Recap / Star Wars: The Clone Wars S7E12 "Victory and Death"

"You're a good soldier, Rex. So is every one of those men down there."

"Victory and Death" is the 12th and final episode of The Clone Wars Season 7, as well as the final episode of the series. It is directed by Nathaniel Villanueva and written by Dave Filoni, and premiered on May 4, 2020.

Ahsoka and Rex must use their wit and skills to survive the turbulent end of the Clone Wars.

---

Tropes:

• Admiring the Abomination: Rex admits that if it weren't for the fact that the 332^nd is out to kill him and Ahsoka, he would have been proud of them for locking down the ship so efficiently.
• All for Nothing:
  • Ahsoka and Rex's attempts to not kill the 332^nd (with the distant hope of breaking their Order 66 programming) prove to be futile because Maul doomed the ship to crash on a moon and the clones are too busy trying to kill the fugitives to bother escaping.
  • This can also to extend to the entire Clone Wars. Over the course of The Clone Wars, we've come to know characters on both sides of the war, from Jedi to Separatist generals, clones to droids, and everything that every one of them had been working for is ultimately pointless, as the war was the final stepping stone to Palpatine seizing total power over the galaxy and forming the Galactic Empire, meaning the Sith now reign over the galaxy unopposed. The final shot may also reflect this; the Clone Wars are now over and those who were lost will be forgotten to time, and those that did survive are either in hiding or serving Palpatine.
• Arc Words: What does Ahsoka say to Rex when she tells him that they don't need to kill the clones to escape?
  Ahsoka: You're a good soldier, Rex. So is every one of those men down there.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Ahsoka and Rex are not willing to kill their brainwashed comrades even if said comrades are blocking their escape route and trying to kill them. However, Maul has no such attachment to the clones and he ends up killing them all by destroying the hyperdrive and sending the ship plummeting down onto the moon's surface.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • As it was in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine is the true victor of the Clone Wars, achieving complete control of the Galaxy, destroying the Jedi Order, establishing the Galactic Empire, and turning Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, his new Sith apprentice.
  • Maul is the only person aboard the Tribunal to get what he wants. Ahsoka and Rex survive, but they fail to save the 332^nd Company thanks to Order 66 and the ship's destruction. Maul, on the other hand, gets away clean to rebuild his criminal empire ^note he was apparently successful, given Solo presents him in command of Crimson Dawn nearly a decade after this episode's events and leaves almost no witnesses alive for the Empire to follow.
• Bait-and-Switch: At the start of the final scene, a shuttle just like the one Maul stole is shown landing at a snowy locale. It's easy to assume that we're seeing what became of Maul after his escape... until we hear the iconic breathing of Darth Vader. Turns out it's actually a Time Skip to years after the Tribunal's crash — and Vader has just found the crash site.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Maul lampshades that Ahsoka wanted "chaos" as the ship is in free fall and he's busy stealing the transport she and Rex had planned to take for themselves.
• Blade Brake: Ahsoka does this when Maul Force-pushes her towards a gap in the floor created by a descended lift. It doesn't work, and G-G has to send down a cable for her to grab onto. She does it again when the falling shuttle begins to tilt, knocking everyone off-balance, and this time she succeeds.
• Book Ends:
  • The Clone Wars began with Rex being the only clone from the 501^st Legion that we knew, then we got to know more of them and watched them grow throughout the series, and it ends with Rex being the only clone we know from the 501^st Legion left standing by the end.^note That is, anyone who wasn't arrested, forced to obey Order 66, or put into stasis, anyways.
  • The Clone Wars also began with Anakin, the heroic Jedi Knight, charging into one of the first battles of the Clone Wars to defend the Republic. It ends with Anakin, now corrupted into Darth Vader, calmly touring the site of one of the final battles of the Clone Wars.
  • "Race you to the ground."
