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It's hard to say whether The Acolyte will get a second season; viewership figures, while not officially revealed by Disney, are thought to be lower than previous Star Wars TV shows. Plus, the sheer level of negativity from some fans will have done little to help matters (the finale had a 3.7/10 IMDb rating hours before it premiered).
If today's finale is where we leave things, though, it won't be too hard to fill in the gaps...specifically with how it sets the stage for the Star Wars movies.
In previous episodes, we learned that Mae and Osha aren't twins; instead, the Force-wielding coven of witches led by Mother Aniseya managed to use a vergence - a naturally occurring concentration of Force energy localized around a place, object, or person - to create life. However, it may not have gone quite to plan as the "sisters" are the same consciousness split in two.
As we explained in our recap, when Osha and Qimir leave to track down Mae, an ancient-looking hooded alien is shown watching them from a nearby cave; we can now quite confidently say that this is the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis.
While he'd only be around 20 in the Expanded Universe/Legacy canon, Disney is clearly making some changes here and whether he's a rival Sith or The Stranger's secret Master remains to be seen. However, his presence is massively important to the wider Star Wars franchise.
It's been established that Plagueis was obsessed with immortality and eventually figured out how to use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life and save others from death. Ultimately, his final apprentice, one Sheev Palpatine, murdered the Sith Lord in his sleep before he could fully learn those secrets.
The insinuation here is that, if we assume Plagueis is currently Qimir's Master, he wants either Mae or Osha so he can study them and finally crack the code of how to create life; after all, how better to do so than with a being made through the Force?
Turning one or both to the Dark Side was likely a bonus and, depending on how much Disney borrows from the previous canon, we'd imagine this is all part of Plagueis' plan to rule the Galaxy as an immortal (he later tries and fails to create a Force Dyad with Palpatine, something Mae and Osha very likely are).
So, yes, it's the power those witches tapped into which inspires or plays a significant role in Plagueis' eventual creation of Anakin Skywalker, a mighty Force user designed to be the perfect Sith eventually taught and corrupted by Palpatine for his own selfish means.
Palpatine is, in many ways, a flawed successor to his Master as he not only failed to create life (as far as we're aware) but was forced to transfer his essence into cloned bodies after death, confirming Plagueis' secrets about restoring the dead died with him. Of note, though, is the fact Exegol was also home to a vergence, suggesting the Emperor at least tried to tap into that same power before restoring himself by draining Rey and Ben Solo's Force Dyad energy.
The Acolyte's finale also explains why the Jedi were unaware of the Sith's return in The Phantom Menace; Vernestra Rwoh, clearly concerned about the Senate's desire to disband the Jedi (thereby putting the Galaxy at risk), covers up what's happened by framing Sol, but does approach Master Yoda as the episode ends.
This presumably means he was aware of this reemergence of Dark Side users, likely helping cover it up. Alternatively, a future season may reveal that he believed these new Sith were defeated, with Plagueis perhaps rising from the dead to continue his mission in secret or allowing Qimir and Osha to be killed, with Yoda then believing Vernestra's fallen pupil is where this Sith threat ends.
So, when all is said and done, The Acolyte ties into the Star Wars movies in several important ways. While the necessity of this story will likely be long debated, it adds further context to certain Force abilities, the origin of the Skywalker line, and how Jedi arrogance - and fear - was ultimately the Order's undoing.
It also set the stage for a bold new take on Plagueis because we see now that Palpatine was almost certainly not his first follower...