Well, we’re finally here! The moment we’ve all been waiting for: the season finale of Star Wars: Reb— Hold on, what? This isn’t the season finale? The season finale’s next week? They just happened to have the duel between Maul and Obi-Wan, a revenge mission 18 years in the making, be the penultimate episode?
Oh, wow, the structure of this season is all out of whack. Still, let’s dive into our Five Thoughts below. Major spoiler warning.
1. Maul On Tattooine
This episode’s opening is very telling about what this episode was actually about. It’s hard not to see Maul’s quest for revenge as one big, cosmic joke being played on the former Sith. Maul is a character defined by the fact that the galaxy continues to just screw him over. He was felled by a Jedi Padawan in a moment of hubris. He was abandoned by his master. His attempts to gather a new army to challenge Sidious for the rule of the galaxy was cut short when his former master wiped the floor with him and killed his brother and held him hostage.
Maul is a joke. He has been, ever since he showed up as little more than a cool visual design in The Phantom Menace. In bringing him back through The Clone Wars and now Rebels, Dave Filoni continues to remind us of that. His quest for revenge against Kenobi has lead him to a wasteland where he wanders through the sands, yelling at nobody and realising he needs a kid to help him find Kenobi.
Star Wars has always had a flair for tragic irony, but Maul might embody that more than any other character.
2. This Message Is A Warning
So, how’s about that Obi-Wan Kenobi, huh? Relegated to a bit part in a Rebels episode instead of having a anthology film with Ewan McGregor. I kid, mostly. This episode actually utilised Obi-Wan very well, even though you can tell that the show regrets going this far down the rabbit hole with Maul (I’ll get to that in a bit). From having James Arnold Taylor as the young voice of Obi-Wan to Stephen Stanton as the older voice of Ben Kenobi, the blending of the 19 year gap is done very elegantly as a way of cementing Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor’s portrayals of the character.
Still, I do wish that much effort had gone into a Kenobi movie instead.
3. Oy, Ezra
Sorry, I’m going to have to complain about Ezra a bit more because this one really got on my tits. Nearly every episode is about Ezra learning some sort of lesson, right? He’s our audience avatar, we experience the world and the story through his eyes. So, why does the show continually have Ezra conveniently unlearn everything he’s been taught every episode in order to make the episode happen?
Like, this episode’s message was about focusing yourself on your purpose, helping your friends and family achieve something instead of abandoning them for a more personal pursuit. However, I feel like Ezra just dumping everything to go do something by himself is something we’ve already seen multiple times and when he returns to Chopper Base he’s not ever reprimanded? Hera specifically asks him to stay and prepare for the attack on Lothal and he disobeys her, running off on a whim, and she just welcomes him back? How is this kid still a lieutenant? Why does a 17 year old have a military rank in the Rebellion? When will this show actually do something new with Ezra?
4. Goodnight, Sweet Sith
I’ll admit: I was one of those people who watched the fight with Maul and Kenobi, excited for an epic final duel between the two, and was incredibly disappointed that it was over in seconds. Since then, the explanation of the meaning behind doing it that way and the exploration of the choreography has let me appreciate it a bit more, but it’s still a weird fight.
I think it comes from the fact that this is a scene that is entirely about visual storytelling on a level that we haven’t come to expect from Rebels. The way Rebels tells stories, you can tell a younger audience is much more in mind than, say, the later season of Clone Wars. The fight felt like it came from Clone Wars more than Rebels.
Continued belowIt was a fight that entirely played out in the look between Kenobi and Maul, each figuring out every move and parry and strike before a single step is even taken. It was a brave, divisive move to end this journey that has become something of a fan favourite with such a deliberate anti-climax. I hope we see this show take more risks like that in the future.
5. A Study In Storyline Regret
You ever get the feeling that people behind the storytelling are trying to pull the TV equivalent of “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m trying to remove it?” Because this is what this episode felt like to me. Dave Filoni revealed last year that the original plan for “Twilight Of The Apprentice” was for Darth Vader to kill Maul, but it was cut to simplify the narrative.
I feel like this episode in particular was their way of removing an element they regretted adding to the story. Obi-Wan tells Ezra that Maul lead him to Tattooine, “where [he] should never have been.” I have to wonder if the thinking behind this episode is that the people behind Rebels felt that tying the show’s narrative in Maul and his quest for revenge against Kenobi tied the show too much towards established characters and narratives instead of the crew of the Ghost.
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve felt like this season was lost it’s way a few times, and this seems to be an effort to course correct before the finale actually brings the Thrawn storyline to fruition. Hopefully this has at least been a learning experience.
