. Like, I feel like there's some potential for awesomeness there.

Yeah, that also begs questions, though. I mean, if they have a link of some kind, right? How did she not know that she didn't die? Yeah. Well, no, no, no, there was some, I think that, I can't remember exactly, because it's been a few weeks, right? But I think there was something where she sort of sensed her in her dreams or something. Or, like, oh, yeah, yeah.

There was that. But it not being more profound, a sense of, like, I know she's alive for sure. I have to go find her, that kind of thing. Yeah. It seems odd that that wasn't. the story for OSHA, sorry. Yeah, for either of them, for both of them. Like, you imagine, you know, when you talk to people who are twins,

there is this, like, weird thing, I guess, that you, that happens when you either share almost identical DNA or a womb, and you're like, I just feel it. Like, I know what the other twin is thinking or feeling. But here, they were established. It goes well beyond the scope of that. Well, yeah, because they're like the same person. They're magically bind it, right? I'm like, why do you not know then?

Like, you know? Sense no makes. Yeah. You've just made us have more questions show. Yeah. And just pick it apart a little bit more. One of the crucial things here is the guilt angle, right? Because I'm trying to unpack this because it's doing a lot.

So Seoul, you know, hit him and the young, I can't remember the young Jedi's name. Torbin. Torbin. They go in, right? Torbin goes, is like super, you know, headstrong about going in there because of evidence of something. Yes, because he wants to go. Which, again, I think that's the stronger thing. It's just like, you know, they're messing around with kids here.

You know what I mean? Like, that's a strong reason to get in there and stop this madness. Sure. Right? And so he wants to go in and then Sol's like, okay, here's how we're going to go about it. They get in there and there's clearly a resistance to giving up the twins, even on the part of the mom. And so when Sol attacks her, it seemed like shit was about to go down. Yeah.

So, like, it seemed like him attacking her was the move. Because it was a, if he didn't do that, like, who knows how bad it would have gotten, Also, I'm sorry. First of all, that move was very cool turning into smoke. But secondly, why didn't she just disappear away out of range of a lightsaber? Do you know what I mean? And she took her time, whereas Mother Carl was like, I turned into smoke. Pooh.

It's disappeared. You know? Like, she took her time with it. And then she's all like, I was going to let her go. I was like, okay, then why didn't you just lead with that? Yeah. Well, see, that's the thing is that was confusing. because she wasn't going to let her go.

Her initial instinct was to let her go, but after the talking and all that stuff, it's like, okay, that's not going to happen anymore. Everyone else was against it. Right. But her, in her heart, she was like, I wanted to let her go. I was going to.

See, she didn't say I wanted to let her go. She said, I was going to. That's a very confusing statement. Like, dude, that's not what happened, though. Like, this whole thing was like you saying no. And now you're like, oh, now that you're dying, you're saying you're going to let her go. Yeah, lead with that.

and negotiate lead with okay here's the deal one of the girls said she wanted to go with you so i want to honor her wishes the other one doesn't so why don't you take one and we'll keep the other does that sound fair no okay now we can fight you know what i mean yeah no it was just a little so so okay so then he feels guilty because she's like i you know i was going to let her go yeah which is a lie because the statement is i wanted to right unless i'm misunderstanding the show maybe i'm misunderstanding things that's not you know unheard of or maybe is just like she gets the final ultimate save because she is the leader. I'm getting like down to semantics here, but the semantics matter to me.

So anyway, he kills her. And then Sol feels guilty. Other mom tries to attack him. And the witches on the bridge, on the catwalk or whatever, are shooting arrows, right? And so you got the young English guy who's fighting all the arrows. While Sol's just standing there, you know, sad. It's like, why don't they shoot at him? He's like, he's not defending himself at all.

No, because Torben's getting rid of all of the arrows. He's saying everyone. It would have been great if there was a moment where the arrows coming at Saul and it's like, he strikes, he could do do something. And then he can, you know what I mean? A hand, please.

Can you help out? It would have been, it would have been cool. It's because it just felt like there were two different action scenes happening at the same time. One was the English Torben fighting the arrows and then over here, Sol's having a moment of like, I won't fight you like, Bucky and Captain America.

You know, like that's all. It just felt like two different things in the same room. Well, they were two different. That's wrong. That's stupid. Why not? That's just stupid to me. I'm sorry this dumb. It's like if if you're trying to shoot arrows, why are you concentrating all your arrows on the guy who's defending himself instead of the one who's not defending himself? Movie logic. Surely one archer could have spared an arrow at soul. No. You know what I mean? If we all aim them at one, it will be more effective. Well, would have fixed it just like if any like either a soul gets hit or knocks one like just once. Just once. That would have fixed it. My disability. has been suspended. Yeah, exactly.

It definitely elucidated, you know, illuminated things a little bit more. We got deeper understanding, but it still feels confusing and a little bit messy to me. A little is me being nice. It feels quite messy still. I have a weird mix of feelings in my body from this episode. Like, I don't hate it. I don't love it. It's like, oh, okay, all right, cool.

That's my feeling. I'm confused, and I'm still moving forward with it, and let's hope for the best. The fight scene was kind of fun, too, though. I thought, like, it was cool to see Kalnaka get to fight as well, and I enjoyed getting more of Carrie Ann Moss as Endara, and, like, there was some cool, like, kind of jumping around moves and stuff like that. Got to, you know, shout out some of the fight choreography and whatnot. So here's the thing. Okay. They established in the original trilogy that wookies have the strength to tear your arms off.

