There is ZERO way you could block a wookie swing with a backhand grip like that.

Say what you will about Anakin, but if he had been mind controlled like that, he'd have come back to murder every last one of the fethers who made him look bad before he goes all emo on us. Torbin skipped the cool step between whiny bitching and whiny breakdown. Boring!

I do share the sentiment that in spite of it being entirely foreseeable that this would be a flashback episode, and we are of course owed answers not given in the first flashback, after two episodes that gave us some cool Qimir action, this is an unfortunate slowdown.

Alright, turns out Mae isn't the evil twin any more than Osha is the good twin. Great. Good to know. But it feels like the show has two main threads, and the twins' backstory is decidedly the weaker one. I certainly feel the concern that with only one episode left, the good thread won't get the attention it deserves.

The Jedi don't come away too badly. A little breaking and entering. A little lying. A little drawing lightsabers without provocation when Qimir isn't looking*. Mostly they're doing the right thing. Some of it even with high council backing. In a competent story this could present a nice conflict as it's fertile ground for enemy propaganda but kind of preposterous in an objective way. You could do something with that. The Acolyte unfortunately fixates on the Jedi guilt tripping themselves over trifles and being a tiny bit naughty to cover up their own failings. It feels a bit overdone for the half of them we've seen explored in enough detail beating themselves up for the next sixteen years. Especially for weird cultists who should have embraced the emotional detachment their cult teaches.

The power of many sucks. I get a cult talking up its beliefs, but a dozen or two witches dropping dead because a single Jedi breaks their mind control is all kinds of weak. If the cult sucks so bad, you have to wonder why they feel the need to hide. Or why anyone would persecute them.



* It's actually kind of a cute thought that Qimir was minding his own business all along and when he took Mae on, it was her who inspired him to go with the whole murder a Jedi barehanded thing.

a pretty decent sub-light starship chase. An unsurprising revelation. Who is that mysterious manky old git hiding in the cave? Rampant Jedi corruption! Sweet cameo!

As seemed likely from the start, all of the Jedi exploration team are now dead, and there's no official confirmation that any Sith were involved, so all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over continuity breaking from the 'fanbase' was pointless.


Lurkyman is a bit of a mystery... Folk over on Twitter seem convinced it's Plagueis, but he looks more like a pale Duros than a Muun, so Plagueis only fits if they're going with a different species to the Legends version. This would also place Plagueis in the timeline too early compared to the original version.

None of which is a deal breaker given the new continuity, but I suspect it's going to turn out to be a new Sith Lord entirely, if we do get a second season.

Edit - actually, after looking at a few more pics of Plagueis, I'm leaning more towards this being him after all... He has considerably less nose than the normal Muun...

I really liked the final scenes, where Master Baldyslapheid reveals she knew all along about what happened, covered it up then, and continues to cover it up now, just straight up telling massive Porky Pies to the Senate.

Where do I think it could’ve been tighter? The Senator. I’ll need to binge watch, but I don’t recall him being in it much, possibly at all, in most of the episodes. But he provides some motivation for the Jedi behaviour, specifically external checks and balances on their power and independence. Not from an evil Sith cackle cackle, I’m gonna make everyone think you’re Richard’s approach. But a seemingly genuine “surely there must be some enforced limit to your shenanigans” concern.

I really enjoyed a lot of the Jedi being portrayed as a bit sloppy and indolent. I take that to be the result of decades, centuries possibly millennia of peace. From Master Baldyslapeheid’s pet Weasel, to Hotpie in the first episode. I know it’s not the done thing to poke fun at someone’s weight. But….I don’t think we’ve seen an overweight Jedi before? It all points to an Order too comfortable in its position, having seemingly gone largely unchallenged for a long time.

Finally? I absolutely loved not knowing what the end game might be. There was of course a time I didn’t know A New Hope had sequels. I specifically remember how I found out - but it’s such a long time ago, I can’t remember not knowing the events of those films. Prequels, Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, everything else? We kinda know Good Guys Win, and who absolutely wasn’t snuffing it in those films.

