The first official negotiations between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems are taking place on the neutral planet Mandalore. Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo, one of the delegates, is accompanied by Padawan Ahsoka Tano. The negotiations are at somewhat of an impasse because the Republic refuses to recognize the Confederacy as legitimate when Lux Bonteri, son of murdered Separatist senator Mina Bonteri, bursts in on them. He demands that Count Dooku be brought to justice for murdering his mother. After Lux is arrested by the Separatist security for disrupting the proceedings, Padmé lets Ahsoka go after him to try and rescue him.
Lux is taken to the ship the Separatist delegation arrived on, where Dooku, via hologram, pronounces that he is to be executed. While he's doing this, Lux fiddles with a gadget he's wearing on his wrist. Before the sentence can be carried out, Ahsoka bursts in and rescues Lux, and they flee Mandalore in a Republic ship. On board the ship, Lux manages to stun Ahsoka. He tells R2-D2 she's fallen asleep, and changes the ship's course to head for the planet Carlac.
Ahsoka wakes up shortly after arrival to find Lux has gone outside to meet someone, and her lightsabers are missing. She tells R2 to look for them while she goes out to have a word with Lux. It turns out that Lux, wanting revenge for his mother's death, has teamed up with the Mandalorian terrorist group Death Watch and its leader, Pre Vizsla, who's had a falling out with Dooku since his last appearance. Ahsoka tries to warn Lux about their true nature, but he doesn't listen.
Lux tells the Death Watch Ahsoka is his "betrothed" when Vizsla's lieutenant Bo-Katan asks who she is. R2 comes off the ship having found Ahsoka's lightsabers, but she signals him to hide them so Death Watch doesn't see. Lux, Ahsoka and R2 are taken to the Death Watch camp. Ahsoka is thrown in with a group of captured Ming Po girls who have been forced into service, while R2 is ordered to fix up a bunch of droids the Mandalorian warriors use as target practice. At suppertime, the chieftain of the nearby Ming Po village, where the girls were abducted from, angrily bursts in and demands their return. Vizsla promises they'll be returned the following morning.
The following morning, the Death Watch, with Ahsoka and Lux in tow, descends upon the village. Vizsla murders the chieftain's granddaughter, one of the captured girls, in front of him with the Darksaber, and orders the village burned to the ground. Ahsoka intervenes and kills several warriors with nothing more than farming equipment, revealing herself as a Jedi. She's captured and dragged back to the camp. Lux, by this point, is having serious second thoughts about this, and asks Vizsla to spare her, but he refuses. R2 takes the moment to return Ahsoka's lightsabers, having repaired the droids and recruited them as backup to attack Death Watch. In the ensuing fight, Ahsoka manages to fight Vizsla to a draw, and the trio escape the camp and eventually Carlac.
Ahsoka asks Lux to come back to the Republic with her, but he refuses and instead leaves in an escape pod.
Tropes:
- Bald of Evil: Pre Vizsla is now rocking the skinhead look.
- Batman Gambit: Lux publicly reveals Dooku's involvement in his mother's death, knowing that a) he will be arrested and brought before Dooku, b) Dooku will attend via hologram, allowing Lux to track his location, and c) Ahsoka will bust in and rescue him before any harm comes to him.
- Bullet Dancing: The Death Watch members do this with the droids they keep for target practice.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: After Lux is brought before Count Dooku's hologram, Dooku claims not to remember what he did to Mina Bonteri, but it's unclear whether he really has forgotten, or is just twisting the knife by deeming her death to be insignificant. It fits either way.Dooku: Those are some rather strong accusations you have levied against me.
Lux: You know what you did.
Dooku: Do I? I've done a lot of things, young man, and choose to remember them in order of importance. The death of your mother... seems to have escaped me. - Call-Back:
- Yet again, Vizsla, wielding the Darksaber, gets into a duel with a Jedi who's trying to protect a Non-Action Guy/Girl they have romantic tension with while attempting to flee the Death Watch camp. Only this time, Ahsoka has no reason to hold back because Lux, unlike Duchess Satine, is not an Actual Pacifist.
- Lux wants revenge against Dooku because he had Mina Bonteri murdered after she supported peace negotiations with the Republic.
