Siege of Mandalore Breakdown Ep 4 - Victory & Death & Resolve

Final part of the Clone Wars Animated Series! An arc which has stood the test of time and the many rewatches! I hope you enjoy!!

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I have a message from the Village Jedi. Max Rebo, hit it. Happy Friday. Oh my goodness. We have finally made it, everybody. Part four of the Siege of Mandalore, and really the final episode of the Clone Wars. We are at the end of an era, people. I am so excited to talk about this. My name is Marina, and if you're new here, welcome. And if you're not, welcome back. I am the Village Jedi, and this is the Village Jedi Podcast. We are also at our final batch episode. So starting next week, we will be back on YouTube, which is exciting. Can't wait to get back in the groove. Um so that means the end of the audio only exclusives for this month, which, I mean, has been kind of nice. Um, I will say, just from an editing standpoint, editing audio only is a lot easier, um, which is also good for me to know. Like if I'm having a busy week or finals are coming up or whatever, audio seems to be fine, you know. I really do, I'm just gonna let you guys in on a little behind-the-scenes secret. I really do enjoy making YouTube videos, especially because from a content creating standpoint, it's easy for me to take pieces of like, you know, minute-long. I don't want to be holding anyone hostage too long on social media, but taking like a minute-long segment, it's easy to promote the show putting it on like TikTok or Instagram or what have you. It's easier to do that when I have some sort of YouTube clip. Um, whereas audio only is a little harder to promote, but it is nice for occasions such as this where I have been out of town. But anyways, that is a lot of ramble, yap, and yip, and that is not why we are here. We are here to talk about clone wars, siege of Mandalore. So let's go ahead and dive right back into our discussion. Uh, but first, as always, a brief ad break. Hello there. If you're looking to build your collection, the Village Jedi is now collaborating with Sabre Masters to offer you $20 off your first combat ready laser sword. You heard that correctly, Combat Ready. The team at Sabre Masters makes it their personal mission to create lightsabers built to last using lightweight polycarbonate blades with customizable settings and simple navigation. Sabre Masters has really crafted the ultimate experience. Sabermasters is always offering a great deal for force users everywhere, but with my code TV20, you can save an extra $20 at checkout. Simply type in the code at the checkout screen, TVJ20, and you're done. Link will be in the show notes. Okay, as always, we have a little bit of pre-show info. I didn't think it was appropriate for me to go on some sort of ramble bamble spiel this week. This is the shortest episode of all four, Victory and Death at 25 minutes. I felt it was appropriate for me to instead rank this show as a whole out of 10, and then rank my final ranking, Marina, the Village Jedi, today, this Friday, what I rank the animated Star Wars series at. I am interested to see how it differs from you, so maybe, oh, I totally forgot to promote myself. I mean, I kind of did. Wow. Out of the swing of things, guys, it's Friday. What can I say? I mean, it's not Friday for for me. It's Friday. It's another. You guys are so patient. What I'm getting at is if you're not following me already, feel free to follow me on Instagram or TikTok at the Village Jedi. Um, or if you want to get involved in the discussion in a different way, please feel free to send me an email at tvjpod at gmail.com. Okay, now that we've got that all out of the way, I want to rank the animated series that I have seen and enjoyed as well as Clone Wars as a whole. So Clone Wars as a whole, I'm going to give it a solid nine out of ten. 9.5 maybe. I don't know the ranking system rules. I guess I can make up my own, but nine out of ten. I don't like points. I like whole numbers. So Clone Wars as a whole, nine out of ten. And let me tell you the reason. The reason is because the first few seasons of the show are a little rough. Like when I'm trying, I just had this whole conversation with a friend. I'm like, you need to get into Star Wars animation. And they're like, ah, I just can't. I can't do it. I can't get first past the first couple episodes, the first couple seasons. And that is fair. In 2026, that is fair. Now, if I was talking to a child and we were in 2009, I would be like, bro, you gotta get on the Clone Wars train. But we're not. This is 2026. Star Wars is being held to a higher caliber, and so I will admit those first few seasons are rough. They're really rough to get into, especially if you are starting right now in 2026. So, nine out of ten, because they really didn't know what direction they wanted this show to go until like season three. And then season three, they knew what they had, they had a very responsive, active audience, and the show just completely took off. But those first few seasons are difficult. So I have it as nine point ten or nine point five to nine out of ten because as far as ranking the animated series, my number one, to no one's surprise, I put five on here. No, wait, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, I