This review contains full spoilers for Star Wars: The Acolyte Season 1, episode 6. After last week’s thrilling, action-packed installment , it made sense that episode six of The Acolyte would slow things back down, giving us time with the new groupings we were left with by the end of episode five. The results, however, are mixed, with frustrating aspects to a couple of this week's chapter's stories.
One is the clear standout, offering us a different take on a Sith – or whatever it is the guy I still call Qimir would label himself as – tempting someone to the Dark Side. On a planet that sure looks like Luke Skywalker’s future home, Ahch-To, from the sequel trilogy, we got a lot of great interaction between Osha and Qimir, as he made his case for why his way, and not the Jedi’s, is the better path. Qimir underlines what we’ve seen building throughout The Acolyte, noting to Osha that the Jedi insist their way should be the only way to access the Force – to the point that those who leave the order, like Osha, then believe they lose their connection to the Force.
It opens up a lot of possibilities because, as Osha notes, everything Qimir is saying about using emotions like anger and fear to fuel the use of the Force is what she’s been taught is “The Dark Side.” But is that label too simplistic or, as Qimir calls it, just “semantics?” The witches of Brendok were perhaps doing the same thing to access the Force and didn’t seem evil, at least not in the way .