• Brainwashed and Crazy: All the clones that aren't Rex have been turned into remorseless killing machines thanks to the chips, which prompt Ahsoka and Rex to not want to kill them as the clones aren't doing any of their actions out of free will. Sadly, they all die like this at the end, never reverting back to the people they once were, thanks to Maul crashing their ship.
• Call-Back:
  • Ahsoka Force-pushing Rex without warning over a gap to help him leap across it brings to mind "Landing at Point Rain".
  • The helmets resting on the pikes on a snow-covered world after a violent battle references the opening and ending of "Trespass", where clone helmets and Chairman Cho's hat respectively rested on pikes on another snowy world.
  • In "Death Trap", three people stayed aboard to land the ship safety while everyone else evacuated. In this episode, only three people escape while everyone else aboard is killed in the crash.
  • Just like the opening narration of "R2 Come Home", this episode depicts a Republic Star Destroyer crash landing on a planet.
  • In "The Lost One", Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas' lightsaber is found in the remains of a crashed shuttle, revealing he'd been killed there and not on Felucia as previously believed. In this episode, Ahsoka leaves one of her lightsabers behind at the Tribunal's crash site to make it look like she died in the crash, and it's later found by Darth Vader.
• Call-Forward:
  • Ahsoka wears a dark-colored cloak at the end (albeit covered in ash), referencing the white cloak she wears at the end of Rebels. Here it's a moment of sorrow, there it's a moment of hope.
  • Likewise, the cloaked Ahsoka looking at the graves set up in memoriam of the clones before leaving with Rex in their ship is a reference to Sabine looking at the painting she created in memoriam of her time with the crew of the Ghost before leaving with Ahsoka in their ship in the final episode of Rebels.
  • Vader's appearance (namely the red lens) is partially based on his design from Rebels.
  • Another reference to Rebels is that both shows end with a Distant Finale, albeit The Clone Wars ends on a bleak note while Rebels ends more hopefully.
  • The Venator-class Star Destroyer Tribunal crashing onto the moon surface and remaining there as a by-gone relic of the Republic alludes to the wreckage of the Imperial Star Destroyers on Jakku in The Force Awakens.
• The Cameo:
  • Darth Vader appears in the final scene along with Stormtroopers, Snowtroopers, and Imperial probe droids.
  • Vader sees Morai flying over the crash site.
• Catch a Falling Star: Rex has to catch Ahsoka in his Y-Wing when she isn't able to get to the gunner cockpit before the Y-Wing is knocked loose of its moorings. It takes him a couple tries, but he does it.
• Character Death: Although Ahsoka and Rex try their hardest to reason with Jesse, it proves futile as he is too far gone to overcome his brainwashing. As a result, they are forced to kill him by way of Disney Villain Death.
• Coming in Hot: Thanks to Maul trashing the hyperspace generator, the ship drops out of hyperspace within the gravity well of a moon and with no engines of any kind to slow their descent. Since the bridge was destroyed, Ahsoka couldn't do what Anakin did with the Invisible Hand and had to abandon ship.
• Conveniently Close Planet: Maul causes the ship to drop out of hyperspace by destroying the hyperspace generator, and they just happen to exit close enough to a habitable planet (specifically the planet's moon according to Rex) to get caught in its gravity well.
• Dead Hat Shot: The helmets that Ahsoka uses to mark the graves of the 332^nd all but confirm that everyone onboard the ship perished. Jesse's helmet in particular gets center focus.
• Death of Personality: The clone troopers effectively all had their personalities wiped with Order 66 due to their chips. No longer do they have any sense of humor, higher reasoning or even empathy. Jesse refers to Rex by his number which he would never normally do and gone is the ability to think critically that ARC troopers are known for as he can't process the idea that Ahsoka is no longer a Jedi and therefore Palpatine's orders are wrong.
• Determinator: Jesse and the other clones continue trying to kill Ahsoka and Rex, even as their Star Destroyer disintegrates around them.
