Every Death In The Acolyte

Summary

• Several characters met their demise in The Acolyte.
• Indara was the first victim of Mae’s hunt for revenge.
• Torbin chose poison over confessing what he had done in front of the Jedi Council, showing immense guilt in his interactions with Mae.

The Acolyte shocked Star Wars audiences with its willingness to kill characters, major and minor, at the drop of a hat, and numerous fan favorites fell throughout the show’s eight episodes. The Acolyte is set 100 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in the Star Wars timeline, meaning that many of the show’s characters were sure to be new to Star Wars movies and TV shows. While that was largely proven true, it doesn’t mean that The Acolyte characters didn’t become beloved.

In fact, some characters even garnered their own unique fanbases, and expectations were high for other brand-new additions. Despite that, The Acolyte was fairly ruthless in killing the heroes of the show, and that trend continued into the show’s finale. Here’s everyone who died in The Acolyte.

8 Master Indara Was The First To Fall

The Acolyte, Episode 1, “Lost/Found”

Carrie-Anne Moss’ Jedi Master Indara was a highly-anticipated character, and she was heavily featured in many of The Acolyte’s trailers. Well-known for her role as Trinity in The Matrix franchise, Moss seemed like a natural fit for a Jedi Master. Moreover, the clips of Moss in the various Acolyte trailers revealed some truly stunning fighting—a style Star Wars is officially calling Force-Fu—raising expectations even further. Unfortunately, Master Indara’s time on the show was cut short.

Indara ended up being the very first victim of Mae’s hunt for revenge in The Acolyte, and although Indara battled Mae bravely, Mae weaponized her Jedi compassion against her. Because Mae knew Indara would focus more on protecting others than on protecting herself, she was able to distract Indara by threatening the life of an innocent bystander, ultimately stabbing her in the chest. However, this didn’t mean Moss’ complete disappearance from the show.

Moss returned in episode 3, “Destiny,” and episode 7, “Choice,” which each revealed in flashback different perspectives on what really happened on Brendok. Interestingly, in episode 3, Indara was presented as one of the more aggressive, perhaps even cold Jedi, as she insisted upon the Jedi being permitted to test the girls’ Force-sensitivity. However, episode 7 revealed that it was really Master Sol who was so determined to test and recruit Osha and Mae; Indara was the one Jedi to truly maintain a level head throughout this arc.

7 Master Torbin’s Death Pointed Toward A Mystery

The Acolyte, Episode 2, “Revenge/Justice”

Master Torbin was the second Jedi to fall to Mae, and his death was much more intriguing than Master Indara’s because of the questions left in its wake. Like Indara, Torbin was on Mae’s hit list because he was connected to what had happened to Mae, Osha, and their family on Brendok 16 years before. Unlike Indara, though, Torbin exhibited much more guilt in his interactions with Mae than Indara did.

Torbin exhibited much more guilt in his interactions with Mae than Indara did.

Specifically, Mae gave Torbin the choice to either confess what he’d done in front of the Jedi Council or take poison. In the end, Torbin chose the poison, revealing a significant amount of guilt. As with Indara, episodes 3 and 7 of The Acolyte provided much greater insight into why Torbin would have been so guilt-ridden. Yet again, episode 3 only revealed pieces of the puzzle, not the full picture. In episode 3, Torbin was shown as only a Padawan, so his culpability seemed limited (and it wasn’t clear yet what the Jedi had done, anyway).

However, episode 7 revealed why Torbin felt so much guilt about what had occurred on Brendok, and his willingness to die rather than face the Council about what he’d done made much more sense. Throughout episode 7, Torbin was desperate to leave Brendok and return to Coruscant. Because of that, he rushed into the witches’ fortress to find Osha and Mae, believing that if he could prove they were created by a vergence in the Force, they could go home.

Sadly, Torbin’s haste led to a chaotic, tense encounter with the witches of Brendok that ultimately caused their deaths. While Torbin wasn’t one of the Jedi to actually kill that night—Sol and Indara were—he did play a pivotal role in this tragedy. Clearly, he never truly recovered from this event, as he had been meditating in silence and solitude for years prior to Mae coming to kill him.

