The single greatest thing about “The Lawless” is, even with all of the other series-changing drama that occurred, is Darth Sidious coming in to lay down the law. He is The Sith and he has let Maul and Savage play around long enough. Causing the crisis on Mandalore, taking over a planet with bigger plans in store, and attracting the attention of the Jedi were too much. Maul is also very inconvenient to Sidious’s long-term schemes.
It was a great way for the late Ian Abercrombie to end his time on the show. He totally nailed it with Sidious. If you told me that was Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld, I’d never believe you.
Obi-Wan is drawn out to Mandalore to rescue Satine. It doesn’t go well and several bad shots later, the Twilight is destroyed. Therefore no one will ever ask Dave Filoni again what happened to the Twilight. Satine and Obi-Wan are captured. Darth Maul makes the classic evil overlord mistake of not killing Obi-Wan right away but he decides that as long as he’s keeping Obi-Wan around, he’s going to make Obi-Wan suffer. So Maul kills Satine with his cortosis sword. As Satine lays dying, she confesses her undying love for Obi-Wan. To which Obi-Wan responds, “…..” I have a dark sense of humor so I thought it was kind of funny that Obi-Wan doesn’t even say an “I know” to that one. I realize the idea was to contrast Obi-Wan’s stiff upper lip with Anakin’s OMG-I-gotta-do-whatever-it-takes-to-save-Padme in ROTS (or Vaderkin’s “Nooooo” and resulting freakout after Padme’s death) and Obi-Wan appeared sad, but good golly, that is one repressed guy. It is interesting to note the only time Obi-Wan ever admits to his own feelings is when he’s watching Vaderkin go up in flames. I’ll let the shrinks sort that one out.
Obi-Wan is rescued by Bo-Katan and her band of Mandalorian rebels. Much fighting and battling ensue. There’s one cool shot where Obi-Wan opens a door and there’s all of this carnage going on outside. Oh and did anyone else catch the Mandalorian who has Jango’s accent? That was a neat little touch reconnecting the Fetts with Mandalore.
But the Sith gets real when Sidious heads out to Mandalore to confront Maul and Savage. By this time, I was cheering for Sidious because Maul needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Everyone gets out their red lightsabers and it’s an epic three-way battle that’s so epic, many fan heads around the world exploded from its sheer awesomeness. I mean, we’ve never seen an inter-Sith battle like this before.
Sidious dispatches Savage and you can see the dark magic leaving his body as he’s dying. Savage wasn’t nearly as evil as his brother; he was kind of a dumb guy who got the Lance Armstrong treatment from a witch with an agenda. And he admits as much to Maul. Defeated, Maul is treated to Sidious’s all-powerful electroshock therapy. Yet Sidious refuses to kill Maul. Perhaps another evil overlord mistake but Sidious tells him that he has plans for his former apprentice. Hmm, what could that be?
With Bo-Katan’s help, Obi-Wan is able to escape Mandalore but not before Bo-Bo tells him to let the Republic know what’s going on. Obi-Wan then reveals that Bo-Katan is Satine’s sister and (exactly in the same tone he uses with Padme in ROTS) tells her, “I’m so sorry.” Interesting that Bo-Katan was trying to remove her sister from power. Oh well, she learned the hard way that when you lie down with the dogs you wake up with fleas that murder your family members and your leader.
This episode just reminds you how stupid the Emmys are for ignoring this show’s brilliance. It stinks that so much of the talent behind Clone Wars seldom if ever receives any recognition outside of fandom and a couple of champions in the media. Everything from voice talent to writing to animation was firing on all cylinders. Can you really say that about other t.v. shows these days?
Tags: Clone Wars
February 5, 2013 at 7:06 pm |
Great sum up and Review. Agreed best episode of the clone wars ever. It was awesome and epic!!!!
February 6, 2013 at 1:58 pm |
Like I said in my own review, as blunt and horrifying as Satine’s death was, I just couldn’t help but laugh because “Moulin Rouge!” was the only thing I could think of.
February 6, 2013 at 7:26 pm |
That came to my mind too: a character from a Ewan McGregor movie falls in love with a character named after a love interest in another Ewan McGregor movie. Trivia: both “Moulin Rouge” and “Attack of the Clones” were filmed on the same studio set and McGregor would work on both films on the same day.