So what was his plan? **SPOILERS**

Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

Was I seeing things, or did Palpatine have a fish tank full of Snoke clones?

Plan A was him counting on Ren to betray him, then confront him with Rey so he could absorb their life force

Plan B Rey shows up alone, she kills him, and he takes her body over

Plan B almost succeeded until Ren showed up, thus unknowingly putting The Emperor's plan A into affect. Unfortunately for him plan A didn't work out so well

As for Snoke wanting Rey dead is confusing. Perhaps Snoke was making a power play against Palpatine. Without her Palpatine could never reach full power again

Same as Kennedy and Abram's plan for the sequel trilogy. No plan, just winging it while hoping the fans won't notice.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-palpatines-final-order-rise-skywalker-explained-1264714?fbclid=IwAR1U624bqeAD6FhM6HtrYlaku178OGrCoRmBJkMM10pdoJm4sOW1rKeR7VM

Don't worry, JJ and Chris Terrio have all of this figured out thoroughly and in a highly cohesive fashion.

He noted that both of them together generated some kind of extreme life force.

I think he wanted both of them to live and take command while he told them what to do in the background.

I got the impression that all of the events were orchestrated by Palpatine for the express purpose of driving the two together to him so he could extract the life force from both of them.

It seems having Snoke attempt to kill Rey was the first step in having them work together as a team and develop an empathy for each other.

Palpatine would have known asking Kylo to kill Rey would have driven her to him and that Kylo would eventually pursue her to help.

I can see how it could have all been a part of his plan.