6 All The Witches Of Brendok Met A Tragic End

The Acolyte, Episode 3, “Destiny”

Although there were many mysteries throughout The Acolyte, arguably the most significant in the show was what truly happened to the witches of Brendok. From the very beginning, something seemed off about this story. In the two-episode premiere, Mae looked relieved to see Osha, which made it all the more confusing that she had allegedly tried to kill Osha and had successfully killed the rest of the coven when she was just a child. This became more complicated in episode 3, which revealed that the witches’ bodies were not burned, despite it allegedly being Mae’s fire that had killed them.

Episode 7 finally revealed the truth about the witches’ deaths, and it was absolutely brutal. As episode 3 had suggested, it wasn’t truly Mae’s fire that killed the coven. Although she had started a fire that night, she had immediately regretted it and tried to get Mother Aniseya to help stop it. Unfortunately, when she ran to get her mother, she found the Jedi and the witches in the middle of an intense confrontation. Tragically, Mother Aniseya turned to black smoke seemingly to save Mae (who began turning to smoke along with her), which scared Master Sol.

Sol didn’t understand this power and believed that Mother Aniseya was about to attack him, so in a split-second decision, he stabbed her in the chest, killing her almost instantly, although not before she could devastatingly inform him that she had planned to let Osha go with him. Separately, the coven had possessed Kelnacca and had the Wookiee Jedi turn on his team. In an effort to stop this, Indara entered some kind of invisible battle with the witches. While the details remain hazy at best, in the end, the witches died.

5 Master Kelnacca’s Death Was Anti-Climactic

The Acolyte, Episode 4, “Day”

Master Kelnacca’s death was perhaps the most disappointing, specifically because so little was done with his character. In fact, significant anticipation was being built around Star Wars’ first live-action Wookiee Jedi Master. In the end, though, Master Kelnacca had barely any screen time before his death, and even in the flashback episodes, his role was minimal.

Master Kelnacca’s death was perhaps the most disappointing.

Like Indara, Sol, and Torbin, Kelnacca was implicated in the murder of the witches of Brendok. For that reason, Mae and her accomplice (who ended up being her Sith master in disguise), Qimir, went to Khofar, the planet on which Kelnacca was stationed, to kill him. Osha, Sol, and the other Jedi followed hot on their trail as well, in an effort to save Kelnacca’s life before Mae could take it.

However, Mae wasn’t the one to kill Kelnacca, although he did die. Kelnacca was killed in episode 4, “Day,” but he was already dead when Mae arrived at his home. This is easily the most compelling aspect of Kelnacca’s death, as the final moments remain a mystery even with the conclusion of the show. It’s apparent that Qimir was the one to kill him, as Mae had just said she was going to leverage a confession, betraying her master, to end her plot to kill the Jedi and reconnect with her sister.

That death was never shown, but it would have been interesting to see a confrontation between Qimir and Kelnacca. Sadly, though, that never came to be. While many Jedi deaths in The Acolyte were swift, Kelnacca had next to no character development before his demise, robbing audiences of a true Wookiee Jedi Master. Even so, seeing Kelnacca possessed in episode 7 was thrilling.

4 Several Unnamed Jedi Were Cut Down By The Stranger

The Acolyte, Episode 5, “Night”

The Acolyte episode 5 was easily the most shocking episode of the show, both because of its major reveals and because of its brutality. Episode 4 had concluded with the masked villain confirmed to be Mae’s master (although his actual identity remained concealed) stalking toward a group of Jedi on Khofar. Episode 5 picked up just after that, with one Jedi already dead at the villain’s hand.

Although Qimir interestingly still hasn’t been confirmed as a Sith, he does wield a red lightsaber and demonstrate a mastery of the Force, both of which proved absolutely deadly for the Jedi. In fact, by the episode’s end, multiple other unnamed Jedi had also fallen. One of the most disturbing kills happened when Qimir stabbed one Jedi through with his lightsaber and then used the Force to pull a second Jedi onto his saber.

3 Jecki Lon’s Death Was The Most Brutal

The Acolyte, Episode 5, “Night”

The brutality certainly didn’t stop with the multiple murders of the unnamed Jedi, though. Rather, the Stranger ended up engaging Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon in battle. Impressively, Jecki truly held her own against the Stranger, which is particularly remarkable given how quickly so many Jedi masters were cut down by him even when fighting together. She fought the Stranger so successfully, in fact, that she managed to knock his helmet off, finally revealing his true identity.

