Anna Daniels
After he killed his father, massacred the remaining Jedi, and pledged his life to the First Order’s cause, nobody left The Last Jedi thinking that Kylo Ren could redeem himself in any possible way. Adam Driver, the man behind the villain, even said so himself in the lead-up to The Rise of Skywalker, claiming that Kylo couldn’t be redeemed at all. But in the end, The Rise of Skywalker changed its tune on that, too.
When Rey explains to Kylo during one of their many battles that she would’ve taken his hand and ruled the universe with him if he’d offered Ben Solo’s hand instead of Kylo Ren’s, the leader of the First Order clearly suffers a crisis of conscience, struggling to find a way back to his roots after years within the Dark Side. Ultimately, with a little help from Han, he re-emerges as a hero, fighting alongside Rey to take down the Emperor and even sacrificing his own life to revive Rey after the effort to defeat Palpatine kills her. Unfortunately for audiences, despite an unexpectedly layered performance from Driver, this plotline moves at warp speed and doesn’t feel particularly earned, especially after Kylo Ren seemed to commit to a lifetime of evil during The Last Jedi.
Written by: Looper