put five on here. I know there's more. There's like, you know, the 2D Clone Wars and all the other, you know, young Jedi Adventures, and then Star Wars Resistance. I wanted these to be shows that I have thoroughly watched, genuinely enjoyed. There are five of them. Here's how they rank: Clone Wars is number two, Bad Batch is number three, Rebels is number four, and every single one of the Tales series, because I just think they are so perfectly well done as far as storytelling and character development, is number five. Maul Shadow Lord is number one. It has to be. Because depending on how many seasons we have with this show, you can never go back and re-watch season one and say it was slow, it's hard to get into. I don't really like the animation. There is no excuse why any Star Wars fans in 2026 shouldn't watch um Maul Shadow Lord. There is none of those excuses. I can entertain the conversations when it comes to rebels and clone wars about the animation and this and that and blah blah blah, whatever. Maul Shadow Lord is peak Star Wars animation, and it is now the caliber that future Star Wars projects will be held to. Therefore, Maul Shadow Lord is a 10 out of 10, and it is at the top of my list. So that is that is that is that. So that's kind of my brief pre-show ramble yap that I wanted to take a second and do before we just dive right into the episode breakdown show notes. So let's go ahead and do that. As we said, this episode is entitled Victory and Death. Victory and Death. Who won and who died? Right? That's what this name is telling us. Genuinely, who won? I mean, the the obvious answer, Emperor Palpatine. He won. Right? He had this whole plan and it it worked. So he won. Victory to Emperor Palpatine. Empire Day. Yay, let's go, whatever. Who died? All of the Jedi. The majority of the Jedi. But we're not we're not following Emperor Palpatine, and we're not following all the Jedi in this episode. So why specifically did the producers, Dave Filoni, choose to have this episode be called Victory and Death? Well, there's several different facets from this. As we'll get into, the 501st was loyal to the very end. They were willing to die if it meant carrying out Order 66. So, in a way, they were victorious. They were loyal to the bitter end. Another reason, the the Republic of the Arm, the Army, you know, of the Republic, they won. Victory to the army of the Republic who died every single thing that this war was fighting for. Death of hope, death of any sort of future that people put their trust in the republic or in the separatists for that the end of this war would carry out for them. There was a massive death of the Jedi, and and really, when you're looking at Ahsoka, there was a massive death of her own current self. And same with Rex. Clones as a whole, their purpose, we're done, and we're gonna get into that. So it's just a very faceted episode title, especially when you think about it as this marks the end. This is the end of an era, not only in in world in universe timestamps, like we're at an end of a physical year era, but we're at an end of the Clone Wars era. We're now shifting into the Rebellion era, Andor, A New Hope, you know, original trilogy, rebels. We're now shifting into that. This is the show that carries us beautifully into that next era. But as far as this era, it's dead, it's gone, it's over, we can never go back. So victory and death. I would absolutely love to watch these four episodes as a movie in the theater at some point. That would be a tremendous gift to the people, let me just say. If there's any bigwigs out there listening who um, I don't know why you would be listening, but I would be eternally grateful. And I know the rest of the Star Wars fan base would be as well, so let me just speak and ask on their behalf. Please put these four episodes in the movie theater for us to enjoy. Even if it was only for a week. Let's make it happen. Alright, this episode is special because the intro music sounds just like a funeral procession. Something devastating is about to happen, and we are just letting you know, right? Like we are setting the mood, setting the tone for what this episode is about to be about, and trust me, it's gonna be sad, it's gonna be memorable, and there may be tears. There will be tears. So right away we pick up right where we left off. Rex is back, him and Ahsoka, they're gonna work together. Um, and he's, you know, she's like, set those things to stun, we're not trying to kill anyone. She has so much compassion for these clone soldiers that she's been able to work with for all these years. She ends up pushing the hallway door forward, clearing the way for their escape because they want to get off this ship. She knows that it's unreasonable to try and save more clones the way she just saved Rex. So she's just headed, headed out. We're headed to the shuttle bay. I've got Rex with me. And Rex looks down, he notices he's like, Man, the boys are having a hard time, you know, and and mentions Maul. He's like, Did you hear that Maul escaped? And Ahsoka's like, Oh, he didn't escape, I let him out. And Rex is concerned. He's like, What? Why? So now we're sort of shifting themes and perspectives. These first three episodes have been very heavily Ahsoka central. What is Ahsoka