Star Wars Officially Confirms The Acolyte’s Kylo Ren Setup

January 28, 2026, 11:30am

The Acolyte may have been canceled, but Star Wars has just confirmed one of the biggest theories about Leslye Headland’s High Republic TV series. Set decades before the Star Wars prequel trilogy, The Acolyte introduced viewers to the end of the golden age of the Jedi and the Republic. This was a time when the Sith still operated within the shadows, gradually amassing power and influence. Surprisingly, The Acolyte also featured a new would-be Sith known as the Stranger whose place in the lineage of the Rule of Two was more than a little uncertain.

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The Acolyte may have been canceled, but it still has something of a committed fanbase. Lucasfilm has recently published The Art of The Acolyte in some territories, and it reveals a lot more about the mysterious Sith Lord played by Manny Jacinto. Apparently nicknamed “Frank” by the crew because of the sinister grin on the Stranger’s mask, which Headland describes as “a collaboration of at least four departments – creatures, costumes, the stunt team, and visual effects – working together.” More importantly, though, the helmet was also designed as a clue to the Stranger’s true nature.

The Stranger’s Mask Was Designed As a Kylo Ren Clue

According to The Art of The Acolyte, the Stranger’s mask was deliberately designed to evoke the helmet worn by Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy. Creature artist Nick Tyrell illustrated the winning design, described as “a rough-hewn and flat-faced bucket with breathing apparatus bent into a sneer and two tiny slits for eyes. The slight frill at the back of the helmet – a design element that dates back to the franchise’s samurai influence and notably first seen in Vader’s design – hints at a link between the Stranger and the Star Wars sequel trilogy’s masked antagonist Kylo Ren, an idea storytellers took from the design.”

“It felt like it foreshadowed a possible connection to the Knights of Ren with the Kylo Ren shape we landed on,” Leslye Headland confirmed. “We just started to go in that direction. It was in the design of the character, as well as knowing that we were going to introduce Darth Plagueis, who has to end up with Palpatine as his apprentice. Following the Rule of Two – a precept that limited the Sith to just two at any given time, a master and an apprentice – one way to keep it going is if the Stranger is the first knight of Ren, part of a Sith-adjacent culture that we know eventually survives.”

Viewers had noticed that composer Michael Abels added a musical cue to The Acolyte that deliberately evoked Kylo Ren’s theme from the sequels. According to The Art of The Acolyte, this was a deliberate decision intended to underscore the connection. “And since we never name him,” Headland continues in the book, “you don’t know: Does he have a first name and then his last name is Ren? Is he the original Ren? It’s a good way to nod to it without having to give away too much information.”

Will Star Wars Canon Commit to this Kylo Ren Connection?

This Kylo Ren connection would make sense. Star Wars has been gradually revealing more about the Knights of Ren since the sequels; we now know they were indeed Sith-adjacent, but tended to be looked down upon by the Sith, who considered them lacking in power. The Knights of Ren do indeed predate the Star Wars prequel trilogy, but they weren’t ever really encountered because they tended to remain on the Outer Rim and outside Republic space. They had a tense relationship with the Empire, even briefly helping Crimson Dawn launch an attack on the Sith of the Dark Times.

In The Acolyte, the Stranger did not actually claim to be a Sith Lord; rather, he said that the Jedi would consider him to be a Sith. We know that the balance of the Force was shifting towards the end of the High Republic Era, leading to the emergence of many dark side cults, and it’s entirely possible the Stranger simply stumbled upon a Sith holocron and established his own Force cult. The Acolyte‘s Darth Plagueis cameo may well have shown Plagueis checking out the potential rival to his lineage. Alternatively, it is also possible the Stranger was a failed Sith Apprentice, believed dead and now discovered.

This, then, was The Acolyte‘s intention. Unfortunately, the Star Wars TV show was canceled before any of the details were actually spelled out, meaning it shouldn’t really be considered canon. It’s possible future tie-ins, perhaps novels or comics, will reveal some of the secrets of the Sith hinted at in The Acolyte.

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