The Acolyte Concludes With The Thrilling Use Of A Classic Star Wars Hero

This article contains spoilers for the "Star Wars: The Acolyte" season 1 finale.

"Star Wars: The Acolyte" season 1 came to a stunning conclusion in its eighth episode, also titled "The Acolyte," closing one mystery, but opening and deepening many others. The show began with the murder of a Jedi and closed with the death of another and the murder of his reputation — a dark spot on the Jedi that gets quietly swept under the rug.

This show really is the beginning of the end of the Jedi, documenting the small compromises they began to make, which ultimately leads to their downfall at the hands of Palpatine. "Once you start down the dark path," Master Yoda once warned Luke Skywalker, "forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will."

And that's what we saw with this show and Master Indara's (Carrie-Anne Moss) initial decision to lie about the events of Brendok, compromising the integrity of the Jedi as an institution. This was the proverbial start of the Jedi down the dark path that would forever dominate their destiny.

But one Jedi master bore witness to all of it, though he might not have always been told the truth.

In the final episode of season 1, Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) frames Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) for the various Jedi murders in an effort to avert suspicion and oversight of the Jedi and preserve the integrity of the order. "All who gain power," Palpatine once told Anakin Skywalker, "fear to lose it, even the Jedi." And Vernestra proves that in this episode.

At the end, however, she turns to none other than Master Yoda for guidance.

Yoda made his first appearance in "Star Wars" in 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back" and has been a classic character from his very first scene. The diminutive Jedi Master is only seen from behind in the very closing shot of "The Acolyte" and there's no telling if Vernestra is about to tell him the truth of what happened, or if she'll feed him the same lies about Master Sol's guilt as she did the Republic Senate and its chancellor.

Many had wondered where Master Yoda was in "The Acolyte," and there's a brief exchange that Vernestra has where she's trying to get access to someone, and I believe it might have been Yoda. Throughout the run of the High Republic storytelling initiative so far, Yoda has been aloof, though still making appearances. He's one of the consistent legacy characters whose timeline stretches across all eras of "Star Wars" storytelling so far in one way or another.

"For 800 years have I trained Jedi," Yoda once told Luke Skywalker in the swampy climes of Dagobah. With eight centuries years of being a Jedi under his belt, Yoda would have certainly been around for all of the events of "The Acolyte" in some capacity or another, and another 700 or so years before that, too.

The little green master has made appearances across a number of books and comics in the High Republic era and, as mentioned earlier, has been a bit aloof, investigating things as the Jedi work to put down the threat of the Nihil. With the secret emergence of the Sith, who are this close to revealing themselves, there's no doubt Yoda would dedicate himself to unraveling that mystery as well. Unfortunately, we know the Sith won't reveal themselves fully until Darth Sidious sends Darth Maul to kill Qui-Gon Jinn and force Queen Amidala to sign the treaty with the Trade Federation in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace."

It's astonishing to think of all the things Yoda would have seen in all that time, and how much change the Jedi order had undergone.

"The Acolyte" also creates an interesting tie between its themes and the lives of Vernestra Rwoh and Yoda himself. Vernestra might well be going to talk to Master Yoda about the trouble with her former apprentice, who has turned to the dark side. Yoda would have a similar experience with his old padawan, Count Dooku, decades after this. How does a Jedi cope with such a loss?

Both of those situations, with Vern and Yoda, feel thematically tied to Osha's experience with Sol and her revenge against her former master on "The Acolyte." She, too, turns to the dark side after her master is willing to make compromises.

It also makes one wonder about that initial first step of the Jedi compromising. Does Indara's compromise lead to Vernestra's compromise? And does that lead to a compromise on Yoda's part? And does this somehow find its way in these corrupted lines of padawans? I mean, Yoda trains Dooku, who trains Qui-Gon, who trains Obi-Wan Kenobi, who trains Anakin Skywalker, and there are not one but two Sith lords in that master-apprentice family tree.

"The Acolyte" season 1 has asked its audience to think deeply about the lore of "Star Wars." The appearance of Master Yoda at the end was merely icing on that philosophical cake.

"Star Wars: The Acolyte" season 1 is available in its entirety on Disney+.