thinking during all of this? Some of Maul. But now we're throwing Rex in there as a main character. What is Rex thinking during all this? And Rex, frankly, he doesn't want to see his brother slaughtered and knows that Maul has no compassion for clones. If he's looking for an escape too, it's guaranteed that he's going to be taking out clones along the way and not with stun guns. So the clone speaking of all, we cut back to him and the clone calm that he has on his wrist goes off and says Commander Rex is still unresponsive, and he aided Tao's escape. Maul hears this and he's really just trying to put together a plan for his own escape because he's trying to find out where where do I go from here? And he ends up making his way toward the hyperdrive power center of the ship, and using the force, he just brings it down. Nothing stalls your enemy faster than putting them in eminent danger as well. So there's this really cool shot where, like I said, Maul, he's using the force to just bring this whole thing down, and the ship now is starting to fail, right? We're going to crash. We're not going to be dead in dead in the air. We're going to crash. And Maul doesn't know this. Ahsoka doesn't know this. No soldier on board knows, but we're headed toward the atmosphere of a planet. So the hangar bay doors open, and Rex and Ahsoka, they start using R7. They kind of want to assess this situation fully. And we're going back and forth because we're also watching Maul meticulously plan out and carry his own escape. I have this theory that he was thinking about all this while in the Mandalorian torture box as he was being brought on board and sort of like dragged away to that blazer cell, sort of just kind of taking mental notes. But seeing him do this, again, I feel like I already played praised Maul Shadow Lord enough for one episode, but you guys know me. I just I always circle back. As a viewer, you are silently going on this journey with him. There isn't like a little droid or another little character following him around that the writers are using to be like, hey, here's Maul's plan. Where are we going, sir? And Maul's like, we're headed to the shuttle bay. Like, no, you are watching his tactical choices play out live. We're finding out his plan with the rest of the characters on the scene. He's smarter than the audience. Like, we don't know what his next move is gonna be. And that is why I love the Maul Shadow Lord TV show. We see his brilliance highlighted in all ten episodes. You are on the edge of your seat. There's constantly movement happening. Everything is intentional. There's no filler or dead air. You are learning with the rest of the characters what Maul's angle is, what his grand plan is. Where are we at in the stream of time? What is he thinking? And we're already starting to get an inkling of that just in this little brief like 10-second shot. So now with the rest of the characters, we're finding out that the falling ship is caught in the moon's gravitational field and it's slowly headed toward a hurling crash landing. Ahsoka just goes, We need to get out of here. So now there's no thinking, saving. We're on to plan B. Like plan A, plan A is leave. Plan B is survive. Like this is not gonna work. So the escape shuttle, they notice, it's being guarded by hundreds of painted 501st soldiers. Jesse is leading them, which leads me to a tangent side note, actually. Something I was able to learn this week that I would like to share with you guys. I learned what happened to the 501st med clone Kix. So I'm just gonna read this straight from Google because I don't want to mess it up and take up all y'all's time. Yes, so the 501st Legion Medic CT6116 Kix survived Order 66, but only because he was abducted and placed in suspended stasis by Count Dooku's forces prior to the event. So he was captured by the separatists, and if you don't remember, Kix is the one that really just coming off the top of my head is we see him at the clone bar, and Fives is in the bathroom, and he's like putting on his little hat, and Kix comes in and he's talking to him. He's got like the like Arabesh tattoos on the side of his head. Cool guy, he's the med, the med clone. So this says how Kix survived. After Arctrooper Fives died trying to expose the inhibitor chip conspiracy, Kix investigated the chips himself. Before he could warn the Jedi, Count Dooku ordered his capture. Kix was locked inside Cryostasis pod on a separatist cruiser, and during a republic ambush, the ship was forced to jump into hyperspace and ultimately crash-landed on the remote planet Ponema? Ponema? Okay, sure. The sequel trilogy era, however, because he was frozen, Kix completely bypassed the execution of Order 66 and the Galactic Civil War. He was finally awoken from stasis roughly 50 years after the Clone Wars, about 30 years after the Battle of Endor, by the pirate Sidon Ithano. Upon discovering that his Republic and the Jedi were long gone, Kix traded his 501st armor for a unique blue and red hooded look and joined the pirate crew. So I just was really interested in that that I learned this week, and I wanted to throw that in there somehow, and I felt that this was a brilliant time. So if you want, you can look up Clone Trooper Kicks. He's got this really cool outfit that I think would be a