Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

The Return of the Twin Trope is not enough to hide the lack of cohesive story-telling

Spoiler Warning

It’s always a sadness when a show which starts out strong declines in the middle rather than continuing to be great.  When I watched Day, I figured it was so short and so clearly a set-up to the next episode that I’d wait on my review until Night.  I’m glad I did because had Day and Night had tighter scripting and direction, the two episodes could have been one.

I’m going to start there in my criticism.  It really irritates me how many streaming shows, particularly on Disney Plus, end up with very short episode times, and with extremely long credits more appropriate to movies than tv.  A typical action-adventure sci-fi led show on network television would normally come in around the 45-minute mark, especially in a mini-series or episodic weekly series, with about a minute or two of credits/introduction.  While the timing and framework of a network television show is determined in part by its need to place commercials, a problem streaming does not have, the weird ‘anything goes to creatively tell the story’ mentality of streaming sometimes serves to harm the story rather than enhance it.

I personally believe it would give greater structure and spine to streaming shows for there to at least be a consistent frame; for example, for the production to state – this is ten episodes, all of which are aimed to come in around 45 minutes of content.  While creatively this may present a challenge, I think it’s a worthwhile one to deliver a satisfying show for an audience.  As it is, when streaming delivers up two very short episodes which clearly could have been one, I’m left feeling very dissatisfied and less inclined to watch a weekly drop of the show.

Day and Night are the prime example of two episodes which should have been one.  The only excuse for splitting them in two is to have the dramatic face-off of the Jedi team against the singular figure of the Sith Lord at the end of Day as a cliff-hanger. 

Day, itself, is the weakest episode in the run because it isn’t a cohesive story in and of itself.  It is nothing more than a set-up, picking up from the end of the second episode wherein Mae had escaped and one more Jedi was dead at her behest.  The beginning which sees a glimpse of Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca in his retreat at Khofar is intriguing, with the evident markings of the witches at Brendok in his abode suggesting that he too is troubled by whatever happened there.  But then, the story stymies itself by having the small team of Sol, Yord, Jecki, and Osha returning to Coruscant rather than continuing on to Khofar.

Immediately, there are convoluted discussions of why Osha should continue with them onto Khofar as there are valid reasons for her remaining behind – she’s not a Jedi, she has a conflict of interest with Mae, and she, herself, has just been cleared in the murders of Indara and Torbin.  While the excuse landed on is valid (that she can maybe help convince Mae to come in alive and tell them about her Master), they really didn’t need to go to Coruscant to have that prolonged discussion.

It would have made more sense to have had Sol remotely discuss matters with Coruscant character Master Vernestra Rwoh, for time to be of the essence in getting to Khofar to warn Kelnacca.  Ultimately the only purpose of the trip back seems to have been to add a number of red shirts to the trip to Khofar.  That would have been easily solved by Rwoh stating she was sending back-up to meet them on Khofar.  Instead, the whole trip to Coruscant needlessly stymies the pace of the story.

There is also the matter of timings within the narrative which leave a lot of question marks – similarly to the last season of Games of Thrones (2011-19) when trips which had clearly taken weeks to do in past episodes were suddenly travelled in much lesser unrealistic timeframes.  So, from the previous planet of Olega, Mae and Qimir have already gotten to Khofar and are tracking Kelnacca.  However, despite the trip back to Coruscant from Olega, Jecki squeezing in a training session, picking up more people, prepping for another travel, the Jedi manage to land only hours behind the Sith pair?

Hmmm.

I’m not even going to get into the fandom argument of Master Mundi being alive and well a hundred years before events of The Phantom Menace (1999) and the canon continuity nit-picks around the episode versus the movie, and whether he knows about Sith existing.  Maybe the show itself will resolve any continuity hiccups later in its run, especially given events in Night.

But to remain with Day for a moment, the rest of the episode is then the journey of both parties through the forest to Kelnacca.  Mae’s journey is the more interesting as she realises that things have changed for her with the reveal that Osha is alive.  Her original vow was to her family and keeping their legacy alive and Osha’s survival reignites that within her.  In contrast, the plodding of the Jedi following the tracker who they keep losing is not as interesting.  There is a moment with the bug creatures, hints that Osha’s Force sensitivity is strengthening again, but it goes nowhere because those hints are meant for Night or later.

I will say that Amandla Stenberg does a remarkable job of embodying Mae and Osha as different people in her body language and performance.  The story and dialogue of Mae is more interesting to an audience who grew up on the redemption of Darth Vader (or Ben Solo for later fans); there is a fire and dynamism that Stenberg brings to Mae in her performance that Osha definitely lacks. 