• Disney Villain Death: The now-villainous 332^nd Company ends up suffering this fate as the Tribunal plummets down at terminal velocity. The actual crash happens off-screen, but the ruined helmets in the crash site confirm no one survived.
• Distant Finale: The episode ends an undetermined number of years later, with Imperial Stormtroopers and probe droids combing over the wreckage of the ship, and Darth Vader picking up Ahsoka's lightsaber. It could be a few days, it could be years.
• Downer Ending: Although Ahsoka and Rex manage to escape with their lives, Maul causes the cruiser to crash on a remote snow moon and escapes, and Jesse and the rest of the 332^nd are unable to be reasoned with and are killed in the crash, all while Palpatine gains complete control of the galaxy and wipes out nearly all of the Jedi with no form of recompense at the time. Ahsoka and Rex make a proper burial for their fallen friends before leaving off-world to destinations unknown. Years later, a troop of Imperials led by Vader investigates the site. Vader finds Ahsoka's shoto and silently reminisces on it before leaving with it, while Morai ominously flies overhead. All seems lost... but we know better.
• Dragon Ascendant: With Rex's chip removed, Jesse is unofficially promoted as the new commander of the 332^nd Company and thus serves as the Final Boss for Rex and Ahsoka.
• Dramatic Irony: The clone that charges Rex with treason for disobeying Order 66 is none other than Jesse, who found himself in a similar position where his disobedience against Krell's orders led him and Fives to be nearly executed for "treason". Despite Rex's attempts to reason with him, Jesse is too far gone to realize the hypocrisy thanks to the chip. Further, Jesse's signature markings on his armor and face are that of the Republic sigil- a sign that the Republic itself has turned against the Jedi and the Light.
• Due to the Dead: Ahsoka and Rex hold a quiet funeral for the fallen 332^nd Company and set up battlefield crosses for them. They also managed to dig R7's parts out of the wreckage and have rearranged them in a manner that leaves the fallen droid's remains intact.
• Dying as Yourself: Sadly averted. Rex is the only one to regain his former personality thanks to Ahsoka removing the chip and survive, while the rest of the clones all die Brainwashed and Crazy.
• End of an Era: The funeral of the 332^nd Company by Ahsoka and Rex marks the end of the final adventure in The Clone Wars. The fact that the camera focuses on Jesse's helmet which bears a burnt Republic emblem highlights this. Years later, the crash site is visited by Darth Vader and his Imperial Stormtroopers, reflecting on the past one last time before the story draws to a close.
• Enemy Mine: Averted. Despite the stakes being higher than ever, Ahsoka still refuses to cooperate with Maul. She even tries to kill him when he decides to flee the chaos, albeit because he's stealing her escape shuttle. Maul, by comparison, is solely concerned with escaping the doomed ship for himself and only interacts with Ahsoka when he briefly defends himself from her attacking him.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: Jesse and the entire 332^nd are killed in the crash, despite Ahsoka and Rex's efforts to not kill them. In fact, this was exactly what Maul wanted, but the latter two just got lucky.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Ahsoka comes to regret freeing Maul when the Zabrak sends the ship crashing into a moon and steals her escape shuttle.
  Maul: You wanted this chaos!
• Evil Is Petty: While likely unintentional, given he's brainwashed to follow protocol, it seems to be quite petty for Jesse to demote Rex from his commander rank if he's going to execute him on the spot anyways. Though Rex takes it as a compliment.
• Faking the Dead: Like the retconned explanation in Ahsoka, Ahsoka leaves behind one of her lightsabers at the crash site so that whoever comes across it will think she's dead. Some unknown amount of time later, Vader finds it, but it's left ambiguous if he thinks she's dead or takes it as a sign that she's alive.
• Final Boss: While he's not fought in a dramatic one-on-one battle as one would expect, Jesse serves as this, becoming the one to coordinate the clones' attempts to kill Ahsoka and Rex and being the most prominent in the gunfights that follow.