really sick cosplay. And yeah, he's cool. He's pretty cool. So I learned about that and I wanted to share it with you guys. So, anyways, we see this shot. We're back to we're back to Mandalore, we're on the shipwreck. We see this shot. We've gotta get in the heads of these characters really quick. Okay? What is happening here? It's just not good. We have the shuttle bay being guarded by all these 501st soldiers with their faces painted to look like Ahsokatano, the Jedi that they're on the hunt for. It's haunting. So to get into the minds a little bit, the clones, they are being mind controlled. It's total loss of free will, as we see fleshed out in Bad Batch Episode 1, which is one of my favorite episodes to rewatch. Getting in the mind of Jesse specifically, he's just trying to follow orders. Good soldiers follow orders. He's an arc trooper, and from his perspective, he has no idea where Rex is, so he's kind of taking point now. Getting into the mind of Maul, this isn't going great, but you know, I can work with this. I'm determined to survive. I've survived worse. He has allies to run to, as we learn in Shadow Lord, he ends up running to the pikes after this. Getting into the mind of Ahsoka, these are her friends. These were men that she fought alongside in a war that she had walked away from. None of this was expected, right? But her advantage is in Tales of the Jedi training that we see, we know that she at least knows how to fight clones. That's gotta be going through her head. But now let's take a second also to get into the head of Rex. Our hearts as an audience are breaking just like his. He has no chance of survival for his brothers. He's got no one to run to once this is over. This is the last day of his current life. His purpose for living is about to be done, gone. Who is he after this day? He's someone entirely new. Like his battalion, his commander, his cause, his reason for being born. It's just all gone in one day. And so all these emotions are running. Everything is just dialed up to 11. And it's all about to go down right now. So there's this blaring alarm. He says, What do we do? Fight our way to the shuttle? And he's, you know, looking at Ahsoka, like, what's the plan? He says, I hate to tell you this, but they they don't care. This ship is going down, and my brothers are willing to die to take you and me along with them. We have just this brilliant performance by Dee Bradley Baker. Like, he is really selling the emotion here. Ahsoka then removes his helmet, and the animators really have taken the liberty of kissing a stone-cold brick and then throwing at us mock speed by animating a tear falling from Rex's cheek. Ahsoka then takes this opportunity to really just look at her friend and think of some words of comfort to offer at a time like this. She says, You're a good soldier, Rex. So are all the men down there. They may be willing to die, but I am not the one who is going to kill them. Talk about trauma bonded, right? Like these two people are in a situation neither one of them ever expected to be in, and neither one of them are ever going to forget it. It's going to stick with them for the rest. Of their life. Like, prime example, I feel like we talked about this last week or maybe the week before, where Rex has such a heightened reaction to finding out the Bad Batch hasn't removed their chips. He is just instantly walls up, guns drawn. He tucks Omega behind him to protect her. Like this day scarred him for the rest of his life. And it motivated his cause going forward. So he says, okay, so we're just gonna surrender, like admit defeat. Is that it? It as in, is that it? The end of the war, the end of my life, everything I fought for. I'm just about to walk down there and surrender. That's what all of this has come to. All these scratches on my armor, all these wrinkles on my face, all these battle stories that I've lived to tell. That's it. Like you can just see, he's just he can't even wrap his mind around his current reality, but he definitely isn't about to wrap his mind around his demise either. He's like, there's no way that's how this ends. I've lived too long and worked too hard to stay alive. I'm not throwing in the towel right now. There's no way you're actually suggesting that. So it's like, well, I have a plan. I don't know if it's gonna work, but basically, we're gonna go down there and yap fest until the droids can get a ship ready for us. So that's exactly what happens. They go down there, the droids kind of take off to the side, they're playing with the computers, and um Rex is like, okay, hold your fire, hold your fire. He's talking to Jesse, he's like, we don't want to mess this up. Ahsoka's not a Jedi, we want to get this right. Because the clones don't know that he's been D-chipped at this point, but they do know, and Jesse says this, that if you don't comply with Order 66, we're gonna have to execute you too. Again, perfectly reflecting just how smart Palpatine is. If you can't kill them all, kill the people who know what's up. So I also added a note here that Ahsoka looks absolutely ripped. Like her arms, she just got those biceps. I was like, what is her workout routine? Surviving Order 60 sayings. Capturing mall. I don't know. How long does the list have to be surviving the Martes sisters? We've