Maybe if Johnson had leaned into this and created some kind of more immediate threat or tension, this would work. I could imagine seeing the workings of a coup. That would have been really interesting and *would* have placed that destabilization at the forefront. The movie didn't do any of that.

Embarrassed but powerful Kylo is a thing, but what is the urgency, threat, or necessity? Again, it's a possibility for where the story might go, but that's not what narrative urgency means or what 2nd acts are built on.