WiC Watches: Season 7 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Photo: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode 710 “The Phantom Apprentice” – Image Courtesy Disney+
Episode 710: “The Phantom Apprentice”
Ahsoka comes face-to-face with Maul with the freedom of Mandalore hanging in the balance, while Rex and Bo-Katan lead an assault against Gar Saxon and Maul’s Mandalorian super-commandos.
Just like last week’s episode, “The Phantom Apprentice” opened with a piece of music from Star Wars composer John Williams, followed by that ominous red title card. This episode went heavy on scenes between Maul (Sam Witwer) and Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein), and it was Witwer’s total mastery of the former Sith Lord’s voice that really sold the seriousness of the episode.
Photo: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode 710 “The Phantom Apprentice” – Image Courtesy Disney+
That’s not to say that Eckstein didn’t carry her weight, because she absolutely did; it’s just that hearing Maul talk of setting traps for Anakin Skywalker in order to rob Darth Sidious of a potential new apprentice so perfectly illustrated the precarious balance between the Light and the Dark Sides of the Force during the events of the final prequel film, Revenge of the Sith. Had Anakin gone to Mandalore instead of Ahsoka, Maul might have been able to kill him, and thus Darth Vader would never have been born. Then, Sidious would have been left with no other choice but to take on a new apprentice. They probably would have been less powerful than Anakin, in which cast he might not have been able to topple the Jedi Order so easily.
Anyway, it’s impossible to talk “The Phantom Apprentice” without heaping mounds of praise of showrunner Dave Filoni and his team. The lightsaber duel between Ahsoka and Maul looked, at times, very real…almost as if the 3D computer animation had been brought to life. Maul’s attacks and counterattacks looked exactly like they did when Ray Park — the man who portrayed Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace — was fighting Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn at the end of that movie.
Photo: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode 710 “The Phantom Apprentice” – Image Courtesy Disney+
By the end of the episode, and only after their dazzlingly lethal dance, Ahsoka defeats Maul, but she also saves his life. Their duel took them high above the city of Keldabe — the capital city of Mandalore — where Ahsoka uses the Force to stop Maul from falling to his death.
Other things to note in this episode:
- Obi-Wan reveals the name “Darth Sidious” to Ahsoka for the first time, while also telling her that Anakin killed Count Dooku. This seems to trouble her.
- Gar Saxon and his fellow Mandalorian super commandos from Death Watch have helmets shaped to resemble the horns on Maul’s head and I totally dig that.
- Maul continuously teases Ahsoka that something big is coming and that it could “kill them all.” He’s referring to Order 66, which I’m going to assume will kick off the next episode.
By the end of the episode, it seems like the Siege of Mandalore has come to a close, but we know things are about to go very seriously wrong for some of our favorite characters.
There are only two episodes left of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and I can’t wait to see what Filoni and his team have in store for us.