got a long list of exercises that this girl has had to complete to get those biceps. So I don't know. It motivated me. I saw I looked up while I was taking my notes. I'm like, oh, I gotta get back to the gym. Okay, so, anyways, they're just buying time. And so far the plan seems to be working, but then Jesse he he hits it, he says, Okay, you're in violation of order 66, like you're done. And then right then the droids do their little thing and the lower decks go down, so they only need to fight a fraction of these clones. That's when Maul shows up, and now Ahsoka is his distraction, so it's a race now between all three of them to get to this last shuttle, and he has no empathy for her. He's he goes, You wanted this chaos. He like pushes her away while he makes his escape. There's so much happening. Rex is using his stun blast, there's like stun blasts and deflected blasts and real blasts, and Maul's like throwing crates and the droids are freaking out, and the ship is going down and the alarm is blaring. Like it is an overstimulation nightmare. If I was there, I would need a vacation from my survival. I would honestly. There's a lot going on in this scene. So Maul he ends up getting into the shuttle, he powers it up and takes off. And then we have this cool shot where Ahsoka uses both hands to force grab it. She's using every ounce of strength she has to just pull him back. There's this crossfire happening, but then Rex ends up getting shot. Ahsoka has to let it go. She makes the resid the decision then to release their plan B. Like now we're at plan C. Like, plan A was get off this ship. Plan B is survive. And now plan C is do whatever we have to do to live another day. Like this, this is getting out of hand. So she's still not willing to kill them. Like we see when she's deflecting, she's deflecting these blasts into like their legs and their arms. She's avoiding kill shots at all at all costs. Like she just wants to disarm them, knock them out, whatever she's gotta do. Then we get this really, really cool shot, which I remember, because like I told you guys when we very first started this rodeo, we are watching this with the eyes of someone who's never seen it before. I had to re-watch this shot a few times when I watched it back in 2020. Rewind, rewind, rewind. This cool shot where Ahsoka sort of like throws her lightsaber, sticks them in the ground, and then uses the force to spin them in a circle around her and Rex's feet, which then sends them hurling down to the ship's lower levels. So they get up, dust off, and then they see, oh, here's the here's the clones that we sent to the lower levels. It's Jesse and a whole other fleet of clones. But thankfully, like the the droids upstairs, they've got got their backs, so they're twiddling with the computer. Some of the lower decks go up, and they only again have to fight sort of a fraction of them. Um, but then the helper droids get blasted. So rip droids, and now it really is just the two of them. Like Rex, he's running as fast as he can. They just want to locate any ship. He says all these are down for maintenance, like we just need one. And this fight is intense. Like you can tell, they are tired, emotional. There's just no time to really even think about what is going on at this moment. So the cruiser, it's now officially caught into the moon's atmosphere. It starts falling, pieces are ripping off, it's a race against time, and Ahsoka ends up sort of like free-falling as Rex jets through the debris looking for her. And I sort of had this realization like Rex knows at this point that he is only alive because of Ahsoka at this point. He's doing everything he can to just grab her, and he's not a pilot. So Ahsoka, she eventually gets safely to the ship, and the two fly away as the the cruiser crashes to the moon's surface. They take a beat to just look down at what they just survived, what they just experienced, because all this has happened in the span of maybe, maybe an hour, maybe two. It's been very, very quick. From we are entering hyperspace on our way to Coruscant, bringing Maul back to the Jedi Council to now this. And they still don't fully even know what happened. So here's where I paused. 17 minutes and 11 seconds. Burying the dead begins to hauntingly play as we see the charcoal ship. There's no more speaking after this. We see the charcoal ship crashed against the moon's surface and rows of simple clone graves, each buried by Ahsoka and Rex. The two have scavenged the ship for supplies, as we see Rex has a backpack and a few other supplies next to their escape ship. He's holding a shovel, which is just absolutely gut-wrenching. We even see one of the little Astromech droids. They found all his little parts stacked together in memory. And Rex ends up looking back at the wreckage to Ahsoka. She's actually sweet, uh sporting a pretty like sweet-looking poncho, but we slowly pan across the graves, which are each marked with a helmet, and there's just this aftermath shot. Again, no speaking. Like she's just reflecting not only on what happened that day, but what has happened all her life. How did they get here? What signs did she miss? What could she have done? Right. That's all she's thinking. She ends up dropping her saber to the ground and walks away. She just walks away