• Foregone Conclusion: Regardless of what happens, it's clear Ahsoka, Rex, and Maul will survive past Order 66 and go into hiding from the Empire. Also, Rex gets demoted back to Captain so he can stay as "Captain Rex" in Rebels. Meanwhile, Palpatine and the Empire begin their reign over the galaxy with Darth Vader in tow.
• Gallows Humor: In one of the few levities of this episode, Rex jokes that he didn't like being a commander anyways when Jesse demotes him for violating Order 66.
• Godzilla Threshold: Rex doesn't want to kill his brothers but knows that they won't hesitate to kill him, and thus he suggests to Ahsoka that they shouldn't hold back on lethal force. Ahsoka refuses.
• Gone Horribly Right: Ahsoka released Maul to serve as a distraction. Holy shit, did it work.
• Grand Finale: This is the final episode of both Season 7 and The Clone Wars as a whole, ending a story 12 years in the making.
• Headgear Headstone: Ends with the Venator-class Star Destroyer crash-landing on the surface of a moon, killing the remaining clone troopers. Before she leaves, Ahsoka buries the fallen troopers and marks their graves by mounting their helmets on pikes. When Darth Vader arrives several years later, the helmets are almost entirely covered in snow.
• Heroic Sacrifice: R7-A7, CH-33P, and G-G all lay down their lives to protect Ahsoka and Rex.
  • CH-33P and G-G hijack the ship's landing ramps to take down numerous clone troopers and give Ahsoka and Rex a better chance of surviving, before being caught and executed by the clones.
  • R7 gets in the way of a shot meant for Ahsoka, while the latter is attempting to pull the shuttle Maul has stolen back into the hangar.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Though he had no control of over it thanks to the biochip brainwashing, Rex's specific instructions on how Order 66 will be executed in the previous episode bite him in this episode when he tries to invoke Loophole Abuse to spare Ahsoka from 332^nd's execution squad. Jesse notes that not only did Rex specifically order Ahsoka to be killed, he also stated that any clone trooper who violates the Order 66 protocol is automatically a traitor to the Republic and will be executed as such. And thus, Jesse relieves Rex of his position as commander before he attempts to kill his former superior.
  • Another example comes in the previous episode, where the then-brainwashed Rex ordered all the ship's escape pods destroyed, leaving none for the crew to save themselves when the ship crashed.
  • This also happens to Ahsoka when it comes to using Maul as a diversion, as she ends up as the diversion he needs at a critical moment.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Ahsoka refuses to kill any of the clones, even going as far as telling Rex to set his pistols to stun, even when Rex argues that their former comrades won't hold back and are doomed anyway since the ship is about to crash into the moon.
  • The mass burial of the clones is an honorable gesture but perhaps not the wisest decision considering that Rex and Ahsoka were planning to make it seem as if everyone on board died, though certainly the number of clones on the cruiser far exceeded the number of graves they dug. Fortunately, the crash site isn't discovered until many years later and by that time the burial isn't obvious anymore.
• Hope Spot: For a moment, it seems Rex's Loophole Abuse explanation manages to get through to Jesse as he visibly hesitates... before he rejects the logic and determines Rex to be a traitor for violating Order 66.
• Hypocrite: Ahsoka repeatedly makes a point of not killing clones and insisting Rex similarly refrain, but this comes after she's released Maul who is predictably killing clones left and right. In their final encounter as the Venator is crashing thanks to Maul's sabotage, he reminds her this chaos and destruction is what she asked for.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Rex appeals to Jesse's inner good nature, highlighting their long friendship and reminding him that if they don't do this right, they will be the ones committing treason and not Ahsoka. Unfortunately, although Jesse does hesitate for a bit, the programming is too strong to overcome.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Maul runs into the hyperspace generator room with clone personnel flanking him from multiple directions and levels, yet despite being fired upon from every visible angle, he isn't hit once. Although, unlike the hallway moment in the previous episode, he is clearly shown to actively dodge or block some shots, so maybe precision wasn't the only problem.