Yes. So I'm amped. I'm, like, pumped for whatever this is going to be. When Wookiee's wielding a lightsaber, like, what's that going to be? They showed he definitely had strength. But in my mind, maybe I'm, like, inflating it too much. But I would think that, like, he comes down on you with a lightsaber. If you're just a dude, I mean, excuse me, if you're a Jedi, but not a wookie,

defending against that, you're going to fall, dude, or you're going to fly because he's got, he's not just a Jedi. He's a wookie Jedi. Yeah. Like, that's extra. He's got so much extra. You know what I mean? Like, how are you going to stay?

in there like that. When the wookie was pushing Torbin's head into the wall, I'm like, he's dead. Like how? But the thing is, like, we know that he doesn't die as well. There's no, there's no sense of danger really in that moment because we saw them in the future and all of them are alive with all of their limbs intact. Like if we saw Torbin with, you know, one arm or like a mechanical arm, then we would be like, oh, maybe this is the fight where he loses his arm, you know? Yeah. I know why I have the feelings I have to a certain degree. It's that typically with Star Wars, things are a little bit more black and white. And this show is riding on gray.

And I think you're supposed to have mixed feelings to a certain degree. I think that's by design. Sure. I think that's what I'm realizing in this moment. It's because it's not really like, that's the bad guy, that's the good guy, etc. You know, it's like, no, it's all sort of, eh. Yeah, we're living in a gray area right now, which I don't hate. Like, I like the concept of we're seeing it from two different sides.

because as we know in real life there's multiple sides to a story you ask a different person their version of the story it's going to be slightly different each time yeah it's yeah because it's really hard to say who's necessarily at fault in this episode i guess really well whose fault is it i guess it's the jedi's fault i think so i think it's i think it's soul's fault because he set this thing in motion he was the one who was really adamant about getting the girls and even after and dara was like No, the council said no. He was still like, oh, we're going to go anyway. And so he started a chain of events that led to a massive tragedy. It's just the way the fights kind of broke out. Okay, to be fair, okay, they broke in. They were not invited.

They said macaroni potato. They got inside, right? And so they got in there, and the person to throw the first punch, I felt like, was the mom. You know, and because she got inside Torben's head. Sure. So she attacked first. And then in the other scene, when Torbin and Sol, you know, walk up, again, I felt like the first attack was going to come from the mom.

I can't remember her name. But she like... I'm not the other Anisea, but still, it's like, yeah, you can call it an attack. But conversely, is it not a defense? These guys came into their home, into their fortress, trying to take away their babies. Do they not have every right to try and defend? I guess so, yeah.

That's fair. it's kind of like a chicken and the egg question it's like whose fault is it no you're right it's different perspectives you know that's yeah that's the whole that's the whole point of what we're talking about

like this gray area thing that's fair yeah there was that whole thing with the other Russian mom I don't know what her accent is Mother Carl yeah where she's like well then don't let her go

and like she's inciting violence with her little girl yeah like okay well clearly y'all need to be broken up and parted from these kids because you're all are bad parents the way you're telling her to go and just start shit like the whole reason the fire happened was because of that bad parenting that's why I'm like this it just felt like it was going in a lot of directions and I don't know if what I'm feeling that is what I'm supposed to feel or if it's a negative thing sure that's why I'm like it's got to sit with me for a second so yeah okay cool well that was fun you know the worst thing that could possibly happen is that at the end of an episode you get nothing to say this at least got us talking yeah we talked a lot so so there was that you know It's like the worst thing you can do is just forget it.

So it was interesting to say the least. There's something in the way that Soul's character is done that I'm not in love with. And the entire time I've been kind of holding back on saying that because I see in the comments, people are like, oh, he's carrying this show. He's the best. And like, people just look. Okay. So him as an actor is fine. Yes.

But like there's something in his character that I don't love. And I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's because he's, and I said it earlier on, he's too emotional or whatever. Like, there's something about him that's not jiving with me. I understand that. Vibing? I understand that, yeah. Because even in this episode, it's little things, too.

It's like, okay, he sees the mom and he hits the tree. And I'm like, a little look would have sufficed. You know what I mean? The camera is right there, buddy. Like, I don't know if it's the direction. Like, he gave something small and they're like, no, you got to hit the tree. Like, you've got to do something big to let. He has such an emotional response to everything.

And I'm like, God dang, dude. I mean, that's one of the things that I, love about him as an actor is just like the emotional availability does it always land well with the character that I'm not sure because sometimes it feels a little bit like oh that might be a little too much you can pull it back slightly the thing is though I don't recall him acting like that in squid game it's a totally different character but the reason I mentioned that is because that shows that he's not a one-note no actor no you know like he knows range and so he's more than capable of more subtle acting but it like it was requested of him here to go bigger, which I don't like. I don't like what they asked

him to do. So that's it. Anyways, you guys, thanks so much for hanging out. I'm Jabby Kauai. This is Achara Cook. Peace out. Beautiful Anonymous changes each week. It defies genres and expectations. For example, our most recent episode, I talked to a woman who survived a murder attempt by her own son. But just the week before that, we just talked to the whole time about Star Trek. We've had other recent episodes about sexting in languages that are not your first language or what it's like to get weight loss surgery. It's unpredictable. It's real. It's honest. It's raw. Get Beautiful Anonymous wherever you listen to podcasts.