Here, sure we know the Jedi Order goes on for at least another hundred or so years. But only one character, via the magic of rear view cameo, do we know the ultimate fate of. Mae, Qimir, Osha, Manky Old Cave Git? Who knows. Do any of them tie into Palpatine’s rise? Or are they just another Master/Apprentice out fiddling with things and of no particularly grand accomplishment once they’re bumped off/redeemed?

Like Andor, this is a pretty different lens to see the galaxy through. And I’m loving it.

As for audience reviews? Jump on Rotten Tomatoes and play “Spot The Bot”. They’re the one line, fraction of a star spam reviews.

My biggest problem remains the fact this feels like 2 different shows stitched together, as someone else mentioned ITT. You've got the "mystery" of the twins and you've got the Sith dude and they seem fairly disconnected despite attempts to link the two storylines. Annoyingly, the Sith dude is by far the most engaging part of the show to me, yet they tried to make it all about the mystery of the twins.

The mystery on Brendok was not really much of a mystery and the handling of it still feels really off to me. There's no nuance to any of it, which makes the attempt to present it from different viewpoints for different characters feel unearned. The coven are just kind of flat-out evil, despite some desultory attempts at blurring those lines. The actions of the Jedi during the incident don't seem extreme enough to lead to the various things that result. Maybe it's the pacing, with flashbacks breaking things up too much, but I fundamentally didn't feel particularly bothered about the twins at any point either. They don't really get enough character development and are a bit too 2-dimensional, so the reconciliation at the end fell quite flat for me. It is at least somewhat interesting that they had Osha fall at the end, which shows some promise for a second season, provided they stay away from the way-overdone "conflicted darksider" approach.

I'm fairly sure the shadowy figure was Plagueis, but that felt like it was put there purely as a cheap trick to generate speculation.

This might be the best live action dark side turn we've seen complete with Kyber bleed!

Granted, it doesn't have any real competition, but... progress?

The mind wipe is complete nonsense and doesn't make any sense. This comes out of nowhere and just eats every sin of the show. Mae admits to starting the fire that's the whole reason her mom went smoke monster which caused Sol to panic and kill her which is why Osha goes evil. Leaving her behind is just a trail for no reason but season 2 and doesn't have any need to actually happen. Even if you believe strongly in the rule of 2 the whole point of the show apparently is they count as 1 so.... like.... don't be such a stickler for the rules Sith?

I figured it was a KOTOR type thing, doing a Revan?

Its another chance for Jedi to be awful by manipulating an amnesiac Mae

Manky Old Cave Git. Who am, and what do? Is are even a Sith?

Qimir - believed dead by Master Baldyslapheid. But…who actually is he? Is it someone she believes she killed? A former Padawan, or has he always been Sith?

I quite like the feeling that the relatively small scale of events here, nothing galaxy shaking, that Mae and OSHA’s experiences are the first canker to appear of an underlying sickness, one at least Master Baldyslapheid, for reasons yet to be explained, is determined to cover up.

100% Plagueis. I don't think its even a question. This is how he learns to create life with the Force, teaches Palpatine and creates Anakin. Actually disappointed now that we didn't get this as the Rey answer (though I don't think we needed a Rey answer....)

Green Jedi lady tells Mae she needs help finding a former pupil who turned to evil. Absolutely a former padawan. What happened is certainly a question. He's got lashes across his back and she wields a lightwhip. Connection there seems obvious.

I assume she's determined to cover it up because she's aware how dangerous a Jedi who loses control can be.

what she told the Senate Committee. And she clearly held Sol cover up the preceding events.

That’s a conscious decision, and we can only guess at why - but it seems likely she’s done at least as bad, if not outright worse. Or knows this is surprisingly rife within the Jedi Order.