• Improbable Weapon User: Maul briefly snatches a fallen clone trooper's helmet to tank another clone's blaster shots before throwing it at him.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: When Rex and Ahsoka try to negotiate, Jesse bluntly tells Rex to execute "it". In a similar vein, he refers to Rex by his number rather than his name while communicating with other clones, something that he protested against during the Umbara arc.
• Karma Houdini: As was expected considering his future appearances in the franchise, Maul manages to yet again evade justice and makes sure to drop the Venator from orbit adding the deaths of all the clones on board, and the attempted murder of Ahsoka and Rex, to his long list of crimes from the Clone Wars. For now.
• Killed Offscreen: As with the other casualties of Revenge of the Sith, Padmé suffers this fate in the context of The Clone Wars. Along with her are the Separatist leaders who served as antagonists in The Clone Wars, including Poggle the Lesser, Nute Gunray, and Wat Tambor.
• Kill the Cutie: CH-33P, G-G, and R7 are all killed, with the former two being killed execution-style by the clones.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Ahsoka tries to use the Force to keep Maul from escaping in a shuttle, but with the clones bearing down on her and Rex, she simply can't exert enough force fast enough to stop him before the clones overwhelm their position. She reluctantly releases Maul and seeks an alternate method of escape.
• Loophole Abuse: Rex suggests to Jesse that Order 66 does not include Ahsoka because she is no longer a Jedi and hasn't been for some time. He doesn't expect it to work — he issued the orders to kill her, after all — but needs to stall until the droids can hack into the hangar lifts and drop the clones to the lower level. Interestingly, it might have worked if Rex himself had not personally doubled-down on the orders earlier.
• Manly Tears: Rex weeps upon deciding that the only way to save himself and Ahsoka is to slaughter his way through his brothers.
• Mêlée à Trois: The Final Battle is one between Maul, the clones, and Ahsoka & Rex.
• Mood Whiplash: The final battle is brutal. For example, Ahsoka has to let Maul go and then she triumphantly jumps in front of Rex and drops them both to the lower level to save them from the rest of the clones, only to face the clones they'd dropped to the lower level, only for the droids to bring the lifts back up so the clones can't fight them, only for the clones to hold them at gunpoint, whence the droids surrender with their manipulators comically in the air, only for the troopers to brutally execute them. God damn.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Maul spending almost the entirety of his appearance in this episode as a Silent Antagonist hearkens back to his original portrayal in The Phantom Menace.
  • The episode's final minutes being dialogueless may be a reference to a quote from one of the 501^st journals in Star Wars: Battlefront II:
    What I remember about the rise of the Empire is… is how quiet it was.
  • Ahsoka leaving her shoto behind at the burial site of the 332^nd, which had been marked by their helmets, to fake her own death is a reference to the retconned version of Ahsoka and Rex escaping Order 66 in Ahsoka; to fake their deaths on Mandalore, Rex leaves behind his helmet and Ahsoka leaves behind her lightsabers, and the duo leave an anonymous message stating that the two committed a Mutual Kill and were buried by civilians that came across the aftermath.
    Ahsoka held her lightsabers, her last physical connection to the Jedi and to her service in the Clone Wars. It was so hard to give them up, even though she knew she had to. It was the only way to sell the con of the false burial, and it would buy her a modicum of safety, because whoever found them would assume she was dead, too.
  • Also from the Ahsoka novel, during Order 66, Ahsoka chooses to save Rex over making sure Maul doesn't escape.
  • Vader holding one of Ahsoka's blue lightsabers is a reference to one of his alternate skins in the Revenge of the Sith video game adaptation.
  • Maul using the Force to take down a huge cruiser from the inside is a reference to a certain other Sam Witwer-voiced Dark-Sider that is known for doing these sort of things from the outside.
