'The Acolyte' Not Getting Second Season At Disney+
Welp, that Mae be the end of Osha, but it’s seemingly Lucasfilm’s choice
It’s a farewell and a goodnight for The Acolyte. Lucasfilm has opted not to proceed with a second season of the latest Star Wars series made for Disney+, from creator, director, executive producer and showrunner Leslye Headland.
While the series was favored somewhat by critics, the eight-episode series was a major right-wing grifter culture war target. The two-episode series premiere landed on Disney+ on June 4 and generated 4.8 million views in its first day to rank as the year’s biggest series premiere on the platform. That total rose to 11.1 million global views after five days. The series made its debut on Nielsen’s Top 10 originals chart in its premiere week at #7 with 488 million minutes viewed, rising the following week to #6. The series ultimately concluded after 8 episodes in mid-July. By then, the momentum could not be sustained, dropping out of the Top 10 in by its fourth episode and not recovering, with the finale landing at No. 10. Evidently it was not enough to save it.
“It was an easy target,” said one source about whether the right-wing backlash had anything to do with the show’s cancellation. “And it hurt the public perception of the show.” Set about 100 years before The Phantom Menace, Amandla Stenberg played twin sisters Osha and Mae, separated in childhood; Osha was a former Padawan of a respected Jedi Master, whereas Mae held allegiances with the Dark Side, led to believe the other had been killed. The show doubled down on the fallibility of the Jedi despite the traditional perception, thanks to the emotionally self-serving choices made by Jedi Master Sol, played by Lee Jung-jae, who is behind removing Osha from her family and separating the sisters. There was also the very well-received performance by Manny Jacinto. Introduced as Mae’s smuggler and apothecary sidekick Qimir, he would become revealed as the Stranger, a masked Sith warrior commanding Mae to assassinate the Jedi responsible for the aforementioned separation. It was eventually revealed he was the ex-Padawan of Vernestra, played by Rebecca Henderson, with the mystery of his name left dangling, as it would have been revealed in the second season.
The Acolyte also stars Dafne Keen as half-human, half-Theelin Jecki Lon, Charlie Barnett as by-the book Jedi Knight and temple guardian Yord Fandar, Dean-Charles Chapman as Torbin, a Jedi Master who took the Barash Vow, floating in a silent state of Force meditation for over a decade, Jodie Turner-Smith as Force witch coven leader Mother Aniseya, Margarita Levieva as Mother Koril, the witch who carried Osha and Mae, David Harewood as Republic Senator Rayencourt, and Joonas Suotamo as Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca.
Sources: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline