"To defeat your enemy, you have to understand them."
— Ahsoka Tano
Kanan, Ezra and Ahsoka journey to Malachor to find out how to destroy the Inquisitors, only to run into one. But this new Inquisitor is on the planet searching for someone else... someone Ezra runs into when he gets separated from the others.
Tropes:
- Apocalypse How: Something wiped out Malachor during the battle between the Jedi and Sith, leaving the corpses in place Pompeii-style. The bodies even look like they're shielding themselves from something... This also has to be the cause of the paper-thin shell that is the planet's surface, with the real surface dozens of meters below. All There in the Manual clarifies the general circumstances.
- Artifact of Doom: Ezra activates the Sith holocron holder and receives the holocron. It seems that the holocron is sentient.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The Jedi trio sought knowledge. The Old Master knows the way.
- Beneath the Earth: There is very little on the surface of Malachor besides some sort of rock that is sensitive to the touch of Force users. The surface cracks underneath it when Ezra touches it, revealing an underworld of a petrified battlefield surrounding a Sith temple. Under there, the surface looks like a starry night sky, the cracks revealing light from the above world.
- Big Damn Heroes: Inverted: from the Eighth Brother's perspective, the arrival of the Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother could be construed as this.
- Big Entrance: The Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister fly in using their lightsabers as helicopters, which as far as new powers go is a good way to make an entrance.
- The Bus Came Back: The Old Master, or, should we say Darth Maul, after his last appearances in The Clone Wars and the comic Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir.
- Call-Back:
- Rex repeats his "experience outranks everything" motto to Ahsoka, which he told her all the way back in the Clone Wars pilot movie. In contrast to that scene, however, Ahsoka replies that in that case she now outranks Rex.
- When Ezra accuses him of being a Sith, Maul recalls how the Sith (specifically Sidious) ruined his life by taking him from his mother and killing his brother, as well as using him as a Living Weapon before casting him aside, leaving him with nothing.
- Ahsoka recognizes Maul, presumably having last seen him escaping the Venator in the final days of the Clone Wars.
- Ezra is still using "Jabba" as an alias.
- Maul also acts as a supportive, wise old man befriending an impressionable young Jedi with trust issues between himself and his mentor whilst secretly manipulating him, exactly like Darth Sidious did to Anakin.
- As with the Jedi temple, the Sith temple requires two to open it, Master and Apprentice.
- Call-Forward:
- The crossguard lightsaber designs influenced Kylo Ren's lightsaber design, seeing as he designed his after an artifact from the "Scourge of Malachor", according to the Visual Dictionary.
- Maul plays the part of an old man offering to help the disbelieving young Jedi-to-be, like Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. He even says things like "Please put your weapon away. I mean you no harm," and walks with a cane before showing how badass he is with a lightsaber.
- Canon Immigrant: This episode revives the Sith creed first shown in the Knights of the Old Republic games. Maul uses it to teach/tempt Ezra, telling him his passion gives him strength, which he can use to break his chains.
- Combat Pragmatist: The new Inquisitor has a lightsaber and good combat skills like the others, but like the Seventh Sister also uses technology to help him fight. In this case, bombs.
- Commonality Connection: Both Ezra and Maul have lost people they cared about to the Empire/Sith.
- Continuity Nod: Ahsoka says that "There's always a bit of truth in legends." At the end of "The Big Bang" from the Crystal Crisis arc, Yoda also said to Anakin that "In legends, we always find great truths," regarding a possible plan by the Sith to use kyber crystals to power a superweapon in the near future.
- Contrived Coincidence: Ezra happens to fall into the area of the temple that Maul has been hanging out in.
- Cool Old Guy: Strangely, Darth Maul acts as one towards Ezra.
- The Corrupter: Darth Maul convinces Ezra to lean towards the Dark Side of the Force.
- Curse Cut Short: Ezra's snarky retort to Kanan's koan gets cut off by the Eighth Brother's attack.Kanan: If it's a riddle, then what's the question?
Ezra: Why is Kanan such a— GET DOWN! [shoves Kanan aside to block the Eighth Brother's lightsaber] - Cruel and Unusual Death: Thousands of people in the Sith temple were turned into stone statues.
- Double-Meaning Title:
- The title of apprentice can refer to Ahsoka, former apprentice to Anakin; Ezra, apprentice to Kanan; Kanan, former apprentice to Depa; Old Master/Darth Maul, former apprentice to Sidious; Vader, former apprentice to Obi-Wan as Anakin, and apprentice to Sidious; the Inquisitors, technically apprentices to Vader; and, finally, Ezra, briefly apprentice to Maul.
- Twilight is also the time between sunset and dusk in the evening, as well as the time between dawn and sunrise in the morning.
- Dramatic Irony: Ezra uses Jabba as an alias, unaware that Maul has actually fought and brought the actual Jabba under his heel. Hence why Maul is a little amused.
- Equipment Upgrade: At least from our perspective, the Inquisitors' lightsabers have gotten an upgrade, giving them limited flight.
- Evil Mentor: The Old Master is rather encouraging of Ezra's teetering to the Dark Side. Much of the advice he gives, such as "you must break your chains," is paraphrased from the Sith Code.
- Exact Words: Maul says he was a Force-wielder, though never a Jedi, so Ezra assumes (correctly) that he was a Sith. He responds that the Sith took everything from him and he wants to destroy them, which is true...
- The Faceless: The Eighth Brother's face is never revealed.
- False Friend: Darth Maul presents himself as a friend to Ezra, but plans to use him to his advantage.
- Fastball Special: Ezra and Maul use this trick to get the Sith holocron.