  • One of Anakin's eyes is just barely visible through Vader's red eye lens, as David Prowse's eye was back in A New Hope.
• No OSHA Compliance: The lifts in the hangar can be moved with such speed that they outrun the ship's artificial gravity, dropping the clones at least a story down. Presumably, the droids did this on purpose so the clones would have no time to react and move off the platforms.
• Not Himself: It's very clear the chips overwrite a number of the clone troopers' mental functions, to the point where they may as well be different people after Order 66. Jesse gets hit with this the hardest, calling Rex by his number which he loathed to do so, lacks any of his humor, and appears to be no longer capable of critical reasoning as Rex points out Ahsoka isn't a Jedi, which he seems to consider before the chip overrides his actions.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: In the end, Ahsoka and Rex quietly understand that everything they've ever known and loved is gone and prepare to go into hiding. The following scene is a Time Skip to sometime during the reign of the Empire, where the crash site of the Venator has become a grave forgotten by time and Vader briefly reminisces about what he once had upon coming across Ahsoka's lightsaber.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: This episode demonstrates just how thorough the biochip brainwashing is through Jesse. Before, Jesse was a clone with a sardonic sense of humor and was horrified to hear that he would face execution without court martial for disobeying Krell's wrongful order. Now, thanks to the biochip, Jesse has become completely humorless and sees no issue with executing his brother Rex for disobeying an order that he deems to be wrongful. In addition, he was a Defiant Captive two episodes ago who refused to tell Maul anything about Ahsoka until Maul subjected him to a Force-powered Mind Rape; now, he's leading the effort to execute Ahsoka.
• Off with His Head!: As Maul tries to escape, Ahsoka attempts a decapitating strike on him. It fails, but she came close enough to have Maul nervously rub his neck after.
• Oh, Crap!: After Ahsoka tried to decapitate him, Maul takes a few seconds to realize how close he was to losing his head.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: When the episode begins with dark, mournful chanting, you know it's not gonna be sunshine and roses. For bonus points, it's the same music that played during Qui-Gon's funeral and Padmé's death; appropriate, as the episode ends with the deaths of everyone aboard the Tribunal (save for Ahsoka and Rex) as well as the death of the Republic itself.
• Person of Mass Destruction: In one of the more impressive displays of Force prowess in the canon, Maul completely tears the ship's hyperdrive generator from its mountings, causing the ship to suffer catastrophic system failures as it roughly drops out of hyperspace. When it does, it looks like it's been through a massive battle, like it's been mauled by a Separatist fleet.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The titular "victory" of the episode is that Ahsoka and Rex get to make it out alive, but that's it. They fail to save the other clones in spite of their best efforts, who all die ignominiously as their attempts to kill Ahsoka and Rex doomed the Tribunal. Meanwhile, Maul escapes and spends about seventeen years serving as a threat in the shadows.
• Recurring Camera Shot:
  • The overhead shot of the Tribunal's wreckage comes up again when Vader investigates the crash site, but now the ship is covered in about four or five feet of snow.
  • A shot from the back of Ahsoka looking over the graves and a later shot from the back of Vader looking over the crash site.
• Retcon: In the Ahsoka novel, a clone trooper was buried with Rex's armor, a fake grave marker is created in order to claim that Ahsoka and Rex killed each other, and Ahsoka ignites both of her lightsabers before leaving them behind. In this episode, Rex still has his armor, there was not a fake grave marker created, and Ahsoka only leaves one of her lightsabers without igniting them for the last time.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Jesse, who bears the symbol of the Republic on his face, is Rex and Ahsoka's final opponent of the Clone Wars and first opponent from the Empire; Jesse represents the Republic in how it had become its own Enemy Within. His helmet, which also has the Republic Insignia printed on it, is also emphasized during the graveyard shot, symbolizing the death of the Republic.
  • The Venator-class Star Destroyer Tribunal breaks apart and crashes into a desolate moon thanks to the hyperdrive being destroyed by Maul, symbolizing the death of the Galactic Republic thanks to the machinations of the Sith from within.