Sadly, this win came at the highest possible cost. It was only once Jecki had destroyed the Stranger’s helmet that he stabbed her straight through three times, pulling out a concealed lightsaber dagger from within his main saber and catching her off guard. To add even more cruelty to this devastating moment, when Master Sol yells, “Jecki!” the Stranger coldly says, “Was that its name?”

While this was an absolutely crushing plot point, it did mark a key moment in the larger Acolyte story, as Jecki’s sacrifice meant that the Stranger’s true identity was revealed. As many had suspected after several major hints in episode 4, the Stranger was really Qimir, the odd, even quirky acquaintance Mae was seen working with on her quest to kill the Jedi. Of course, he dropped that persona very quickly and was revealed to be a terrifying, ruthless killer.

Jecki’s sacrifice meant that the Stranger’s true identity was revealed.

2 Yord’s Death Was Completely Unexpected

The Acolyte, Episode 5, “Night”

The final death in episode 5 of The Acolyte was nearly a blink-and-you-miss-it demise, but it was also almost as devastating as Jecki’s. Just as Jecki and Master Sol quickly grew on viewers, Yord Fandar became popular almost immediately, with fans even unifying under the name ‘the Yord Horde.’ Unfortunately, this fanbase suffered a terrible loss when the Stranger unceremoniously snapped Yord’s neck, killing him instantly.

Although the episode (and the show) was already filled with gruesome, surprising deaths, Yord’s felt very different. In part, this was due to how difficult it was to see Yord’s death coming. Unlike the other Jedi who died while actively in battle with the Stranger, Yord had just paused, exchanging words with Qimir because he was astonished to discover he was the masked figure. After a quick “Surprise” and a smirk, Qimir whipped Yord around and killed him.

The Acolyte
was absolutely not afraid to kill its darlings, which made the remainder of the show all the more tense.

This death also stood out because it wasn’t done with the Force or a lightsaber. There was something much more real about this death and that, combined with the shock factor, made it all the more difficult to swallow. Yord’s death also reinforced, yet again, that The Acolyte was absolutely not afraid to kill its darlings, which made the remainder of the show all the more tense; it truly felt like anyone could die at any time.

1 The Acolyte’s Final Death Was The Beginning Of Osha’s Dark Side Path

The Acolyte, Episode 8, “The Acolyte”

Sol, the final person on Mae’s hit list, was killed in The Acolyte finale, but it wasn’t by Mae, nor was it by Qimir/the Stranger. Rather, The Acolyte shocked viewers by having none other than Sol’s beloved former Padawan Osha kill him as he stared at her sadly. Moreover, just as Qimir had always wanted Mae to do, Osha killed Master Sol without a weapon. Instead, she used the classic Sith Force power, Force choke.

This moment was a long time coming in some ways, as episode 7 had revealed that it was Sol who killed Mother Aniseya. Worse still, he had conspired with Indara to blame Osha’s sister, Mae, for the massacre of the entire coven and let Osha live with hatred for her sister, whom she believed killed her whole family and tried to kill her. When Sol confessed to this and Osha overheard him, she finally snapped.

Qimir had already been working to corrupt Osha to the dark side, as he realized she was the more suitable acolyte for him, and this moment was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sadly for Sol, it also ended up being easily the coolest scene in The Acolyte and arguably one of the coolest in all of Star Wars. Osha had been gripping Master Sol’s broken saber as she Force choked him, unknowingly bleeding his exposed kyber crystal as she did so. In the end, this turned Sol’s formerly blue lightsaber red, which The Acolyte showed in real-time.

The murder of Sol finalized Osha’s transformation to the dark side of the Force.

Presumably, this will go on to be her Sith lightsaber, which is an incredible form of symbolism. Moreover, though, the murder of Sol finalized Osha’s transformation to the dark side of the Force, and, at the end of episode 8, she even agreed to be trained as Qimir’s Sith acolyte. It remains to be seen whether The Acolyte will be picked up for a second season. However, whether The Acolyte is renewed or not, it’s clear that the many deaths throughout the show had a massive impact, although Master Sol’s most of all.

All episodes of The Acolyte are now streaming on Disney+.