Star Wars finally debuts character who's been in the shadows since Phantom Menace

The season finale of The Acolyte has arrived and with it, the live-action debut of a highly anticipated character.

It goes without saying that I’ll be imminently addressing spoilers so if you’re not up to date, now is the time to look away.

Yes, Darth Plagueis has arrived.

For quite some time now, many of us suspected that Darth Plagueis or Darth Tenebrous might make an appearance.

After all, someone had to teach Qimir the ways of the Dark Side.

The season finale confirmed that it was indeed Plagueis, or at least suggested it.

The matter of fact is that we didn’t see much of Plagueis at all. The character simply peeked out from a cave as Qimir and Osha departed on a ship bound for Brendok.

While the island they depart from remains unnamed in The Acolyte, it’s widely believed to be Bal’demnic - an island associated with both Plagueis and Tenebrous due to its abundance of cortosis ore.

ICYMI: We sat down with The Acolyte’s Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, and Rebecca Henderson.

The episode doesn’t reveal anything about Plagueis other than show him peering out of that cave.

Clearly though, given that he’s on the same remote island as Qimir, this is Qimir’s master.

While this is the first live-action appearance of Plagueis, canonical descriptions refer to him as a Muun with glowing red eyes.

That’s exactly what we see in this small scene so I don’t think there’s any room for debate here that it’s not him.

Plagueis has been lurking in the shadows of the franchise for quite some time.

It was in Revenge of the Sith that the character was first mentioned by Emperor Palpatine but, of course, Palpatine knew the character long before this.

Plagueis is a character set on creating a Sith Empire.

In the Legends timeline, he’s dead by the end of The Phantom Menace. It’s much more unclear in the canonical timeline but it’s obvious that Plagueis would’ve been pulling Palpatine’s strings going into The Phantom Menace.

Now this character is finally stepping into the light. We just need a season two renewal so we can learn more about this infamous Sith Lord.