  • Ahsoka intended for them to escape in the same model of ship she first appeared from at the start of the series, but is forced to let it go to save Rex demonstrating she cannot go back to the life she had before and her acceptance of it.
  • The ship that Rex and Ahsoka eventually escape on is a Y-Wing, one of the most iconic star fighters used by the Rebel Alliance decades into the future, symbolizing the spark of hope that will come out of this tragedy as well as foreshadowing the survivors' role in the rebellion against the Empire.
  • After the Time Skip, Stormtroopers and Snowtroopers populate the now frozen landscape of the crash site much like how the Empire were in Hoth (complete with a probe droid). As if to further the parallels between the scene and the film, Darth Vader appears representing how the Empire has won, defeating the Jedi and the Republic.
  • Word of God's explanation behind Anakin changing the colors of Ahsoka's lightsabers is that his ego and selfishness corrupts him and affects the people he loves. So, Vader holding Ahsoka's shoto and igniting it at the end represents him reflecting back on his past and how his actions led to all this destruction.
  • The final shot of the series is of a discarded clone helmet colored in tribute to Ahsoka, with Vader's back reflected in the visor. This reflects Vader leaving behind the life Anakin Skywalker once led.
    • In addition, the helmet is cracked, showing that the Republic has fallen, as the Empire strides away, the true victor of the conflict. It can also symbolize that like Anakin, we're moving away from Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars, and Revenge of the Sith and transitioning into future installments.
    • Finally, the helmet is left behind, forgotten in the snow, emphasizing the clone troopers' tragic use as disposable fodder in a pointless war that ended with them being forced to destroy the Republic they were created to save for the sake of one man's desire for power. All of their heroism will be forgotten by the rest of the galaxy due to the end result, the clones themselves discarded and their various personalities lost in time.
• Scare Chord: One of these is heard when Vader ignites Ahsoka's lightsaber in the epilogue.
• Scenery Gorn: We get to see the ruins of the crashing Venator in all its unholy glory as Rex and Ahsoka race to the ground. We also see the crash site after Rex and Ahsoka set up the memorial to the fallen clones. It's a smoking hellscape.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Upon sighting an escape shuttle in the middle of a huge battle with the clones, Maul simply runs like hell towards it. Ahsoka tries to kill him before he escapes, but she fails and he promptly flies off.
• Shout-Out: Possibly unintentional, but a Twitter user noticed that the cinematography in the scene of Darth Vader discovering Ahsoka’s lightsaber strongly resembles Superman’s first flight in Man of Steel.
• Silence Is Golden: Once Rex and Ahsoka escape, there's no dialogue for the remainder of the episode for about five minutes or so.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The majority of this episode takes place concurrently with the final part of Revenge of the Sith.
• Single Tear: When Ahsoka insists she doesn't want to kill the other clone troopers, Rex snaps that his brothers are willing to die if it means killing them. Ahsoka then removes his helmet to reveal that he has a tear running down his cheek.
• Snow Means Death:
  • The unidentified moon that the Tribunal crashes on appears to be largely covered in snow, leading to the death of the entire 332^nd — adding yet another casualty to the end of the Clone Wars. By the time Vader investigates the crash site years later, heavy snow has covered the wreckage.
  • Fittingly, the last shot of the episode (and, by extension, the entire series) is a cracked clone trooper helmet half buried in the snow.
• Special Edition Title: The episode opens with a funereal theme similar to that from Qui-Gon's funeral and Padmé's death/Vader's reconstruction. Appropriate, as this takes place during the deaths of both the Republic and the Jedi Order.
• Staking the Loved One: Rex comes to terms that he may have to kill his brothers to save himself and Ahsoka because otherwise they're going to kill them, but he's understandably still upset over it. Ahsoka comforts him and comes up with a plan to just impede them with traps and stun them. Ultimately, while they end up not killing anyone, it's Maul who does it for them.