from everything. Everything she's ever known. When we first met her, we had no idea what was gonna happen. We didn't know what direction Felone was gonna take her character. But not even the audience could guess that this is where we were gonna end up. We knew something was gonna happen because obviously we don't see Ahsoka anywhere in the prequel films. We don't see her in the original trilogy, so something was going to happen. Um, and at this point, season seven had come out. We had seen her in the rebels, but we just didn't quite know what went down. This is a heavy moment when she ultimately decides to walk away. So then the episode isn't over. We cut to sometime in the future. There's these imperial ships, one of them lands, it's snowing. We've got these snow troopers and lots of sort of like Hoth Empire Strikes Back details with the interrogation droids, the different troopers walking around. They're all inspecting the crash site. And then we hear the haunting wrath of Vader, he makes his way to the crash. We don't know how far into the future this is. At least I don't. I didn't take take the 10 seconds to Google search, but we from what I understand, we don't totally know. He reaches down, he grabs Ahsoka's saber, the one she dropped some time ago, the one that he took care of while she was away, the last conversation playing out in his head, no doubt, when he gave it to her before they parted ways. Vader looks up and he actually sees Murai, who is the essence of the daughter that now follows Ahsoka around. We see Murai in Rebels. Um, we see her in the Ahsoka and a live-action show. And there's this shot of Vader in the snow. He's looking up, and you can just barely make out the face of Anakin Skywalker. A piece of him, no doubtly, wonders if she made it out of this, because this is just a complete mess. And at this point, he has closure, and so do the fans. This is a beautiful way to end the series because the Empire is reigning, and we can go straight into Rebels pretty effortlessly at this point. Like what happens in between those shows, it's not crucial. I remember reading something a while back when this episode first debuted and everyone was kind of in their fields. Not that we we ever moved on, I don't think you ever can move on from an episode such as this. But someone said Darth Vader didn't have to go there, but Anakin Skywalker did. And that's always stuck with me because he was the one with all these memories of this Padawan. It was like his little sister. So victory and death, circling back to that, who really won that day? It was really only Palpatine. Vader didn't win. Anakin suffers every day. And he lost his little sister, he lost his wife. The death of Anakin Skywalker really is Star Wars in a nutshell. So just an absolutely beautiful way to end this era and to just effortlessly go into the next the next part of the story. And so I was thinking, like, you know, surely this can't be it. I can't end this episode here. We've been talking about it for a month, but that's not enough. So as a treat, you're welcome. We're gonna go ahead and pick right up where this left off from Tales of the Jedi, episode six, entitled Resolved. I watched it, so here's a few notes we'll go over. Um, which you guys know me, a few notes that can mean a whole bunch of different things, so we'll see where this goes. But really, where does Ahsoka's story go from here? The Ahsoka book, like I highly encourage you to read it. It's very well done. Bad Batch, it tells us where Rex's story continued on. Um, but this episode in particular, Tales of the Jedi, episode six resolve, it takes place after Maul's Shadow Lord, but before Rebels. So it opens up at Padme's funeral, end of Revenge of the Sith. So cool to see this shot in Clone Wars animation, by the way. We see Baylor Ghana, and he notices that Ahsoka is at the funeral and confronts her afterward. He says, You shouldn't have come. There's nothing you could have done for either of them. Why risk it? Either of them. Interesting choice of words here. There's nothing you could have done for Padme, and there's nothing that you could have done for Anakin. But now let's take it a step further too. There's nothing you could have done for either of them. The twins? Them? It's just a whole layered line. Bale knows that Ahsoka knows, that she knows, that Padmi knows, you know, like this whole quote unquote secret relationship between them was never really a secret to anyone who knew them well. So why come? Why risk it? And Ahsoka just has this heartbreaking response. She just says, She was my friend. And she's still in the Mandalorian outfit. So very this is very shortly after that final episode. Like if you want true heartbreak and somewhat closure, just watch this 17-minute episode right after you watch Victory and Death. I highly encourage it. That's what I did, and so we will continue on. So Bale ends up giving her a contact receiver. He says, if you need anything, you can contact me with this. And she tries to give it back. She's like, No, I'm tired of fighting. But then she takes it anyways because the Coruscant Guard clones end up kind of breaking up their little reunion. And and I want to think about that for a second. I'm tired of fighting. This girl has been fighting most of her life, and