Of course, Osha has the more difficult task of being the opposite ‘Light’ hero, and I will say the dialogue for the character and her scenes with the other characters do not assist Stenberg in providing her with material to play with.  The banter and sass of her introduction has been swapped for her confusion and insecurity with the Jedi.  I will say Night tried to inject some of this back with Osha convincing Yord to return to help Sol, and her solutionising to get the bugs to attack Qimir.  But these glimpses of an interesting character are not enough to make her interesting overall.  Rather the interest is in when Sol will confess to whatever the Jedi did on Brendok to Osha which definitely troubled Torbin and Kelnacca, and what Osha will ultimately do with that. 

That wider narrative mystery thread is certainly included in Night, which effectively is the pay-off to the set-up in Day.  However, Night ultimately ends up nothing more than a series of fights, followed by a return to the twin trope as the series starts to wind-up to its conclusion in the final three episodes. 

The fights with the main characters are well-choreographed, brutal and exciting.  There is a real energy and practicality of how to fight with lightsabres and how to fight against lightsabres in the fights Jecki and Sol have with Qimir, who is revealed as the Sith Lord and Mae’s teacher.  I love the moment when Jecki fights with both her own and Kelnacca’s sabres.  I also loved Jecki’s fight with Mae and how she ultimately defeats Mae, intent to bring her to justice. 

Indeed, Jecki’s suddenly revealed fighting prowess and her previous dutiful Padawan nature make her death incredibly shocking.  It’s a great moment though when Sol protests at her death because she was a child, only for Qimir to comment on the Jedi’s hypocrisy of bringing a child into the situation in the first place.

The deaths here are shocking – not so much the red shirts as they were always expected to die – but of both supporting characters of Yord and Jecki.  Qimir’s articulated reasoning of ‘everyone must die because they know about me now’ is a little nonsensical given he revealed his own presence to the Jedi and had encouraged and even given Mae the mission of killing the Jedi which would draw the Jedi’s attention. If he really wanted to stay hidden, he should have just stayed in Kelnacca’s dwelling and killed Mae for her betrayal as soon as she entered, disappearing back into the forest after.  Narratively, I’m not certain that killing both supporting characters here was the right thing to do for the story – it will be interesting to see how the rest of it plays out.

Qimir’s reveal as the Sith Lord and the performance by Manny Jacinto is one of the best parts of this episode for me.  He’s suitably brutal and physical in his fighting.  His dialogue is delivered by Jacinto in a sly and biting way.  He personifies the bitter once-defeated enemy who is restricted in his activity and fighting against those chains because it is the victors of that past Jedi-Sith conflict who set the rules.  Qimir is more Maul than Sidious, (even with his day ruse of being nothing more than a low life) but it works for him.

I also like the confrontation of the sisters.  It is reflective of the dynamic shown in episode three (although I maintain as in my review of Destiny that their earlier relationship could have been shown as a flashback).  Mae believes Osha chose the Jedi over her, believes the Jedi invaded their home and seduced Osha away.  Osha who never wanted that life feels that not to be true from her point of view.  It’s nicely directed given Stenberg plays both characters.

The thing that I saw coming a mile away as soon as the sisters were alone was the return to the twin trope deployed in the beginning episodes – identical twins taking/being assumed in each other’s place.  Mae’s decision to take Osha’s place a la The Parent Trap is very, very predictable.  Stenberg definitely plays Mae as Mae-in-Osha-clothing so it will be interesting to see if Sol isn’t as fooled as his just acquiescing to stomping back to the ship with a Mae-in-Osha-clothing in tow implies.  In respect of Qimir finding Osha after getting rid of the bugs that carried him off…in Sith Lord versus bugs, perhaps not a surprise that the Sith Lord prevails although he does seem remarkably unscathed, but very weird that he doesn’t just kill an unconscious Osha…  

While I’m not impressed with the return to the trope, the narrative hooks are there, and it does make me want to watch to see what happens next so…it’s done it’s job.

In conclusion:

Having praised the narrative strength of the first two episodes, I admit disappointment in where the story has taken us since.  The wider mystery of what happened on Brendok is lost here in the want to deliver a great lightsabre battle between the Jedi and a Sith, and the weird delineation of short episodes versus one strong cohesive one to heighten the dramatic effect of the same.  Kudos on the execution of that lightsabre battle, but a singular good episode could have narratively delivered on both.