- Flat Character: The Eight Brother doesn't really have much of a personality other than being another Inquisitor in the way.
- Foil: The Sith Temple acts as one for the Jedi Temple on Lothal. Whereas on Lothal the Master puts his trust in his apprentice to see that they both make it safely out of the temple, here the temple is designed so that neither Master nor Apprentice can betray the other without trapping themselves inside.
- Follow the Chaos: While looking for Ezra, Kanan gets a clue when he sees the Sith Temple activating.Kanan: Why do I know Ezra's involved in this somehow?
- Foreshadowing: The petrified body that Kanan examines appears to be a masked Jedi Knight.
- Even if you don't recognize his voice, you can see Maul's golden eyes glinting under his hood before the reveal.
- Godzilla Threshold: Malachor has been forbidden to Jedi for thousands of years. The fact that Yoda ordered the Jedi trio to break that rule shows how dire the situation is.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: The green crossguard lightsaber contrasts against the darkness and red of the Malachor underworld.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Solo: A Star Wars Story confirms that, following the finale of The Clone Wars, Maul returned to his position as a crime lord. Now, five years later, he's alone and hunted by the Empire.
- Instant Flight: Just Add Spinning!: The Inquisitors demonstrate the ability to fly short distances by using their spinning sabers as helicopter rotors.
- In the End, You Are on Your Own: The Jedi trio are fully aware that for the sake of the others, they are going alone. In the event things go wrong, they will not be able to call for back-up, due to Malachor being off the grid. And even if they could, their ETA would be in two rotations (days), far too late to stop or save anything or anyone.
- Involuntary Group Split: Ezra is separated from Kanan and Ahsoka when the new Inquisitor breaks the floor under him, dropping him into even deeper regions of Malachor. Also counts as Locked Out of the Fight.
- Last Episode, New Character: The new Inquisitor and the Old Master.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Ahsoka says "There's always a bit of truth in legends," is she talking about the stories told in the Jedi Temple, or is she referencing Star Wars Legends? Especially since they're headed towards a Canon Immigrant.
- Metaphorically True: Deducing that the Old Master is a Force user but not a Jedi, Ezra quickly concludes that he must be a Sith. The Old Master then starts talking about how the Sith ruined his life, but never outright confirms that he is a Sith (since he would lose Ezra's trust). Technically, he's not a Sith, since he doesn't seem to completely adhere to their philosophy.
- Multi-Part Episode: The first part of the season finale.
- Mythology Gag:
- Maul recites a few lines from the Sith Code when teaching Ezra how to channel his emotions into power.
- Ezra finds a lightsaber that would be the model of Kylo Ren's lightsaber.
- Malachor and the battle that devastated it are nods to Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
- New Content Countdown Clock: A simple one appeared during the leadup to the finale.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Out of instinct, Ezra touches the surface rock even though Ahsoka tells him not to. It's too late; the surface underneath them begins to crack.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: The new Inquisitor stages an ambush by hiding in plain sight amongst the Pompeii-style corpse-statues.
- Now You Tell Me: Chopper warns Ezra that they might fall through the surface after they've already done so.
- Older Than They Look: Maul acts like a doddering old man for the first half of the episode to ingratiate himself with Ezra, and he's in his mid-fifties by this point, but he looks barely any different from when he appeared in The Clone Wars over fifteen years prior.
- Only the Worthy May Pass: Oddly enough, used by the Sith. The traps in the pyramid require two people working together, and give plenty of opportunities for one to betray the other, which the Sith would naturally take and be stopped. It's why Sidious wasn't able to access the holocron, and why Maul recruits Ezra to help him.
- Pet the Dog: A quick one; the Seventh Sister compliments the Eighth Brother on a good day's hunting, on the fact he's managed to get all of the Inquisitors' 3 main targets in the same place.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Played straight with the pyramid, which still has power thousands of years later. Downplayed with the crossguard saber Ezra picks up, which still technically works but has barely two seconds worth of charge after thousands of years.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Malachor. Especially when it seems to "awaken".
- Running Gag: Ezra once again says his name is Jabba when he introduces himself to Maul. Unlike others Ezra has used the alias with, Maul, who as mentioned above has met Jabba, actually seems slightly amused by it.
- Season Finale: With Part 2.
- Shout-Out: Ezra helping a mysterious and sinister old man on his search for a great treasure in a cavernous setting only continues the "Space Aladdin" meme.
- Taken for Granite: The corpses, frozen in place forever.
- Teach Him Anger: Maul teaches Ezra to channel his anger as a source of power, allowing Ezra to lift the stone blocks impeding their progress to the holocron chamber
- This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: What Ahsoka tells Rex, and this also applies to the other rebels as well, as noted in the previous episode.
- Trailers Always Spoil: From the mid-season trailer, previews, and similar, we know that Ahsoka and Vader finally fight, the Old Master a.k.a. Darth Maul is trying to corrupt Ezra as an Evil Mentor, we're getting another Inquisitor, and Malachor has a Sith pyramid and holocron (which Ezra activates and receives respectively).
- Tron Lines: The ruins in the underworld, once the pyramid activates.
- Villain Has a Point: Darth Maul actually raises a good point in that leaving one's enemies alive may come to bite you in the ass.
- Wham Shot: When we get to see who exactly is underneath the Old Master's hood.
- Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Maul needs Ezra to get the holocron, so he plays the part of an elderly, helpful Force user.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Darth Maul tells how the Emperor and the Sith way completely ruined his life, taking away everything he ever had. His only reason for living now is to get back at his former master and his new apprentice in order to seek justice for all of his suffering.
