The Acolyte: I'm disappointed in the Jedi after "Choice"

If you've been following Star Wars over the last few years or longer, you know that the Jedi are far from heroic. Despite our knowledge of how flawed the Jedi are, their blunders in The Acolyte, episode 7, "Choice," are hard to accept.

Episode 7 shows us the events in Brendok from the point of view of Sol and the Jedi, and the picture it paints is not a pretty one. I came away from this episode feeling like Mae's desire for revenge was completely justified. The Jedi have never looked more reckless, biased, arrogant, delusional, and unstable. Apart from a few instances where Indara attempted to offer her words of wisdom to an overly emotional Sol, the Jedi appear to be soulless and disconnected from reality.

I fail to see what kind of danger Sol perceived the children were in when the head of their family was their mother, who loved them very much. Was Sol not able to sense Mother Aniseya's love for her daughters? Sol seems to think that the girls will be sacrificed as part of a ritual, and their lives are in danger. As a result, it's okay to take them away from their parents and family without having understood their cultural beliefs and practices. I expected better from Sol. Maybe I shouldn't have, as the series has foreshadowed Sol's fall from grace for a few episodes. The reality of what happened on Brendok was never meant to be anything but damning for the Jedi and, particularly, for Sol.

What I found the most upsetting was that he believed Osha was destined to be his Padawan because he felt he connected with her. He barely knew this little girl and he thought she would be better off as his Padawan. Indara, to her credit, tried to warn him against it, but it wasn't enough. At the beginning of the episode, Indara teases Sol about not having a Padawan, and maybe that's the key to what happened on Brendok. It's not that Sol formed a special bond with Osha. It's that he wanted a Padawan at all costs, and he wasn't ready to leave the planet without one. Sol let his emotions dictate everything that happened to the witch coven, even while he was warned by Indara not to let his emotions get in the way of his decisions.

After this, it gets worse, as Sol kills Mother Aniseya and demonstrates his lack of emotional balance and lack of understanding of a mother's love for her children. Indara's justification for covering up whatever took place on Brendok by blaming it all on Mae, using Osha's dream of being a Jedi as an excuse, is even more upsetting. This episode shows us the Jedi at their lowest, sometimes displaying selfishness and a reprehensible sense of superiority. We know that the Jedi Order will be wiped out by one of their own. However, I'm not sure anything in this episode makes that seem as tragic as it used to be. Throughout their history, the Jedi believed they had sole ownership of the Force and wanted to dictate how and where it was used. The tactics they used to ensure this were questionable.

Saving a few lives along the way doesn't make the Jedi seem heroic anymore. Keeping Mae and Osha safe wasn't a good enough reason for wanting to take them away from their family. The girls were safe before the Jedi arrived on Brendok and would've been safe long after leaving. Attempting to save children doesn't justify wiping out their entire family. Protecting kids is the bare minimum and something anyone among us regular folk would do if given the opportunity. I hope the series ends on a more positive note for the Jedi and gives them moments of heroism because right now, they appear to be nothing more than a bunch of Force-sensitive jerks.

The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+.