Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Victory and Death Review

TCW "Victory and Death"

To review "Victory and Death" is to review the last five minutes of the episode.

But before we get to that, the bulk of the episode must be addressed. It is a runaround, albeit one imbued with desperation, as Ahsoka and Rex try to flee the Star Destroyer, relentlessly hunted by the clones. Maul disables the ship with the Force, putting it on a collision course with a moon, and the brainwashed clones are so focused on the task of assassinating Ahsoka, Rex, and Maul, they don't pay any mind to self-preservation. In a poignant moment, Rex allows himself to feel the emotional weight of what has happened to his brothers. And the clones' situation, sacrificed on a crashing Star Destroyer, symbolizes the new Empire's attitude toward them: they are disposable things.

(Ahsoka and Rex are helped by a cadre of droids, and when ARC trooper Jesse and his clones kill the droids, the show stops short of showing blaster fire hit the droids. In a darkly amusing way, the episode treats shooting a droid like most movies treat shooting a dog.)

After the action of the episode is resolved, all that's left are two elegiac epilogues. First, Ahsoka and Rex mourn the clones, who have been granted the dignity of burial; Ahsoka leaves one of her lightsabers in the makeshift cemetery. And later, the snowed over Star Destroyer is discovered by Darth Vader and his newly-minted snowtroopers. Vader picks up Ahsoka's blade, ignites it for the rare spectacle of the Sith Lord wielding a blue lightsaber, and walks away.

Vader, seemingly animated more like the skinny frame of Hayden Christensen, is depicted here not long after first donning the suit at the end of Revenge of the Sith. From Charles Soule's Darth Vader comic series, we know this is a period in his life when the wounds of Anakin Skywalker are at their most raw; he's still struggling in the dark. And as he surveys the snow, and finds the lightsaber of the woman he's now so far away from, physically and emotionally, it is clear how much Vader has lost.

"You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right." - Anakin Skywalker

After his redemption, when Anakin speaks those words to Luke referencing Leia, it's possible Anakin's thoughts also turned to Ahsoka, the surrogate sister he lost 23 years ago, the loving bond he never stopped mourning.

An episode of survival and sadness. 7/10.

So that's it for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We thought the show was all over twice before, but now it's true. Farewell to the show that gave fans Ahsoka Tano, Rex, Asajj Ventress, the Nightsisters, Savage Opress, Mandalore, Satine Kryze, the Darksaber, Saw Gerrera, Mina Bonteri, a resurrected Maul, Hondo Ohnaka, Cad Bane, and a tolerable Jar Jar Binks.