REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels "Shroud of Darkness"
Wow, what an episode. A lot of information was revealed regarding current and past characters, and the stage is now set for the remainder of this season's episodes. Yeah, if you love your deep emotional character drama and lore-expansion, this episode is for you.
The episode literally starts with a lightsaber duel as both Kanan and Ezra are fighting the Ffifth Brother and Seventh Sister. It was realy cool to se Ezra growing as a lightsaber duelist and work together with his master to fight and eventually escape from the threat. However, it does make you wonder how powerful these Inquisitors are if they can't beat a novice Jedi like Ezra. Regardless, it was a cool opening sequence.
Kanan begins to realize that he and Ezra are posing a danger to the rebellion, so they decide to go to the Jedi Temple on Lothal to hear from Yoda again. They are joined by Ahsoka who tells and shows Ezra about Anakin. It was great to hear both Frank Oz and Matt Lanter return as both Yoda and Anakin again, although, yes, I'm not a fan of their character models. Anyway, Ahsoka also mentions that she met with her former master before the events of Revenge of the Sith. Damn it Dave Filoni, quit teasing us with this information, just show it all already in some form.
When the three enter the temple, they each go off in a vision. Therefore, I will split this review to talk about each character's experience. First, for Ezra, he actually sees Yoda. Ezra and him talk about what a Jedi needs to do in a time of crisis as Ezra wants to fight while Yoda tells him indirectly what the result of that fighting was in the Clone Wars. It is an interesting dynamic and you can tell Yoda has been depressed about what happened in the war and how he couldn't foresee the Jedi Order's destruction.
However, there was one thing I found odd. Ezra asks Yoda at one point how to defeat Vader and the Inquisitors. The answer that Yoda gives is just as vague and mysterious as one might expect from him. Although, as evil as this may sound, I was imagining Yoda thinking, yeah, you're good, but me and Obi-Wan have our faith on a boy on Tattoonie. Anyway, Yoda tells Ezra to go to the planet of Malachor and bids Ezra and Ahsoka farewell.
For Ahsoka, it was just a massive heartbreak. She already felt uneasy going into a Jedi temple since she left the order. However, her force vision was of Anakin yelling and blaming her for him turning to the dark side. It was an emotional moment as Ahsoka teared up and attempted to strike the vision of Vader in the background.
What was also interesting is that at the end of the episode she hints that she has a different way of dealing with Vader. My guess is that she is going to try and appeal to Vader and make him join the light side of the force again. Obviously, we know that Vader will do that years later with Luke so I can only imagine that this is going to backfire for her, but will this cost her her life?
Finally, we see Kanan enter a training dojo and meet an old temple guard. He tells the guard that he wants to learn more to protect Ezra and stop Vader. However, the guard wants to kill Ezra because he says the dark side is strong in him. The two fight and eventually more guards join in. Yes, this was all a vision. Kanan eventually is overpowered and surrenders. However, in a surprise twist, he is officially knighted by the lead guard. The lead guard removes his helmet and it is the Grand Inquisitor!
Yes, the Grand Inquisitor was a former Jedi. I honestly didn't see that coming. It anwsers and also leads to more questions for the future. Did he willing join or was he convinced/brainwashed to join? Also, are all Inquisitors former Jedi or are some former Jedi? I imagine more will be revealed in due time but it is most certaintly a clever twist that adds a lot of depth and intrigue to the secrets of the light and dark side.
While all of this is going on, the two Inquisitors find the Jedi temple and open it, which causes parts of it to collapse. I guess the temple has an anti-dark side security system. The trio escape and during the chaos, the visions of the temple guards fight the Inquisitors. They survive of course and Darth Vader himself arrives at the scene at the end to say the power the Jedi are assuming will be their undoing.
Overall, amazing episode. Right now, it is one of the best of the season. My only real complaint with the episode was the redesigns of Anakin and Yoda, and that was just a nitpick. The action scene was great, the character drama was great, the lore expansion was great, and the setup for the rest of the season, was, you guessed it, great.
