The Acolyte Season 2 Puts The Best Star Wars Character At Risk Of Becoming A Joke

Now, just getting this out of the way, we don’t yet know exactly what The Acolyte Season 2 will do with Yoda…he might just appear in a single scene and then return to his quarters to watch some stew recipe videos on Space YouTube. However, he’s such a major character in this franchise that it’s reasonable to assume he will play a correspondingly major role. Unfortunately, given everything we find out in the first season, Yoda’s participation in the next season may finally finish what the prequels began: turning this character into a complete joke.

A long time ago, before Star Wars had prequels or before The Acolyte had to worry about getting a Season 2, Yoda was introduced in The Empire Strikes Back as the ultimate Jedi. He had seemingly infinite wisdom, including reminding Luke Skywalker that “wars don’t make one great” and that Jedi should never use their powers to attack, only defend. As an added bonus, he even knew how to see the future, albeit without as much clarity as most would prefer.

Unfortunately, the prequels did major damage to Yoda’s rep so that fans could cheer for him flailing around with a lightsaber like a CGI muppet on speed. Yoda now had no problem using the Force to attack people, like when he knocked out Palpatine’s guards in a sneak attack. And his ability to sense danger or predict the future was obviously crappy, what with him being unable to sense either the growing darkness in Anakin Skywalker or Palpatine planning a Jedi genocide right under his little green nose.

He was a little better in The Last Jedi (albeit still acting crazy for literally no reason), so why do we think The Acolyte Season 2 might turn Yoda into a complete joke? Well, the person coming to see him is Vernestra Rwoh (known to many fans as “that bald green Jedi”), someone that we just saw blame everything (including killing the Force witches on Brendok and even killing his Jedi colleagues) on her dead mentor Sol. This lie is meant to appease the Jedi-wary Senate while making it easier for her to conduct a seemingly private mission to hunt down Osha and Qimir.   

If The Acolyte Season 2 begins with her reporting to Yoda, then she will have to lie, both about what happened with Sol and what her future plans are. Unless the season is only going to be one episode long, Yoda is going to have to fall for those lies (at least, at first). Such gullibility may be the final nail in the coffin of his reputation as an all-seeing, all-knowing font of Jedi wisdom.

Remember, The Acolyte Seasons 1 and 2 take place about a century before The Phantom Menace, which means that Yoda won’t have any real excuse for being unable to sense Rwoh’s deception, especially since she is his former pupil. This is a time period where the Jedi are at the height of their power (not like the prequels, where Mace Windu brings up the Jedi’s diminished Force powers), and there is seemingly no Sith Lord hiding among the Jedi or the Senate to dull their senses. In short, Yoda should be at the top of his game, and this show is about to make him look dumber than ever.

I’d love to be wrong about all this, of course…maybe The Acolyte Season 2 begins with Yoda immediately sensing her deception, forcing Rwoh to flee and other Jedi to try to prevent her Ahab-like desire to hunt down Qimir. However, while the show got better throughout the first season, there is no indication that it will throw us such a fun curveball. That means fans may have to paraphrase Anakin Skywalker whenever Yoda is onscreen next season: “this is where the dumb begins.”