Leslye Headland Reveals That Choice of Kylo Ren’s Musical Theme for Qimir Wasn’t Random at All

Last week’s episode 5 was perhaps the high point of ‘The Acolyte.’ The show revealed who Mae’s master was, it featured plenty of action and heartbreaking death sequences for some of the most notable characters, and of course, it featured some easter eggs.

One of the major easter eggs in the episode was Kylo Ren’s musical score during Qimir’s reveal.

Naturally, the connection between Kylo Ren and The Stranger cannot be straightforward one since ‘The Acolyte’ is a prequel to prequels and takes place more than a hundred years before Kylo Ren’s “reign.” My colleague described the significance of the theme in his analysis, and plenty of fans assumed that the choice of theme might be completely random.

In her latest interview with Inverse, Leslye Headland, creator of the show, explained that the choice wasn’t random at all, but she cannot spill the beans on its significance.

Ah, wish I could. It is there on purpose, but I can’t tell you why, and I can’t go into what it is. But you shall see.

The original theory was that while Qimir cannot have direct ties to Kylo Ren, he does have a connection to the Knights of Ren, a faction of Dark Side adherents following the Ren philosophy.

Perhaps Qimir is the originator of the philosophy? That remains to be seen. Leslye Headland did explain that we will find out more about The Stranger in the coming episodes, notably episodes 6 & 8, and in the same interview, she confirmed what we can expect:

I would say all the dots start connecting. The synapses start firing, especially after the switch between mentors for Episode 6 and going into Episode 7 and 8. There’s more action; there’s more lightsabers. It’s got a lot of the stuff that we’ve already had, but if there’s anything different about the second half of the season, it’s darker. It gets increasingly more emotional.

Where we had to start big in the first half of this season to, again, build that world, like, “Here’s where we are. Here are a bunch of new people. There are no references to other Star Wars media.” Now, in the second half of the season, the pieces are all on the board. Now they’re going to start making moves that are going to inform an endgame, and I think that always ends up being pretty emotional at the end of the season or the end of any story.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!