I don’t even know where to begin here to be honest . . .

Oh yeah, non-spoiler related part of the review: Go watch this episode . . . now!

SPOILERS BELOW

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, we can get down to it. I literally just finished watching, and I’m still kind of taking it all in. I mean, wow. I think one of my childhood dreams of a truly awesome Boba Fett sequence was realized here with the dozens of Death Watch soldiers, Katan’s group, and Maul’s group zipping through the air on their jet packs in a high speed chase, blasting laser fire at one another. Man, it was a thing of beauty! Like rocket-powered Swiss Army Knives duking it out in the skies of Mandalore. Of course, this was all in an attempt for Bo-Katan and her crew to help save Satine from prison, but it ultimately fails and ends with Satine sending out a distress call to good, ol’ Obi-Wan. Kudos to the writing team from refraining to use the “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” because I know it must have been tough.

Everything goes according to Maul’s plan, and Kenobi whisks across the galaxy to save his beloved. Maybe beloved. Are they together? I have no idea. Ah well, doesn’t matter. Ever the hero, Kenobi breaks Satine out of prison (again), and they almost make it to freedom if it wasn’t for the cruddy ship he borrowed from Anakin. Was that the Twilight from way back in the earlier seasons? Sure looks like it and, boy, has it seen better days. Also, Kenobi wearing his Rako Hardeen getup was a nice callback, as well.

And then, it happened. I saw it coming from a mile away. Not just ’cause we know Maul can’t kill Kenobi, but because it’s pretty obvious Maul’s plan is to make him suffer. And, what better way to do that than to have him watch helplessly as he kills Satine right before his eyes. The manner in which he did so was well executed (HA!) with using the Force to pull her into the ignited Darksaber. Incredible. This had to mess up Kenobi emotionally, because now this “monster” has killed not only the woman he cared for but also the Jedi Master who trained him. That’s a tough one to swallow, and you can see it in Kenobi’s eyes.

What followed was what myself and every other fanboy has been craving since the moment we saw the Season 5 trailer back in the summer: Darth Sidious . . . in the flesh! He is none to pleased at what his former apprentice has been up to and the battle between him and the Zabraks was one of the most breathtaking lightsaber battles we’ve seen yet. Both Maul and Savage have been powerhouses since their Clone Wars introductions and to see them go against Sidious here, and lose, shows us just how powerful Palpatine is! I was bummed to see Savage get killed, though I will not miss hearing him say “BROTHER” a hundred times over. Speaking of “brother,” when Savage gets impaled by Sidious’ blades, Maul actually screams “brother” which, if I’m not mistaken, is the first time he’s ever actually said it. He always thought himself better than Savage and constantly referred to him as his “apprentice.” I could be wrong about that, but, even so, the pain in Maul’s eyes as he screamed out to his falling brother was more emotion he’s shown towards Savage than he has in the past two seasons. The remaining battle ends with a fallen Maul being electrocuted by Sidious’ Force Lightening. Apparently, he’s not going to kill Maul, which is awesome, but I’m stumped as to what he’s possibly going to do with him! Guess we won’t find out until next year. *le sigh* It’s funny, with all the death in this episode, I thought it might have been written by Joss Whedon or Steven Moffat, but, alas, that is not the case. It was depressing to see both Kenobi and Maul at the end of this arc so broken, and I hope that Satine’s death has an impact on how Obi-Wan is portrayed later in the series.

“The Lawless” took us for a wild ride this week and was an extremely satisfying conclusion to what was already an epic arc. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us the remainder of the season.