Star Wars: The Acolyte season finale surprise ending explained

Season 1 of The Acolyte concluded with its season finale in episode 8. The episode's ending gave us a very brief cameo for an old green friend, which also reinforced the show's main thesis that the Jedi are a flawed and broken institution.

Star Wars: The Acolyte Season Finale Surprise Ending Explained

The season finale delivered on several things that people had predicted leading up to it. Sol was made the scapegoat by Vernestra Rwoh as a way to try to protect the Jedi Order and not allow for the fact that a Sith was involved in the death of all the Jedi on Khofar.

Osha decided to kill Sol, join Qimir, and become a dark side acolyte after she found out that Sol had lied to her and killed her mother. We also got a hint at Qimir's master, a guy who it looks like the Jedi would not tell you a story about. It's Darth Plagueis watching Osha and Qimir from the dark cave on the unknown world.

That definitely sets up a Season 2 in which Qimir tries to train Osha to the point where they can overpower his master, as the Sith are known to do. We could also see Qimir try to get revenge upon his former master, Vernestra, who ended up being the true villain of the series. Their story ends with Qimir taking Osha's hand and watching the sunset on the mysterious planet where he lives.

It was Mae who ended up getting the short end of the narrative stick, too. To protect Osha, Mae volunteered to have her mind wiped by Qimir. She has no recollection of her sister and old Master ever existing. Her last memory was when she was eight years old, the fire on Brendok, and seeing her mother die. However, as she interrogates her, Vernestra picks up on this quickly and realizes what happened to Mae. She asks the young woman to join her in searching for Vernestra's once apprentice.

That brings us to the final scenes of the episode. All season, I had been thinking of where it would make sense for Yoda to show up. Surely, he would have to hear about all of this craziness at some point, right?

We see Vernestra approach the roughly 700-800 year old Yoda in his quarters. "Sorry to disturb you, Master. We need to talk," she says as those unmistakable green ears come into the frame. We do not hear him speak, but it was at least nice to see Yoda once in this series.

His appearance raises an interesting question: Does Vernestra tell Yoda the truth? My gut says yes. We see her straight-up lie to the Senate tribunal and Chancellor, but something tells me she knows Yoda is too strong with the Force to get such lies past him.

The question is, how much of the truth does she tell Yoda? Does she tell him that she felt the presence of Qimir, her old apprentice, on Brendok?

Perhaps she tells the same story that she told the Senate about Sol's actions on Brendok, leading him to kill Jedi to maintain the coverup. Yoda would likely be able to sense that Vernestra was full of it, but perhaps he could not sniff out the truth fully. As he said in Attack of the Clones, "The dark side clouds everything." Perhaps the fact that the dark side is clearly on the rise during the events of The Acolyte has already begun to limit the ability of the Jedi to use their powers.

The show's central thesis is that the Jedi are flawed, and that has been hammered home time and time again. Qimir implored Mae to kill a Jedi without a weapon, and she succeeded by revealing the truth to Osha, which made her turn to the dark side and kill a Jedi. Leslye Headland builds upon the idea that the Jedi are flawed, a huge theme in the prequels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Some fans will welcome this criticism of the Jedi Order and others are likely fed up with it. No matter what it has accomplished, The Acolyte has at least fueled a debate about the Jedi that will not end any time soon.