Alright, What Did Vernestra Tell SPOILER at the End of ‘The Acolyte’?
Leslye Headland’s Star Wars High Republic show The Acolyte has officially reached the finish line on Disney+. Although it was extremely divisive, it did manage to pull things together for the finale, which featured a familiar face. But what could he and Vernestra Rwoh have discussed?
Warning! Spoilers ahead for all episodes of The Acolyte.
Flashy cameos and Star Wars basically go hand-in-hand at this point, making it no surprise that The Acolyte boasts two blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances from characters plucked straight from Star Wars lore: Darth Plagueis, a notorious Sith Lord lurking in the shadows on Qimir’s (Manny Jacinto) island planet, and our fave green puppet, Master Yoda, who pops up for a split second in the final scene.
From the beginning, The Acolyte has put the question of what truly makes a person “good” or “evil” at the heart of its story, with an overarching theme being that power—in this case, the Force—should be shared by all. Power and who uses it is a core theme of the Star Wars franchise, with the original trilogy following the galaxy-wide rebellion against the Empire and the prequel trilogy detailing how exactly the once-mighty Jedi Order fell after becoming, essentially, political pawns, oblivious to the evil spreading around them after swearing to be the galaxy’s protectors.
In the end, the Jedi go extinct because high-ranking council members like Yoda have allowed a Sith to rise to power under their watch. Is he really as wise as we’re supposed to think? Even after the Republic falls, he just utters some riddles at Luke (Mark Hamill) and dips. And now that The Acolyte has confirmed that there were, in fact, dark siders running around during the High Republic era, things just got a bit more complicated. So, in the closing moments of episode 8, when Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) finds Yoda and “needs” to talk to him after lying about the circumstances of Sol’s (Lee jung-jae) death, was she warning him about the Sith? Or just trying to save face?
Did Vernestra keep Yoda in the dark about Brendok?
Vernestra, despite being a protagonist of the High Republic novels, is more of a villain than anything in The Acolyte. She lies to protect herself and the Jedi when the senate proposes an external review of the Order, and thus, well-intentioned her actions may be, revokes what it means to be a true peacekeeper. So even though the frame cuts off the second we see Yoda’s furry head come into frame in The Acolyte, I can only imagine that Vernestra seeks out Yoda for advice because he’s the only one who knows about Qimir, or, less interestingly, about Mae (Amandla Stenberg) and the Vergence.
We’ve seen bits and pieces of Vernestra and Qimir’s tumultuous relationship play out in the show, with viewers putting two and two together: Qimir is, seemingly, a Force-sensitive ex-Padawan who has a nasty-looking scar on his back that sure looks like it could’ve come from Vernestra’s lightwhip. However, it’s not until the finale that Vernestra confirms that Qimir was once her student, adding some much-needed context for why she’s so personally invested in the mission.
While it’s still a big mystery, we can only assume that Qimir went rogue and fell to the dark side for one reason or another, and that Vernestra tried to stop him—a page torn right from the Anakin and Obi-Wan book of rocky master-apprentice duos. And Yoda, being head of the Jedi Council, might be the only person who knows what exactly went down. However, if she wasn’t warning Yoda about the fact that her former Padawan is on the run, Vernestra could simply be filling Yoda in on her meeting with the senate, because I find it seriously hard to believe that she would confess to lying about Sol’s death.
Vernestra didn’t want to tell the High Council about Khofar
As we’ve come to see, Vernestra is slippery. She uses Sol as a scapegoat, sends Jedi Knights on dangerous missions without a second thought, and lies to those around her—all for the so-called “greater good.” In that scene with Ki-Adi-Mundi in The Acolyte episode 4, she says that no one should tell the High Council about what they experienced on Khofar. This adds up, considering that by the time of The Phantom Menace, the Jedi Council believes the Sith have been extinct for a millennia. So if she really did warn Yoda about the potential Sith threat, this might’ve retconned years of Star Wars storytelling.
I think it’s also important to note here that the Jedi technically don’t know about these new Sithlings yet. When Vernestra and Co. arrive on Brendok during the finale, she doesn’t necessarily sense the presence of a dark sider—just that of her former apprentice. Their “bond” could still be intact. There’s also the question of whether or not Qimir actually qualifies as a Sith, or if he’s just a powerful Force-user dabbling in the dark side. If anything, the real threat here is Darth Plagueis, who Vernestra and the rest of the Jedi are blissfully unaware of. Of course, the consequences of this oversight will be fatal.
Honestly, Vernestra has been trying to cover her own ass all season—to prevent the external review of the Jedi Order or just to hide the fact that she doesn’t have a good track record with her former apprentices. But if she really did tell Yoda about the encroaching darkness, then how much does he really know by the time The Phantom Mencace rolls around? Is he in on Vernestra’s conspiracy? Could he have prevented the Jedi’s fate? For now, it remains unknown. Either way, if I had a nickel for every time Vernestra lost a Padawan to the dark side, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice!
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