Season 4, Episode 22 : Revenge

Spoiler: Recap
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Savage Oppress is taking Darth Maul to Dathomir and Mother Talzin. However, he refuses to leave the ship and just repeats Obi-Wan's name while quivering in a corner. Savage elects to live and discovers the remains of the Nightsisters. Talzin super-smokes in and fills him in on what happened. She's confident the Nightsisters will endure. I mean, with Ventress gone, aren't you the last one of the clan? Doesn't look like very good odds to me. Talzin isn't very happy with Maul's state, but not worried about it. She summons a ball of light to lure him out and lead him to her temple. Seeing Maul like this is kind of creepy. Then she magically puts him to sleep. Aaaaand he's having a nightmare.

She begins a ritual where she pulls some oily black smoke out from his skull. !is that supposed to be his "madness", she has magic-therapy as power too? What am I asking, of course she does. Ritual's not done, though, she separates him from his spider lower half and pulls some bits of wire and metal that were lying around to forge into mechanical legs for him while he screams in pain. Also a collar and braces materialized for him and his horns grew shorter. She orders him to rise and he does. Immediately throttling Savage and then letting him go. Talzin just smokes out without a word. Wow, we're not even pretending she has agency anymore, are we?

Darth Maul needs a moment to adjust to his new legs, but he's much more coherent now. And then he runs out of the temple and screams. He explains that his hatred kept him alive. He wants to know why the Force feels more unbalanced than before and Oppress tells him the Clone Wars are going on. "Oh yes, so it began. Without me." Huh, Darth Maul was in on the whole clone plan? Interesting. I have a hard time picturing him playing Dooku's role, but maybe he could have lead the CIS just as well, in a different style, with less pretension of good intent. Savage gives him a lightsaber that he pulled out of his ass, I guess, and Maul decides he's going to start his new life with some of that sweet, sweet revenge.

The brothers head to planet "Raydonia" (?), to a remote village where the original owner of the ship was aparently expected and are greeted by a bunch of children. Darth Maul explains to Oppress that to get the attention of the Jedi, one must slaughter the innocent. Fun! Cut to the Jedi Temple were Obi-Wan and the council are watching a recording of Maul killing defenseless people and demanding Kenobi comes, alone, or he'll kill the rest. Obi-Wan wants to do just that. Windu interjects that it's an obvious trap and they should end in a whole task force, but Yoda overrules him "against his better judgement" as he feels Obi-Wan must finish what he started; Windu still thinks Obi-Wan alone is not guarantee enough of capturing Maul. Yoda says he might have an unexpected ally and they msut trust the Force. The Force lets them down.

Meanwhile in a cantina somewhere, a bunch of bounty hunters are looking at a least of wanted people, with assorted bounties, and who should have the highest one (at a million credits), but Savage Oppress? Hearing the name Ventress immediately calls dibs on it and downloads the bounty-file/hologram thing in what I think is a reference to bounty hunters ripping off "wanted" posters in Westerns. This just raises more questions, thought, not the least of which "How is your face not on that list, Assaj!?" No, seriously, Savage was involved in the war for, like, a week at most, I'm really surprised they even have footage of him.

Obi-Wan reaches the village... and it's burning and littered with corpses. Maul shows up and rants about their last encounter, confirming to Obi-Wan that he's the real deal. Savage ambushes Obi-Wan, manages to disarm him and the two Darksiders beat him up out of his senses. Ventress arrives and sneaks aboard their ship as they take off. In the cargo hold, Maul is having a grand old time beating the snot out of a defenseless Kenobi who's not as witty as usual, despite his best efforts. The Zabrak ignites his lightsaber, intent on upping the torture a notch. Assaj chooses that moment to make her presence known. Fool, you could have killed one them before they'd noticed you! Savage makes the introductions. She leads them away from the hold and backtracks to rescue Kenobi. "When did you become the good guy? - Don't insult me." Hah! She gives him a lightsaber "I want that back. That's fine, red's not my colour." This is going to be another red-saturated fight, innit?

Naturally enough, Maull attacks Obi-Wan while Savage fights Ventress. The wayward witch loses her weapon but Kenobi manages to get his back from Maul so he returns the one she lend him. Maul pisses the Jedi off by bringing Qui-Gon up, then mocks Kenobi for being so easy to disturb. Kenobi tells Ventress they're outmatched "You want to run? - I learned from watching you." And they run to the cockpit. Which can eject from the rest of the ship. Left adrift in space, Maul decides they can afford to wait a little for his revenge, and he counts on the Jedi coming after them.


Spoiler: My thoughts
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Well, there wasn' tthat much revenge in this episode was there.
Also, Why do I get the feeling that if they'd listened to Windu here, they'd have saved themselves a lot of trouble down the line?

Talzin keeps being a plot device rather than a character.

I wasn't expecting Savage or Talzin to bring up Feral to Maul, but I'm surprised Ventress didn't. Seems like it'd have been an easy way to distract Oppress and Maul or drive wedge between them.

So, next season begins with Ventress in custody, right?


Up next: I'm probably going to write little review of the whole season, even if I feel I don't have much to say, and then start season 5 with Revival.