Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's twist that Rey (Daisy Ridley) is the granddaughter of Emperor Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) was set up by Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Although the scene in Takodana when Maz passed the Skywalkers' blue lightsaber to Rey was originally implied to be about Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) coming back to fight the First Order, The Rise of Skywalker has retconned that moment to subtly imply the return of the evil Emperor.
It's no secret that the Star Wars sequel trilogy underwent several course corrections after director J.J. Abrams took back the director's chair from Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Abrams set up several mysteries in The Force Awakens, including the pivotal question about why Rey is so powerful in the Force. In The Last Jedi, Johnson established that Rey's parents were "no one", implying that the scavenger from Jakku had no special heredity which was the source of her abilities. However, in The Rise of Skywalker, Abrams revealed that Rey is a Palpatine and that her grandfather, the Emperor, planned to use Rey as his vessel to transfer the powers of the Sith into so she could rule the galaxy as the new Empress.
Now that the ultimate truth about Rey's family legacy has been revealed, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker also retcons the crucial scene with Maz Kanata teasing Rey's destiny in The Force Awakens. After Rey, Finn (John Boyega), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) arrive at Takodana, Rey is called by Luke's lightsaber and she finds it in a chest beneath Maz's castle. The Jedi weapon sparks visions that give Rey a glimpse of Master Skywalker, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the Knights of Ren, and she hears the voices of Jedi ghosts Yoda (Frank Oz) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor). Maz then finds Rey and tells her:
"Dear child. I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But... there's someone who still could."
Thanks to The Rise of Skywalker's new context, Maz's words take on a more ominous note since she may have been referring to Emperor Palpatine as the one "coming back", not Luke Skywalker. In The Last Jedi, Rey found the Jedi Master in a voluntary exile on Ahch-To and she didn't find all of the training and mentorship she was searching for from Master Skywalker. Luke did intervene through the Force to battle Kylo Ren and help the Resistance escape the First Order on Crait, but since the real Luke was still on Ahch-To and died from the effort, this may not technically count as Luke officially "coming back".
But as Rey learned in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, her parents posed as "no one" in order to keep Rey safe from Palpatine's clutches, eventually hiding her on Jakku even as they were abducted. Since Rey was old enough to see her parents forcibly taken from her and leaving Jakku on a ship, this is what Maz meant that whoever Rey was waiting for, the scavenger knew deep down they were never coming back. Rey always dreamed of being reunited with her parents and she concocted stories about where they were - "Classified? Really. Me too. Big secret", as she told BB-8 when they met - but since she was attuned to the Force, Rey likely felt the truth about her parents' fate all along.
Although how Maz Kanata acquired Luke's lightsaber in the first place remains a plot hole, it's fascinating to look back now at The Force Awakens to see how well the mysteries that were posed sync up to the revelations in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, now the secrets of Rey's origins are known at last.
