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Recap / Star Wars: The Clone Wars S4E21 "Brothers"

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A fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.

Savage Opress is on a quest to find his long-lost brother, Darth Maul. Could Darth Maul truly be alive, after more than a decade since his gruesome bisection at the blade of Obi-Wan Kenobi? Savage voyages into the depths of a twisted junkyard planet to find whatever became of the fallen Sith Lord.


Tropes:

  • Actor Allusion: Among the things Darth Maul mumbles is this line taken from the Son of Mortis during the Mortis arc, who was also voiced by Sam Witwer.
    Maul: The chains are the easy part. It's what goes on in here [points at his temple] that's hard.
  • Actually, I Am Him: Non-verbal and unintentional, but Savage initially assumes that the spider-like creature attacking him is a monster that did something with his brother. Then, he gets a good look at the creature in the light of the glowing talisman and realizes that it is his brother.
  • Animalistic Abomination: When Savage finally finds Maul, he's become some kind of horrific spider-like cyborg who's barely anything more than a mindless freak of nature, screaming, crying and laughing maniacally at the drop of a hat.
  • Asshole Victim: Savage strangles Morley pretty brutally, but Morley, who leads Savage (the latest of what's implied to be many victims) to be killed and devoured, is hardly a sympathetic victim.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Savage angrily strangles Morley when he catches on to the fact that Morley was taking advantage of Maul's ruined state.
  • Black Comedy: The freighter pilot lets out a comical scream as Savage sends him falling to his death.
  • Body Horror: Maul looks absolutely horrible when Savage finds him. He's horribly underfed, veins are visible all over his body, and his horns have more than tripled in length.
  • Continuity Nod: Anakin describes the "sinister" power he senses as "familiar", which calls back to his encounter with Savage, as well as his fleeting encounter with Maul all the way back in The Phantom Menace.
  • Death Glare: In a brief moment of sanity, Maul delivers a bone-chilling one to Savage at the end of this episode.
    Maul: Revenge. I must have revenge...
  • Didn't Think This Through: After seeing Savage make short work of the scavengers and being told that Savage is looking for his brother, whose description is suspiciously close to the creature Morley serves, Morley still thinks trying to feed Savage to Maul is a good idea, failing to realise that Savage could likely survive an encounter with Maul, and that if Maul really is the brother Savage seeks, Maul has no reason to kill him.
  • The Dreaded: Savage, to both Dooku and Ventress. The former even considers Savage dangerous enough to pose a threat to the Separatists and the Jedi alike.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • All the hostility vanishes from Savage's voice when he realises that the deranged creature attacking him is, in fact, his long-lost brother.
    • Despite his broken state, Maul stops attacking Savage the moment the latter addresses him as "brother".
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: While following the spider-like creature on Lotho Minor, Savage calls it a "monster", the exact word Ventress used to describe Savage himself earlier in the episode. Sure enough, the creature turns out to be Savage's brother, Darth Maul.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Darth Maul, of course, is still missing his lower half after Obi-Wan cut him in half back in The Phantom Menace. He's attached himself to a mechanical spider-like collection of legs that carries him around.
    Savage: Your legs...
    Maul: That scum! He took them from me! He took them!
  • Hostile Weather: On Lotho Minor, the acid rain is so undiluted that it immediately starts to melt Savage's armor. It's of course understandable, given the planet is a Landfill Beyond the Stars.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: If Morley's comment about "leftovers" is any indication, Maul has had to resort to cannibalism to keep himself alive, and Morley's been snacking on the remains of Maul's victims.
  • Kick the Dog: Savage nearly strangles a waitress for no obvious reason, essentially carjacks a ship pilot to get a ride to Lotho Minor, and throws the pilot out of his own ship and probably to his death.
  • Landfill Beyond the Stars: Lotho Minor joins Raxus Prime and Ord Mantell as another planet where the denizens of the galaxy far, far away dump all their garbage. It's home to a few locals, including a tribe of possibly mechanical beings and a talking snake that lures in victims for Darth Maul to kill in order to eat the leftovers.