- Doubling as a Call-Forward, this is not the first or last time R2-D2's wound up carrying the lightsabers of a Jedi that he's accompanying into the headquarters of an antagonist.
- The Cameo:
- Duchess Satine is overseeing the negotiations.
- The other Republic delegates are Mon Mothma and Bail Organa.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: As is par for the course, Dooku betrayed Death Watch between this episode and their previous on-screen appearance. Given that Sheev Palpatine is Playing Both Sides, this may have been a deliberate ploy to weaken the Separatists.
- Designated Girl Fight: Ahsoka vs. Bo-Katan while they're escaping.
- Exact Words: Chieftain Pieter demands that Death Watch return the enslaved villagers, and Vizsla agrees to return them tomorrow at sunrise. He keeps his word... then immediately stabs Pieter's granddaughter In the Back and orders the village to be razed to the ground.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Another peace-mongering scheme to end the Clone Wars too early organized by Padme and her allies Bail Organa and Mon Mothma fails once again after Lux calls out Dooku for murdering his mother, disrupting the negotiations and causing the security forces on both sides to duke it out while Ahsoka helps him escape. Anakin even lampshades this.Anakin: Ahsoka, Padmé just contacted me. She told me the peace negotiations have all but collapsed. Where are you?
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Ahsoka and Lux are arguing in a tent when he sees Pre Vizsla approaching from outside, so he kisses her so Vizsla doesn't hear anything giving away Ahsoka's Jedi status.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Ahsoka receives one from Bo-Katan and does not like it.
- For the Evulz: The Death Watch's destruction of the Ming Po village.
- Foreshadowing: While being escorted out, Lux mentions that Dooku is deceiving the Separatist Senate and will be betrayed like his mother was. Guess what happens to Bec Lawise?
- Gone Horribly Right: Horribly from the Death Watch's point of view, anyway, they tell R2 to repair their droid captives so they can use them for target practice again [evil laugh]. He repairs them all right.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Count Dooku gave Vizsla a scar underneath his right eye.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Lux Bonteri is extremely guilty of this, thinking he could trust Pre Vizsla and Death Watch.
- Hypocrite: When Lux realises Death Watch's true nature and calls them "murderers", Vizsla counters that it was Lux's own desire to murder Count Dooku that led him to join forces with them in the first place.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Vizsla does this to Tryla, Chieftain Pieter's granddaughter, right in front of him.
- Improvised Weapon: Ahsoka kills several Death Watch commandos with farming equipment at the village.
- Noodle Incident: The previous time we saw Death Watch, they were allies of the Separatists. We have no idea what caused their falling-out, other than that Count Dooku gave Pre Vizsla a nasty scar by his right eye during the process.
- Obviously Evil: The Death Watch torture droids, kidnap nearby villagers as slave labor, and murder the villagers and burn their village when they object. It takes a surprisingly long time for Lux to realize they're bad guys.
- Off With Their Heads: Upon getting her lightsabers from R2, Ahsoka cuts herself loose in one swing and beheads four Death Watch commandos.
- Pet the Dog: Compared to the last time Anakin mentioned Mina Bonteri and scolded Ahsoka for illegally visiting Raxxus, he does offer her son, Lux, Republic protection after the negotiations to end the Clone Wars early go south.
- Revenge Before Reason: Ahsoka repeatedly tells Lux that his lust for vengeance is going to get him killed.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Lux to Ahsoka, for the above-mentioned reason of preventing Vizsla from overhearing anything that would give away her Jedi status.
- Snow Means Death: Carlac is a cold and snowy planet. There's death, lots of it.
- Undercover as Lovers: Lux tells Bo-Katan Ahsoka is his "betrothed" so they won't know what she actually is.
- Villain Ball: Death Watch would've gotten everything they wanted plus a PR boost if they had let the villagers and Ahsoka leave unmolested. But apparently, long-term strategic thinking is not their strong suit...
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Deconstructed. Lux is arrested by the Separatists for accusing Dooku of murder, and Ahsoka asks Padmé for permission to rescue him. Padmé tells Ahsoka to be discreet. Ahsoka is anything but discreet, causing the extremely important diplomatic meeting to fail.