we see that deep dive exploratory so beautifully done in Ahsoka Live Action when she's in World Between Worlds. We have those foggy flashbacks. This girl is suffering with some deep trauma. She has some serious issues that she has to pack around for the rest of her life because of how much fighting she has had to do at such a young age. So she says, I'm done. I'm done fighting. I don't want to do this anymore. And Bale doesn't push it. I actually had forgotten until I re-watched this, but we do see Rex. He's at the river where their ship is, he's waiting for Ahsoka, and they jump in their Order 66 escape ship together. So like this is right after that episode. Right after. And here's what I appreciated. I hadn't thought about this before. But Ahsoka, she obviously went to pay her respects because like she said, Padme was her friend. But I almost wonder if she first like the first person she tried to contact was Padme. And then she found out Padme was dead. This was the only person she felt she could trust, uh unarguably. And I hadn't really thought about that before until I re-watched this episode. Like, why would she be there? How would she even know? She probably tried to reach out to her, and then someone let her know, like, she's passed away, and here's where her funeral's gonna be, if you if you would like to pay her respects. Ahsoka didn't have anyone to trust, nowhere to go. Same with Rex, they're just trying to put pieces together. What are we supposed to do? Who can we trust? There's at least one person we can trust, and she's gone too. So we cut to a few years in the future. Ahsoka, she's working on a planet that is very similarly described in the Ahsoka book. It's sort of this harvesting farm planet. In the book, she's a mechanic, she's helping these people. There is an imperial occupation, but you know, some of the people are fine with it, most of them aren't. It is what it is. And Ahsoka actually ends up using the force to protect one of these farmer girls from a heavy um bale of hay falling down. And this girl, she immediately clocks it. She becomes super suspicious. And it sort of made me realize I took a beat to think about this. To be a true survivor of Order 66 and not attract any attention from the Empire or Jedi hunters, you have to be okay with watching events play out that you could have prevented. You have to sit there and be like, okay, that person got hurt, and I could have done something, but if I do, I'll reveal myself. And as we'll learn as this episode progresses, she should not have intervened. She should not have done anything. Not that it's her fault, but she should not have done that. So in this case, Ahsoka, you know, her heart went out. Therefore, we have this story to follow. The farmer girl calls her Ashla, which is her undercover name, which side note, super nerdy. Um, that was the initial light side name that George Lucas had disregarded um for the light side instead of calling it the Force, he called it Ashla. Um, so anyways, we've got I think that's right. If I'm wrong, please correct me. You know how much I love to be educated. So, anyways, one of the one of the farmers ends up saying, Emperor Palpatine brought peace through persecution. And the farmer girl goes, Well, we are safe, but not because of the Empire. And she says this while looking at Ahsoka, kind of like, it made me think like when you had a crush when you were younger and you told your friend to play it cool, and they were so incredibly obnoxious. Like, that's exactly the same energy as this scene. This girl is like, Well, I'm not scared because we have someone protecting us, looking at Ahsoka. And Ahsoka's just like, girl, can you be so for real right now? So then later that night, this farm girl, she even ends up walking to Ahsoka and she's like, So we're going somewhere dangerous, but don't worry, we'll be safe, won't we, Master Jedi? Mama! Why you gotta do our girl like that? Ahsoka, she's not happy. She like denies it. She's rethinking if she should stay. And of course, the obnoxious farmer girl brother overhears this whole conversation. The next day, he even poking, like poking at the fact that he knows her secret, he's like, May the force be with you. Oh. This whole thing. It's just like again, I understand why she did what she did, but to be a true survivor, you have got to take a back seat. And that's why Obi-Wan Kenobi survived as long as he did in the Kenobi series. We see him, he's just moving through the motions. He's not happy. He doesn't have a thriving life, he lives in a hole, and that's just the reality of your situation as an Order 66 survivor in most cases. So we cut to the evening. They're coming back, the village farm girl and Ahsoka, the whole village is on fire. Ahsoka senses something is amiss, and sure enough, we see an Inquisitor. He's terrifying, he's torched the place, there's a bunch of people that are dead. He's interrogating the last survivors of the Jedi whereabouts, which happens to be the farmer girl's obnoxious brother and her dad. Ahsoka pulls up. She is mad. Like this whole situation is just an absolute disaster, but she stays calm. Like she knows that is the only way that she'll be able to win. So the inquisitor, his name is the crow. He goes, Can it be you should be dead? Looks like I shall