WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7, streaming now on Disney+.
The final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been a slow burn, kicking off with two arcs that took their time to introduce new characters, flesh out old ones and build the tension for a climax worthy of the show's triumphant return. With the finale now fast-approaching, what better way could the show hype up the conclusion to its story than to harken back to The Empire Strikes Back? The latest episode does just that, and does so beautifully.
Much of the episode centers around the relationship between Darth Maul and Ahsoka Tano, as the former Jedi padawan takes charge of apprehending Maul on Mandalore while the fallen Sith Lord scrambles to recover from a miscalculation. Maul did not expect Ahsoka to be the one to apprehend him at all. His entire scheme had been a trap for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, but Maul has always been one to make evil lemonade out of evil lemons.
Ahsoka's arrival only presents Maul with a new opportunity: Convince her to join him, and ally themselves against the looming threat of Darth Sidious. His reveal of Sidious' machinations being behind the entire Clone Wars conflict comes as a bombshell, and the impending fall of the Republic he warns of inspires fear in nobody more so than Maul himself. His offer of an alliance proves surprisingly tempting, and verges just on the edge of sounding like a familiar Star Wars line: "Join me, and together we can rule the Galaxy as father and son."
Quite similarly to The Clone Wars' latest episode, the second installment in the original trilogy held an iconic moment for the franchise in which Darth Vader offers the hero Luke Skywalker an alliance of his own. The offer comes on the coattails of the reveal Vader is actually Luke's father, and enhancing the drama of it all is the bottomless expanse yawning beneath the characters.
All those same elements are present for The Clone Wars' moment, and the effect is just the same. Darth Maul extends out his hand, Ahsoka's resolve tightens and she refuses. An interesting twist on the familiar scene is that Ahsoka turns the tables. Whereas in Empire the hero retreated from the fight by falling down the expanse beneath them, in The Clone Wars, Ahsoka wins her fight and sends Maul tumbling below.
But as ever, Maul's plummet to near-certain doom does not end in his death. Instead Ahsoka seizes him with the Force and Maul begs her to let him go, too afraid to face the wrath of Sidious that is to come. Allied clone troopers arrive to bind and stun Maul, and they cart him away, but Ahsoka is left wondering about his foreboding words and the delicate state of the world ahead of her.
This is the first time that the timeline of The Clone Wars crosses into that of the Prequel Era's final film Revenge of the Sith. Count Dooku's death at Anakin's hand at the start of the film is reported in The Clone Wars, and Maul warns Ahsoka about Sidious grooming her former master as his new apprentice. Just like Empire, the true power of the moment isn't even in the immediate power or perfection of how the scene is set up, but in the excitement it promises for what is to come.
Streaming on Disney+, the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars stars Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker, Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano, Dee Bradley Baker as Captain Rex and the clone troopers, James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan and Sam Witwer as Maul.