The following post contains spoilers for the season finale of The Acolyte.
Yet another long-discussed Star Wars character had made his long-awaited live-action debut. Famed Sith Lord Darth Plagueis makes a very brief cameo in one scene of the season finale of The Acolyte.
Fans have been speculating about how various Acolyte characters could be connected to Plagueis all season. (Some theories even emphasized whether Plagueis was some of the characters in disguise.) Instead, he appeared in the shadows of a cave on Qimir’s mystery planet, watching Qimir (who is presumably his pupil, although that’s not certain) and Osha from a distance.
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Plagueis was introduced by George Lucas in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, in one of the scenes where the secretly evil Emperor Palpatine seduces impressionable Jedi Anakin Skywalker. To help lure him to the Dark Side of the Force he tells him “the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise” who supposedly had mastered the Dark Side of the Force to the point that he could create life and avoid death — at least until his own apprentice killed him. (That apprentice turned out to be Palpatine.)
The Plagueis character was later the focus of a Star Wars novel written by James Luceno which is technically now out of continuity (although the rules surrounding what is or isn’t canon gets fuzzy some times), which revealed some of his life story leading up to his death at the hands of Palpatine. The Acolyte was the character’s first onscreen appearance.
The “tragedy” of Plagueis dovetails with the central mystery on The Acolyte involving twins Osha and Mae — who are revealed on this episode not be twins but rather a single person split in half, and created from a “vergence” in the Force on their home planet. The notion of creating life from the Force was a big clue fans latched on to that Plagueis would somehow be involved in the show. Well, he was — although so far his involvement is limited to hanging out in a cave. Presumably future seasons would bring Darth Plagueis more into focus,
Plagueis wasn’t the only famous Star Wars cameo in The Acolyte finale. Jedi Master Yoda shows up in a one-shot appearance at the very end of the episode as well.
The full season of The Acolyte is now streaming on Disney+.
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