This week’s episode of The Acolyte makes for one of the most brutal half-hours of Star Wars action we’ve had in a while, as a group of Jedi come face to face with the sinister threat of the Stranger—a masked monster that proves a lot more than they could’ve ever anticipated handling. Suffice to say, things don’t go well for the Jedi. But how not-well? We decided to rank the apparently myriad ways you can punk them.
8) Not Even Being Worth Showing
This poor guy. Imagine you get to be a Jedi in the episode of a Star Wars show where there’s just a load of Jedi—a load of Jedi getting to do a cool ass big fight sequence against a Dark side baddie! And then you exist entirely to be a surprise corpse reveal at the start of the episode, without even a swing of your lightsaber. That’s gotta sting.
7) Not Even Being Worth Showing, But More Ominous
We’re cheating for a moment jumping back to the end of episode four here, but an honorable mention has to go to Kelnacca, who the Stranger sliced up before anyone else even noticed. Plus, better than the poor aforementioned Jedi who’s death was left unseen, because at least with Kelnacca you can see the wound, and it’s a way more dramatic moment than Osha’s brief jumpscare. Rest well, you oddly naked Wookiee king.
6) Knee Slash, Back Stab
Ithia Paan is basically the only other named Jedi of the cadre we meet here outside of The Acolyte’s main trio of Sol, Yord, and Jecki. That, however, does not stop her from getting a pretty perfunctory death at the Stranger’s hands, as he performs a quick slash at Paan’s knee to get her to fall, and then a stab right through the back.
Funnily enough, the Stranger actually tries to do the exact same thing shortly after with Yord, but can’t finish the move—in part because Osha hits him with her stun blaster, but also because Yord is smart enough to fall back after he gets slashed on his leg, rather than showing his back to the enemy. Smart move!
5) Gut Slash
This is one of the Jedi who briefly gets their saber shorted out by the Stranger’s cortosis armor, so at least he didn’t immediately get killed after that. But still, punted into a tree hard enough that you’ve got no time to react to getting your stomach carved open is pretty mean.
4) Neck Snap
Yord does an honorable job lasting as long as he does, so it’s only fair that he gets a hero’s moment—if only a moment—using the Stranger’s cortosis against him to briefly disable his saber. Which only sets him up for the absolutely brutal neck-wrench he sets Qimir up for.
Perhaps fitting that our beloved stick-up-his-ass Jedi is the one that gets his stick snapped.
3) Emotional Damage
Sure, what’s emotional damage next to a lightsaber hole or a broken neck, you ask? It’s not fatal, but it sure is cutting to Sol, as the Stranger constantly needles the poor Master over his anger, over what he’s hiding from Osha, and then just absolutely rubbing in his own padawan’s death right in front of him. Sol made it off Khofar alive, but damn was it worth it?
2) Shish Kabob
In the moments of lucid consciousness I had left before becoming one with the Force, if I was the Jedi that got killed being Force-pulled onto my already-skewered colleague’s corpse like a hunk of meat, I would be a very peculiar mix of impressed and pissed. That’s not a very Jedi emotion, but hey, I think you’re allowed that in your moment of death before your head gets sliced off to boot. What a way to go out!
1) The Triple Tap
Ah, Jecki. Our little padawan goes out with one hell of a fight, doing a damn sight better than every other Jedi on Khofar as she spins and whirls through a flurry of attacks with not one, but two lightsabers. A padawan! A literal child, against what might be the first Sith seen by a Jedi in centuries! But alas, that just means the best fighter among them all gets to go out in the best way, except “best” here is more absolutely horrifying.
After managing to break off the Stranger’s helmet and reveal his true identity, he decides that Jecki is the one worth breaking out his secret weapon for: a hidden dagger-saber in the hilt of his weapon, and zap-zap-zap. A triangle of puncture wounds that is entirely unnecessary—especially as we’ve seen Qimir go for single-strike executions up to this moment—and yet also just insanely sick. Well, as much as killing a child can be considered “sick.”