WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7 episode "Dangerous Debt," streaming now on Disney+.
The specialty of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has always been the ability to shine a spotlight on the side characters, those on the fringes of a scene or who only ever received a few lines of dialogue before. Whether it's the Clone Troopers who serve as the foot soldiers to the main conflict, the seldom-seen Jedi who rarely had their own chance to play a hero in the main plot, or the frightful foes fighting against the side of good rather than for it there are always new characters for The Clone Wars to explore. And in the show's latest episode, "Dangerous Debt," they shine a spotlight on some of the casualties the conflict has brought.
The latest arc in the series primarily revolves around the Martez sisters, an engineer and prospective pilot Trace and her older sister the gambler Rafa, who both live in the lower rings of Coruscant scraping by a living. When Ahsoka crosses paths with the Martez sisters she keeps her Jedi background a secret because after she left the Order she's been needing to do some soul searching and the duo offer san adventure with the perfect opportunity to do so. But they also bring along some new perspectives.
During "Dangerous Debt," it's revealed just why the Martez sisters have emphasized their independence and repugnance for the Jedi all this time. The story they tell is one that's actually familiar to The Clone Wars fans, as the plot described is from the finale to the first season of the show. Ziro the Hutt tries to escape justice with the aid of a red-eyed bounty hunter who blasts a transport in order to create a distraction. The Jedi in pursuit are forced to redirect the damaged transport away from a populated platform and, apparently, right into the Martez family home.
The incident orphaned the Martez sisters, killing their parents and leaving them to decide they would no longer live lives dependent on either criminals or Jedi. Rafa tells how just after the incident a "green-skinned alien in dark robes" offered her condolences by saying that the Force would be with them. Finding little comfort in the sentiment, the two sisters instead spurned all things related to the upper rings of Coruscant in general and the Jedi in particular.
Breaking down the sisters' story, any keen-eyed viewer may be able to spot just who the oblique references were aimed at. In the same story where Ziro fled justice, it was Cad Bane who protected her, making him the red-eyed alien. The description of the green-skinned Jedi also matches Luminara Unduli, the Master of Barriss Offee who formerly turned on the Jedi out of the belief that they were no in actuality serving for the betterment of the Galaxy. Offee's story compliments the Martez sisters' in as much it shows just how misguided the Jedi are, and that there are consequences to their actions they do not seem to fully consider when taking up arms in defense of the innocent.
While the Martez sisters seem like a distraction from the overall plot of The Clone Wars, as the titular conflict and the looming Mandalorian Civil War seem like higher stakes far more demanding of attention, the backstory does help flesh out one of the things the series does best: giving a voice to the little guy. Star Wars almost always focuses on the epic journeys of a hero torn between good and evil, but it's The Clone Wars which most often thinks to pay attention to the areas of grey between those extremes. As the final season of the show starts to wind toward a finale, it's nice to see that throughout all seven seasons it retained the same spirit fans first fell for.
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. A new episode arrives each Friday.