• Status Quo Is God: After Rex spent a majority of the series serving the rank of captain, he's promoted to commander at the start of the final story arc. In this episode, Jesse demotes him back to captain as punishment for disobeying Order 66.
• Symbolic Weapon Discarding: Ahsoka leaves behind one of her lightsabers to make any pursuers think she died in the crash-landing of the ship she was on alongside everyone else. Part of the reason this is symbolic is because the lightsabers were modified by her teacher and friend Anakin Skywalker, who she fears is dead following the announcement of Order 66, and so leaving it behind is her accepting she will never rejoin the Jedi Order. Leaving behind the lightsaber also symbolically represents her leaving behind the Republic, which has now transformed into The Empire. In her next chronological appearance in Star Wars Rebels she has built her own custom lightsabers and notably notes that she is "no Jedi".
• Taking the Bullet: R7 throws himself in the way of an oncoming blaster shot to save Ahsoka.
• Taking You with Me: Rex laments the fact that the ship is going to crash and his brainwashed brothers are willing to die in it if it means taking Ahsoka with them.
  Rex: I hate to tell you this, but they don't care. This ship is going down and those soldiers, my brothers, are willing to die and take you and me along with them!
• Technical Pacifist: Ahsoka and Rex don't want to kill the 332^nd, so they come up with a plan to only stun them and have the droids tamper with the platforms that they're standing on. What the two weren't expecting was Maul to crash the ship, which ends up doing it for them.
  Ahsoka: I will not be the one to kill them.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • Maul's idea of dealing with the clone troopers hunting him is to tear out the ship's engines and crash the thing into a planet (or the planet's moon in this case). It works spectacularly, killing everyone on the ship save for himself, Rex, and Ahsoka.
  • G-G and CH-33P, a pair of defenceless astromechs, are blasted dozens of times by five clone-troopers. Note that it took one shot to kill R7.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Rex and Ahsoka drop down to the lower level of the hangar bay to escape the incoming troops, they see Jesse and all the troops they dropped down there earlier. Rex just sighs and sags like, shit, now we've gotta fight all these guys.
• Time Skip: Vader's cameo seems to take place at least a year after the ship crashes, as the Empire has shifted over to its own ships and stormtroopers, while the wreck is covered in several feet of snow.
• Tragic Keepsake: Vader keeps Ahsoka's lightsaber from the wreck, which she left behind to make anyone that came looking think she died in the crash.
• Tragic Monster: Jesse and the 332^nd Company, who are Brainwashed and Crazy as per the parameters of Order 66. Ahsoka and Rex attempt to take them down non-lethally, but in the end, they have no choice but to allow Maul's plan to go through, resulting in the entire company being wiped out.
• The Unreveal: Rex's only solace is that we the audience know that Wolffe and Gregor will have their chips removed too and join him in hiding, but we never find out how those two did it by the end of the series.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Maul's only objective is to escape the madness on the ship. And he does just that with little hassle.
• Weapon Tombstone: Ahsoka leaves her lightsaber at the tombs of the clones, partially for Faking the Dead and as a memorial.
• Wham Shot:
  • Ahsoka and Rex learn that the hyperdrive has been destroyed and that the Star Destroyer has been caught in a gravitational field of a moon. When they open the hangar doors, they see the moon covering their entire view and growing larger by the second. Now they only have minutes to get off the ship.
  • The presence of Stormtroopers and Snowtroopers are used to highlight that the epilogue indeed takes place years after the rise of the Empire.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Rex is clearly taken aback to hear that Maul, who is currently rampaging on the ship and slaughtering his former comrades, was deliberately set free as a distraction by Ahsoka.
• You Are in Command Now: With Rex being cured of his brainwashing and thus helping Ahsoka, Jesse takes command of the 332^nd. His newfound promotion only lasts for a few hours before the ship crashes and kills everyone onboard.

---