“The galaxy does not welcome women like us,” says Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith), one of the most recent and intriguing additions to the Star Wars saga. Aniseya leads a coven of witches in The Acolyte, and though they’re not the first to bring an eerie edge to that galaxy far away, the Witches of Brendock are very different from the Nightsisters of The Clone Wars and Ahsoka. In fact, they’re different from any Force-sensitive group to appear in the franchise. That’s largely due to the radical way these witches approach the Force as an extension of themselves, not as a means of control.
