Night

This is definetly the best episode so far of The Acolyte, but it doesn't change the emptiness of the previous ones. Starting with the good aspects of the episode, it does have some interesting fighting and coreography. In truth, all the battles in this episode are graphically great, in each one of the separate confronts. But this beauty is just graphically.

All the tension built for the revelation of the sith is wasted in a terrible scene, and to be honest, all the dialogue is still horrible. The whole changing of perspective of Mae turning on the sith because of Osha didn't make any sense before, and now she again betray her sister and disguise as Osha. It almost seems like the writters don't watch the previous episodes before making the next one.

For the last few weeks, I've been waiting for something that would signal the coming of great times for this show. The few half was a solid effort from everyone involved and has received way too much hate online for things that are honestly beneath some people. However, it also hasn't been a great show and that has been annoying given its potential. The show hasn't tapped into the darkness that it felt like it would, despite some very dark and deep themes going on. This episode did, however, deliver on its premise and also provided us with some really great and refreshingly deadly action.

The action in "Star Wars" has been surprisingly bland as of late, and with "Ahsoka" it felt like they took all the danger out of lightsabers and simply turned them into sticks. This episode delivers on the promise of last week's cliffhanger and delivers some stunning lightsaber combat that is - without spoiling anything - quite a deadly affair. The enemy is proving to be quite a dangerous being, and the development of his character this episode was quite satisfying, despite not being all that surprising. Instead, the mysteries are shifted elsewhere, and it sets up a new question for audiences that we'll want the answer to, and this is one that has been brewing for a few weeks, and one that I'm quite ready to get answered. The show still seems surprisingly aimless and it's going to be really interesting to see if they'll be able to make the landing without any real landing pad in sight. The writing is effective enough, and the dialogue - while still sounding prequel-esque - was much less cheesy in this episode and did provide some nice contemplative ideas for thought about the doings and rules that the Jedi uphold. Not anything that shakes the core of what a Jedi is and makes you think about it, but it works nonetheless. The acting is also quite great in this episode, and there are some cool and emotional moments that gives them plenty of opportunity to show their range, especially Lee Jung-jae who continues to be an absolute highlight of this entire show.

"Night" is the best episode of the season so far, and a lot of it is because of its immaculate action sequences and story developments. It still feels weirdly aimless, but the episode was a refreshing change of pace and did actually provide some good cheer moments and produced some pretty great performances all around.

Like another reviewer said, I'm not giving this episode a full 10 because I think it's completely at that level, but to counter the negative review bombs. It's a solid 8.5 for me though. I continue to not adore what I refer to as the FL's teenage tone of voice, I'm not a fan of much of the dialogue, and these episodes are far too short. But the "Sith" character is outstanding, Sol continues to be solid, and the fight choreography was stellar. This episode also just didn't come to play; it was a whirlwind of both the expected and the jarringly unexpected. I rewatched it once already and am about to again.

Big reveals and great action just after the halfway point for the series. A much stronger episode than previous.

This episode will leave you wanting more, but not in the same way the previous episode did.

The writing was better this episode, although some moments and lines still fell flat.

The episode was shocking, exciting, and built on the previous 4 very well.

There is some more mystery added, for all the mystery revealed.

If you stopped watching after episode 3 I highly recommend smashing 4 and 5 together. I'm now eager to watch the rest of the series, where before I was watching for the sake of it.

I'd give this somewhere between a 7 and an 8, by far the strongest episode in the series.

The Good:

Finally something interesting happened in the episode! I won't spoil it, but there was at least some sort of action and conflict that was engaging. Far more entertaining than people walking through a forest for 30 minutes.

Additionally, the choreography of the fight scenes in this episode were actually quite good for the most part. Much stronger than Asoka, in this episode.

The Bad:

Amandla Stenberg playing a twin of herself. This was written as a key plot element of the story (however cliche) but she's just not a strong enough of an actress yet, to make this convincing. She would have been fine for one role or the other, but falls pretty short to play herself as a different person. Twins are very different people. She plays both the exactly same, but with a different haircut. You needed someone with a strong and dynamic range of acting skills to pull this off properly, and I don't think there are too many actors or actresses that could do that. They should have added in a 2nd actress to play either a twin or a sister. Or even just ditched the twin idea to begin with. It was rather unnecessary imho.

The Ugly: The CGI in this is like early 2000s Doctor Who. Really low budget look and feel. The general sets are also very Star Trek (80s series) quality. Really surprising given the extraordinary budget.

Overall, credit where credit is due, so I gave it a 6/10. This was the most interesting of the episodes to date, and really I'm left thinking this should have been the opening episode of the series. Everything that led up to this episode was slow and so much of it unnecessary. But this episode had challenges too. Still was far better than the other 4.