The Acolyte has finally wrapped on Disney Plus, and despite more than its fair share of mid-season jitters, a strong opener and bookend combined with a very apparent love for the Star Wars mythos may earn Leslye Headland’s mystery thriller a second season.
Indeed, colorfully-crafted sci-fi combat and set dressing turned out to be one of the greatest strengths of this High Republic tale, while a fair chunk of the story beats could have used a little more time in the oven. Nevertheless, even The Acolyte‘s narrative endeavors had some noteworthy peaks, one of which being Mae’s encounter with Master Torbin in the second episode.
Who is Master Torbin in The Acolyte?
Portrayed by Game of Thrones‘ Dean-Charles Chapman, Master Torbin was a Jedi Master and former Padawan of Master Indara who had—at the time of the second episode—spent the last 10 years in a silent meditation guarded by a relentless Force field. This proved to be a problem for Mae, who happened to have Torbin on her hit list.
It’s not until Mae returned to Torbin’s temple, this time with a vial of poison and a convincing argument rather than knives and tenacity, that she managed to get Torbin’s attention. In his final moments, Torbin revealed to Mae that his mission on Brendok (the home planet of Mae, where he accompanied fellow Jedi Sol, Indara, and Kelnacca) maybe wasn’t the venture of goodwill he thought it was.
And indeed, it was not; this particular Jedi sect had a bit too much main character energy for their own good, and wound up disrupting Mae and Osha’s coven to the point where it wound up cannibalizing itself. Torbin probably should have known better than to keep going along with it after falling under the terrifying spell of Mother Aniseya, but his conscience kicked in a little too late, and only through the animus of Mae was he able to escape his guilt.
The first season of The Acolyte is available to stream in full on Disney Plus.