  • Laughing Mad: Maul. And crying and weeping mad, too — he swings between emotions at the drop of a hat.
  • Made of Iron: Savage falls what seems to be hundreds of feet into Maul's lair, but is up and on his feet in seconds, no worse for wear.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Morley claims to know about "a legend" of a horned man who fits the description of the brother Savage seeks, using this to lure Savage into a trap.
  • Missed Him by That Much: This episode begins with Savage choking a waitress in a diner before running out following the trail from the amulet Mother Talzin gave him. Moments later, Anakin and Ahsoka enter in search of food that isn't standard rations. They even ask the waitress if something happened, but the police droids investigating say they have it all in hand.
  • Moment of Lucidity: Maul's mind is fractured, but Savage coaxing him to remember his past starts to pull the pieces back together. Maul appears to start remembering his old master's words before he suddenly announces his intent for revenge on Obi-Wan, cold and clear as day, before relapsing back into craziness.
  • Mood-Swinger: Darth Maul starts a sentence with one emotion and might express two or three others before it's over. Even when left alone, he goes from snarling like an animal to laughing to weeping, all completely unprovoked and with no warning.
  • Moral Myopia: Savage is outraged by Morley not helping the mentally unstable Maul, ignoring the civilians he needlessly attacked and killed for disproportionate reasons throughout his search.
  • Mundane Utility: While wandering Maul's catacomb beneath the surface, Savage uses his lightsaber as a lantern.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Morley metaphorically soils himself when he sees that Maul didn't kill Savage.
    • Downplayed, but Obi-Wan is clearly troubled by the idea that Maul is still alive.
  • Police Are Useless: After the scene Savage causes in a diner, the police do arrive fairly quickly, but make no effort to actually find the perpetrator or prevent a nearby ship from leaving. Savage gets away free and clear, and the police droids write the incident off as the kind of thing that happens all the time.
  • Sanity Slippage: The years have not been kind to Maul during the Clone Wars. When Savage finds him, he has almost no trace of humanity left, having to rely on scraps on a junk planet to survive.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Savage uses the same tone as the T-800 when he orders the cargo pilot to "Get. Out."
    • Morley and Maul give off a strong Gollum and Shelob vibe, complete with the latter resembling a spider.
  • Smug Snake: Morley, quite literally; he's quick to assume that he's gotten the better of Savage, gloats about it, and gleefully anticipates getting to chow down on what's left of him. When he sees Savage still alive, he's absolutely terrified.
  • Special Edition Title: The opening logo is red instead of yellow, for this episode and "Revenge".
  • Spider People: Maul has built himself a crude spider-like apparatus to get around on. According to Filoni, he used the Force to build it.
  • Talkative Loon: As soon as Savage starts talking to him, Maul scarcely stops talking, and though he responds to Savage, his speech is riddled with mood swings and whatever crosses his shattered mind; he spews out bits of Sith philosophy, talks to his memory of Darth Sidious, and verbally abuses himself when Savage asks if Maul remembers who he is.
  • Tantrum Throwing: When the talisman's light goes out and Savage believes that Mother Talzin lied about Maul being alive, he starts throwing things around, screaming in rage.
  • This Cannot Be!:
    • This is Savage's initial reaction when he sees his amulet glowing and realises that the arachnid cyborg attacking him is his long-lost brother. He comes to accept it pretty quickly.
    • Obi-Wan is justifiably shocked at the notion that Maul could still be alive, though he quickly moves from skepticism to deep concern about the implications of Maul's return.
      Obi-Wan: How can this be? I killed him myself!
      Yoda: It is so, I fear.
      Obi-Wan: Darth Maul, alive...?
  • This Is Gonna Suck: The freighter pilot realises perfectly well that he won't enjoy Savage's company or a return trip to Lotho Minor.
  • Title Drop: Courtesy of Savage.
    Savage: We are! We are brothers!
  • Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: Is there a reason that this landfill's incinerators need to be giant walking crab-things with glowing orange eyelights and fiery dragon mouths? Apparently, yes.
  • Vagueness Is Coming: Both Anakin and Dooku sense something "sinister" on the rise, though they don't yet realise who and what it is. Yoda manages to get a clearer picture, identifying the sinister force as Darth Maul.


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