Star Wars Rebels - Season 2 and 'Twilight of the Apprentice'

It's that man again.

So, I've now made it all the way through Season 2 of Star Wars Rebels, and holy crap is it a step up from Season 1. Season 1 wasn't terrible, but... damn.

Season 2 opens after the Siege of Lothal movie, in which Darth Vader handed our heroes their asses in a sack, and much of it follows the small rebel fleets attempts to find refuge and supplies. It also develops the non-Jedi characters a lot. Zeb encounters a group of Lasat refugees and becomes an almost messianic figure from the folklore he has abandoned, while Sabine has a run in with an old partner from her bounty hunting days and Hera is forced to ask her staunchly planetarist father for assistance with stealing a carrier he would rather see destroyed.

We get some new characters as well, as Ahsoka sends the crew of the Ghost to recruit three aging clone troopers who refused Order 66 back in the day. On another return trip to Lothal, the crew even run into a certain royal diplomat from Alderaan. On the other side of the line, with the Grand Inquisitor gone, several of his associates, in particular the hulking Fifth Brother and predatory Seventh Sister take up the chase. There is even character development among the Imperials, as Agent Kallus gets caught in an enemy mine situation with Zeb, revealing much of his background, including both an early run in with a Lasat who massacred his squad, and that his bo rifle was given to him by a Lasat he defeated in single combat, not seized as a trophy from the fallen.

Hell, the astromech droid Chopper even gets his own hero for a day episode in which he gets left behind and befriends an Imperial inventory droid every bit as surly and gleefully sociopathic as he is.

Back in the days of the Old Republic, when everything was shiny.

And this is not to say that the Jedi get no development. Kanan continues to train Ezra, who also begins to find his own way, with a particular gift for contacting the minds of animals. Concerned that the Inquisitors keep finding them, they travel to a Jedi temple to meditate, where Ezra encounters Master Yoda and is told to seek out Malachor and Ahsoka realises the true identity of Vader. Most importantly, perhaps, Kanan confronts a Jedi Temple Guard who tells him that if he fights Vader and the Inquisitors, he will fail and Ezra will fall to the Dark Side. When Kanan ultimately submits to the Guard he is declared a Jedi Knight and the Guard reveals that he is the Force Spirit of the Grand Inquisitor.

This leads on to the final double episode, 'Twilight of the Apprentice', in which Ahsoka, Kanan and Ezra travel to Malachor and find a subterranean complex where the participants in a great battle have been turned to stone, leaving only their lightsabers. As Kanan and Ahsoka pursue an Inquisitor named Eighth Brother, Ezra encounters an old man who gives his name as Old Master. He leads Ezra to the Sith temple at the heart of the complex, and encourages the boy to embrace his passions to give him the strength to lift its doors. As they travel, he constantly assures Ezra that the only way to defeat the Sith is to think and act like them. Once Ezra reveals his own name, the Old Master gives his: Maul.

Kanan and Ahsoka battle the Inquisitors, reaching the temple just as Ezra and Maul emerge with the temple's treasure, a Sith holocron holding all knowledge of the Sith and acting as a key to activate the temple. In uneasy truce, they set out to the temple summit. Ezra and Maul are separated from the others. Maul force chokes Seventh Sister and encourages Ezra to strike her down, killing her when Ezra refuses. Maul then sends Ezra on while he returns to help the others. He kills Fifth Brother and Eighth dies when he tries to use his damaged lightsaber as a helicopter (because apparently they can do that.)

Symbolism!

Naturally, at this point Maul declares Ezra his apprentice and turns on the Jedi even as Ezra activates the temple, in actuality a Sith battle station of vast power. Ezra tells the temple's intelligence that he seeks knolwedge. What is knowledge? this presence asks rhetorically. Knowledge is power.

Maul blinds Kanan and duels Ahsoka. Kanan dons the mask of a fallen Temple Guard, however, and although fighting blind sends Maul toppling off the temple. In terms of Jedi intuition vs. Sith aggression, I reckon this one counts as a score draw.

Vader comes to take control of the station, effortlessly repelling Ezra's assault. Ahsoka fights Vader and Kanan and Ezra deactivate the station together before retreating to the ship. Ahsoka sends them away as the temple seals, vowing not to leave Anakin again. Vader, half his mask destroyed, tells her that she will die then.

As we close out the season, Vader leaves the temple ruin and we seem to see Ahsoka pass within it. Maul flees Malachor. Kanan and Ezra return to their friends to mourn, but in the last moments the Sith holocron, that no Jedi could access, opens in Ezra's hands.

Season 2 is a huge improvement over Season 1, as I said, but with 'Twilight of the Apprentice' Rebels really knocks it out the park again. It's hard-edged, brutal and dark, but with a touch of the humour and humanity that lifts the main season.