Manny Jacinto is sizzling; that is recognized. However The Acolyte is making nice use of that reality by leaving the present’s demonstration of the seductive nature of the Darkish Aspect of the Drive in his very succesful arms (and really robust biceps). And truthfully? The Sith have by no means appeared higher.
Episode 6 of The Acolyte, “Educate/Corrupt,” continues the dueling narratives of Mae and Osha (each performed by Amandla Stenberg), with the twins having swapped locations. Now, Mae is on a ship with Sol (Lee Jung-jae), whom she plans to kill, and Osha has been kidnapped (or “rescued”) by Qimir (Jacinto), whom she hopes to kill — or, a minimum of, so she thinks. She follows him to his swimming gap, watches him strip down, tries to take his lightsaber (not a euphemism), virtually makes an attempt to kill him, however then… hears him out.
And how are you going to not take heed to that is man who’s so calm, cool, and picked up. Perhaps he’s as much as one thing — he’s a self-proclaimed Sith (mainly), so, yeah, he most likely is. But it surely’s comprehensible that Osha needs to get to the basis of him. He retains placing himself proper up in her orbit, unbothered besides when he’s intently targeted on her and getting her to embrace her energy.
Picture: Lucasfilm
However all this Manny Jacinto smoldering isn’t only for present; the creators know what they’re doing. Apart from anything episode 5’s use of the Kylo Ren motif may imply, it most instantly calls again to the Darkish Aspect’s most up-to-date dangerous boy. Taking part in the track over Qimir stroking Osha’s arm whereas she’s handed out looks like precisely the form of second that fuels headcanons far past the run of the present — significantly with Jacinto approaching Sith reeducation the best way Jess Mariano talks books; a real seduction to the Darkish Aspect if I’ve ever seen one.
Heading into The Acolyte, Star Wars had a difficulty with the Sith — ostensibly representing the free-wheelin’, hedonistic (and, thus, darkish) facet of the Drive — being fairly sexless. There was no actual warmth to their trigger past “dangerous,” and positively not one which appeared prefer it had any attract.
However what makes Qimir’s seduction so potent is how he seems at and sees Osha, the best way a romantic lead may gaze longingly at their costar. Whereas Jacinto doesn’t play Qimir as amorous, he does come off as seemingly in a position to surf eternally on the half-pipe of bad-boy vitality, all whereas telling you the way you’re an individual so filled with anger and ache that it led folks to “throw you away.” He friends at Osha and appears to pierce to some interior a part of her (even when that interior self is “exploitable nervousness!”), talking truths with smooth-tongued precision. It’s an attractive kind of consideration, and one which Osha’s clearly by no means fairly obtained from the Jedi.
And whereas he could also be a corrupting pressure, the scar on Qimir’s again, at the side of the whip lightsaber we see elsewhere within the episode, appears to counsel that he has a great purpose for hating the Jedi. As The Acolyte continues its dance between the Gentle and Darkish sides of the Drive, it’s essential that the Darkish Aspect have a face, and that its face have as a lot pull as Jacinto’s — in any other case what’s the enchantment of both Osha or Mae being down so dangerous?
