Somehow, the Knights of Ren returned. Okay, so “The Acolyte” hasn’t officially confirmed that about Darth Teeth, but the evidence thus far is pretty compelling. After director J.J. Abrams first introduced the gang with a couple of stray references culminating in Rey’s Force vision in “The Force Awakens,” fans never saw the Knights again until they randomly appeared once more in “The Rise of Skywalker” … and were unceremoniously killed off without any further explanation whatsoever. (Honestly, I preferred director Rian Johnson’s approach in “The Last Jedi” of simply pretending those weirdo edgelords didn’t exist at all.) The mystery of exactly who those Knights were and what their purpose was has remained a hanging thread ever since, but perhaps the ultimate answer will come in the most unexpected place imaginable.
The main setting of “The Acolyte,” taking place 100 years before the prequels in the midst of the High Republic era, seemed as if it would prevent any overt connections to more contemporary “Star Wars” movies and shows, but perhaps we were too quick to assume. Granted, the briefest of music cues isn’t exactly a wealth of information to go on, but creator/showrunner Leslye Headland and her creative team wouldn’t have thrown in such an overt and recognizable theme for no reason. On the surface, the parallels between the Knights of Ren and Qimir are plain to see. His chosen outfit certainly matches what we’ve seen of Kylo Ren’s groupies, while his refusal to play by the “rules” (as Charlie Barnett’s Jedi Yord puts it to Osha at one point) similarly hints at the same reckless grasp of the Force that Kylo Ren displayed time and again.
Now, the question is what this could mean moving forward.
