We are now exactly halfway through the first season of the new Star Wars series The Acolyte, and our first live-action foray into the High Republic era of the franchise has been full of twists and turns. This fourth episode finally brings all the story setup to a close–we know what we need to know about Osha and Mae; the two of them have come to grips with each other’s survival, and now it’s time for them to figure out where they truly belong in this conflict between the Jedi and everyone else.
But one big detail we don’t know is the identity of Mae’s mysterious master. We have a big reason to believe that this person is a Sith, and it’s usually a safe bet that the mysterious villain in a situation like this–where the creatives behind the series are intentionally hiding the person’s identity for the sake of a big reveal later on–is going to end up being a character who’s already been introduced.
Warning: This article is full of spoilers for the fourth episode of The Acolyte on Disney+.
After three episodes of build-up, all the main characters on The Acolyte start the fourth episode with the same destination: the wookiee Jedi Kelnacca’s home on the jungle planet Khofar. Mae and Qimir are there to kill him, and Sol, Osha, Yord and Jecki are there to save him. But Mae, feeling the mortal pressure of having to defeat Kelnacca without a weapon, decides to abandon her master and try to team up with Osha–she traps Qimir and leaves him in the jungle.
But by the time everybody gets to Kelnacca’s house, the wookiee has already been murdered–with a lightsaber. Mae’s master is here, ready to confront the Jedi. And that’s where this episode leaves us, which means it’s time to ponder who this mysterious villain is. Since this was the last of the episodes that were screened for critics, I’m just as in the dark on this as you are. So let’s speculate about who it might be. These are in the order of how likely I think they are, starting with my prime suspect.
Mother Koril
While the witch coven’s leader, Mother Aniseya, was apparently responsible for conceiving Mae and Osha using the Force, it was Mother Koril who actually carried them and is their biological mom. And while Aniseya seemed doting and willing to let the girls choose what they wanted for themselves, Koril wanted greater discipline for Mae and Osha, and was fully opposed to entertaining the Jedi at all when they appeared on Brendok. It’s not difficult to imagine that Koril could see the incursion by the Jedi as an existential threat that needs to be confronted, and in the aftermath she may have seen Mae as an opportunity to try again, but this time doing it her own way.
The big question, then, is whether Koril in this scenario could be one of the mainline Sith that eventually leads to Palpatine, or if she became Sith in response to the Jedi incursion and is doing her own thing. Regardless, she’s the one I like for this right now.
Qimir
This guy has been helping Mae hunt the Jedi, he has an awkwardly evasive answer when Mae asks how he ended up in the master’s service, and he drops a reminder of the Sith Code on Mae when she’s having some doubts about the mission in Episode 2. Qimir is also pretty thin and lanky, like the master appears to be, so he’s got the right frame for it. And he claims to have personally scouted Khofar on his own, which is apparently so difficult and dangerous that Mae jokes that even the master would need a guide here. If Qimir actually knows Khofar that well, and also has the Force with him, then he’d be well equipped to escape Mae’s rather inconsequential trap and beat her to Kelnacca. And this thought is at least partially inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which pulled a similar move by having Sauron appear to just be a regular dude for most of Season 1.
Mother Aniseya
I don’t think Aniseya is the one, because a century later, Palpatine and his master still won’t have cracked exactly how to use the Force to intentionally spawn life the way Aniseya apparently did with Mae and Osha–if Aniseya were Sith, knowledge of the technique probably would have persisted. Plus, Aniseya doesn’t oppose Osha going with the Jedi if she really wants to. At the same time, though, we really know nothing about Aniseya or where her coven comes from, so her motivations could involve stuff beyond the normal scope of the standard light-vs.-dark crap. If Aniseya is the master, I’d suspect she isn’t really the bad guy.
Indara
Master Vernestra, that green lady on the Jedi Council, has a line that’s stuck with me: She says Mae was clearly trained by “one of us,” meaning a Jedi. My initial interpretation of that comment was that Vernestra and the other Jedi don’t know that the Sith have been lurking in the shadows for centuries and think Jedi are the only Force-users around, but their encounter with Aniseya’s coven indicates they know there are plenty of Force cults out there. And in that case, Venrestra’s comment may be more than just a “she used the Force and thus must have been trained by a Jedi” thing. But there aren’t a lot of main-character Jedi who could fit the bill, since most of them were there when the master showed up at the end of this episode.
Indara, of course, is supposedly dead, having been Mae’s first Jedi kill in the opening scene of The Acolyte’s premiere. But Carrie-Ann Moss is a big name, and Indara has barely appeared so far. She led the incursion to Brendok, and we haven’t gotten any regretful sentiments from her like we did with Sol and Torbin. It’s possible that Indara gave herself up to Mae to get her quest started and faked her own death in the process. I personally don’t think Indara is the baddie, but if there’s a secret evil Jedi here, she’s the best candidate.
Palpatine, Plagueis, or some other mainline Sith
Finally, it could be that The Acolyte is going to have the master simply be somebody else. With Mother Aniseya’s “manipulate the midichlorians to create life” ability in play, it potentially ties this story very closely to the films, opening up the possibility that Darth Plagueis or even Palpatine himself could be involved here somehow. And with Palpatine’s ability to transfer his spirit to another body, an ability he supposedly got from Plagueis, it could be that one of the previously discussed suspects actually is Plagueis secretly. I don’t love this idea, but it would depend on how it’s handled.
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