As March came to a close, so too did the second season of Disney’s Star Wars: Rebels. Much like The Clone Wars, the second season of Rebels has been far superior to the show’s premier season. Between the exciting adventures, the character development (I can’t wait to see how Agent Kallus evolves in season 3) and some really jaw-dropping lore-related moments (I still get goosebumps thinking about the music that played when the crew made their way to Lasan, as well as whenever Ahsoka and Rex talked about their time serving together in the Clone Wars) it’s safe to say that Rebels season 2 was a success.
The season finale, “Twilight of the Apprentice” promised fans big moments, paramount of which was a showdown that was technically eight years in the making.
The showdown between Ahsoka and Anakin-turned-Vader has been haunting my Star Wars-related imagination since it was revealed that Ahsoka survived Order 66 and joined the Rebellion at the end of Rebel’s first season.
Due to the fact that we never see Ahsoka in the later films either meant that she would eventually perish (probably, and appropriately by Vader’s hand), or she would just fade into obscurity as an exile. My money was on the former.
While Ahsoka and Vader did indeed clash lightsabers in the finale episode, their fight was surprisingly not the main focus of the episode. Instead an unlikely partnership between Ezra and (surprise!) Darth Maul, took center stage.
Maul appeared to Ezra once the young Jedi became separated from Ahsoka and Kanan. Hooded and cloaked, Maul seemed frail and weak at first, but that was just a disguise in an attempt to seduce Ezra to the Dark Side of The Force. We’ve seen Ezra question his own stance here and there, but this was the first time that a true Dark Side figure literally took him by the hand and offered him tutelage.
Maul was also reformed, denying allegiance to the Empire due to how much the Empire and the Emperor, Maul’s former master, took from him. So when the season’s Sith baddies show up, Maul joined forces with the three Jedi and they all duke it out across Malachor’s ruins.
Beyond the silly helicopter-like escapes that the Sith were using to get around, I found the lightsaber battles exciting, well-choreographed, and just long enough to be exciting without stretching on for too long. The battles came in bouts and peaked when Maul dispatched the three Sith and then turned on Kanan, blinding him.
Kanan’s loss of vision was, in my opinion, the only real loss of the episode. Maul gets away, Ezra and Kanan get away, Vader gets away (there was no doubt that he would), and at the end of the episode we see Ahsoka walking down into the temple after her fight with Vader.
The finale just left too much hanging, even going so far as to bring in a new element (Maul) and give us a cliffhanger ending for him too.
Now this is where I feel conflicted the most: did I want Maul to die? No. Did I want Ahsoka/Kanan/Ezra to die? Of course not. So the finale put me in a weird, emotional purgatory of wanting to get a conclusive episode without wanting any deaths.
“Twilight of the Apprentice” sets things up pretty nicely for season 3. It is clear that Maul will be the new antagonist, Ahsoka is still alive (if she was going to die they would have made it clear she died, Rebels isn’t fooling anyone), Kanan is blind but is still a capable warrior, and Ezra has a new Sith trinket that is bound to be the source of plenty of trouble come this fall when Rebels returns.
I’m looking forward to learning more about season 3 at this year’s Star Wars Weekends at Disney World where they will undoubtedly have some of the show’s actors and creators on-hand. Expect to hear more about Rebels season 3 in the coming months.
