After months of speculating on which characters in The Acolyte would get a Star Wars romance, fans may finally have their answers. While most of us were hedging our bets for a Jecki/Osha pairing, or a Jecki/Yord smooch-fest, the show runners were appealing to the BookTokker in all of us.
There is nothing more attractive than a revenge-driven bad boy – especially when they’re ridiculously cut, and happen to look like Manny Jacinto. While most fans were enjoying the scene for the high tension that emerged between Osha and the baddie during their first real meeting, those using Disney audio descriptions were in for a racy treat. As he stripped down for a dip, the series’ audio description made sure the sith wasn’t the only thing that was wet.
We’ve all been forced to turn on our subtitles in recent years. Maybe it’s a byproduct of aging, maybe it’s a sign of poor audio mixing. What we didn’t realize was that as subtitles become more and more necessary, audio descriptions are doing more than is necessary.
Plenty of Star Wars fans have declared that The Acolyte isn’t cooking, but they can’t deny that things have gotten pretty hot in the series’ 6th episode. As Osha reels from her sister’s betrayal, she’s left alone with the series’ main antagonist, Qimir. As Osha stalks her would-be-captor to an isolated waterway, she finds him in a state of undress, dipping those rippling muscles into the water.
It’s a classic scene from any Young Adult fantasy book, and hilariously on the nose with the description of The Stranger’s bodacious bod. The audio descriptions don’t miss a single chance to mention his fit frame. Its “well-toned back” this and “accentuated top muscles” hammer that home.
“DISNEY WHY FREAKY???” users demanded in the comment section on TikTok.
Truly, they couldn’t not have been more blatant with the freak. Even lightsabers got the smutty treatment. As Osha aggresses The Stranger with his own blade, the audio description makes sure to lean into the sensational language.
“He gently takes ahold of her arm, the red blade still throbbing in front of his throat.”
At long last we have canonical proof that lightsabers “throb” rather than spit, woosh, or hiss. “The Lightsabers throb yall. Where there’s a will there’s a way,” viewers cackled. Others were less amused and more horrified.
“The blade’s [sic] doing WHAT AGAINST HIS THROAT??”
The rhetoric had some viewers rethinking the entire scene. The first impression most viewers got was one between a captor and abductor. After listening to the narrative, they aren’t so sure anymore.
“Well, NGL (not going to lie) dark side looking quite tempting rn,” one wrote.
After hearing that The Acolyte brought on an intimacy coordinator, fans were racing to figure out whether the series would have the first Game of Thrones style scene (forgetting Disney has the reins, I suppose), but now we know the truth. Clearly, the intimacy coordinator’s job was to fan everyone in the recording booth who’d overhearted after this absolute freak of a narrator recorded her lines. It might not have been the steamy on-screen moment we were waiting for, but I know I’m not the only one in need of a trip to deep space to cool down after that.