Then there’s the idea of Luke as the Chosen One instead of Anakin. He dies thinking that there is still a hope for the Sith, and he dies with his greatest enemy as the only one to mourn him. Instead, he’s looking for what he always wanted: revenge and the rise of the Sith. In death, Maul is no longer looking for Obi-Wan. I love that Obi-Wan shifts through all the major lightsaber forms he’s known for, moving as if through the different stages of his life before ending on an archetypical Jedi stance.Īnd I love the sudden shift at the end. And of course Obi-Wan would win the battle of wills he’s been spending his time in the desert perfecting a patient, defensive zen, while Maul is still subject to the whim of his own emotions. The two clearly do some mental chess before the battle, shifting through different stances as if already having the duel in their heads. However, there’s so much to unpack that I hardly mourn the loss of a fight scene. It’s hard not to think of the speed of the duel as a requirement to comply with the show’s runtime.
Instead, we get a short duel and the revelation that both Obi-Wan and Maul think of Luke as the Chosen One. We’ve already seen the grand rematch between Maul and Obi-Wan, because that was in The Clone Wars, too. The episode also puts the emphasis on Luke instead of on Maul’s revenge, and that’s fine.
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Now, the show is free to focus on Lothal in the finale, and Maul’s story has come to a satisfying end.Įspecially near the beginning when Maul is using Ezra as bait, this episode shows Maul as the tactician he was in The Clone Wars. Star Wars Rebelsalways had some trouble balancing its original characters and saga characters, and including Ezra right up until the end is a good compromise. It’s probably time for Maul to be shuffled off stage at last, but doing it this way made his death feel like a significant part of both the Star Wars saga and Ezra’s story. In general, watching this episode gave me the feeling of watching really good fan fiction happen on screen.
(I still don’t love Sam Witwer’s take on an aged Darth Maul, but that’s an … old wound.) Actor Stephen Stanton does an Alec Guinness impression that isn’t watertight, but sounds similar enough that I felt like I was watching A New Hope again. As soon as we meet him, though, it’s easy to tell that this is a person with weighty history and a balanced, serene outlook.
Near the beginning of the episode, the only sign of Obi-Wan is his disembodied voice saying “I regret, I regret,” as if all he has is his name and his loss. He shows some uncharacteristic altruism, but it’s Ezra’s grief that really sells Chopper as someone worth rooting for. Encountering a Jedi Master of Obi-Wan’s caliber, even briefly, is a life-changing experience. I rolled my eyes a bit when Ezra butted heads with older, more experienced soldiers yet again, but the writing for Obi-Wan is convincing enough that Ezra’s change of heart at the end of the episode feels earned.
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