be the one rewarded, Ahsoka Tano. Because the Inquisitors know her. They have to. Like, right here, it gives us an as an audience, like it gives us closure that Vader does in fact walk away from that ice moon crash site believing that Ahsoka was dead. Because the Inquisitor confirmed it. He's like, you should be dead. Like we all thought you were dead. But they know, like a force-wielding Tagruda, probably Ahsogatano. So I just want to take a second here. We get this cool shot of them facing each other against the flames, and he really doesn't even know who he's about to fight. Like the way the Inquisitor reward system goes, if you can take down Darth Vader's original Padawan, this man is about to be rich. He's about to be promoted to the master inquisitor or whatever they want to call him. Because Vader's teachings that he is teaching them have been passed down to the Inquisitors, but she is the OG. Like that's why I jokingly say, like, Ahsoka was the first Inquisitor, like she's the first sister. Um, because she was the first one to receive Darth Vader's trainings. And sure, there's like a darker, a darker take on it now that he's he's a Sith and they are acolytes of the Sith, but she is the original wielder of Anakin's teachings. She's the original dual blade wielder, even. Like, why do you think the Inquisitors use double blades? Why do you think Vader believes that it is an effective way of fighting and it gives you a tactical advantage? Manage. There's just all these connections. And the man has no idea. He just doesn't even know. So the fight ends up obviously lasting like maybe five seconds. It's also fast in the book. Like I remember the first time I read it, I was like, wait, what just happened? I had to read it a couple times. And it's because he assumed since she was unarmed, he had the advantage. And it's funny because the crow, like, he was not moving like this in Maul Shadow Lord, which I think is kind of an interesting choice. But we learn later that his Inquisitor Double Blade is where Ahsoka gets her two white crystals for her two lightsabers. She heals them in essence, sort of like how the crystals are being bled. If you're more interested on that, I did a deep dive on our kyber crystal episode a few months ago. You can scroll back and listen to that. I encourage you, it was a fun deep dive episode that I'm very proud of. But this is where Ahsoka gets her double white blades, is from killing this Inquisitor. So she ends up taking care of the surviving family. She calls in Bale Organa, and we see the same type of ship used that Leia uses in A New Hope. And Bale goes, I was beginning to think you lost this. Are you sure you're ready to get back into the fight? And Ahsoka just like nods. So now you can watch Rebels. Like all the loose ends are tied up. I remember when this episode was released, I was just so hyped, as were every other Ahsoka fans out there. We know how she gets into the rebellion now as fulcrum. And that is the end. Like, frankly, I think I'm gonna start doing this on Clone Wars rewatches. Like when I'm done watching Victory and Death, just hop on over to Tales of the Jedi, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep to episode six. Resolve, because it is resolved. Like, as a fan, you have a sense of resolution. You're like, phew, okay, I don't have to cry myself to sleep tonight. Like, it's it's not an emotional ending, it's a logical ending that sets you up to then start your Rebels rewatch. So that is the end. I'm actually pretty excited. I posted a video um on Instagram today of like just like scrolling through all my notes for these these past four episodes, breaking down the seizure Mandalore. It is a lot, you guys. We have covered a lot of material, and I really hope you have enjoyed. I know I have enjoyed this, it has been such a fun deep dive episode. I think I want to do this again, um, just with different arcs, maybe of rebels that have kind of touched all of us as fans that we're still talking about, because that's what makes these stories so good, is you find something new to appreciate with every re-watch. And because Star Wars is so connected, sometimes it touches you in a different way because of a new piece of media that came out. For example, Tales of the Jedi, when we learned that Anakin was training Ahsoka on how to survive in battle, she was actually learning to survive Order 66. Rewatching this final episode makes that that so much sweeter because we have that new loose end tied up. So I just want to take a second to say thank you for for hanging out with me this month, talking about something that we all know and love, which is the Siege of Mandalore. And I hope you enjoyed this episode breakdown, and I can't wait to spend a little bit of time with you guys next week. Um, so unfortunately, this is where the fun ends. My only hope is you enjoyed, and I will yap at you guys again next Friday. Bye! This has been The Village Jedi. Thank you so much for listening. To support this show, please leave a rating or review wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Go check out the YouTube channel or send me an email to be read and discussed on air. You can also tell a fellow nerd to build the community. I mean this in the nerdiest way possible. May the force be with you.