Never become desperate enough to trust the untrustworthy.
After escaping prison, Ahsoka heads for the lower levels of Coruscant, trying to prove her innocence.
Tropes:
- Abandoned Warehouse: Barriss points Ahsoka toward an old warehouse on level 1315, where she is ambushed by the Hooded Assailant while searching for clues.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Invoked, rather than played straight. When Ahsoka recalibrates the holobooth's frequency to prevent anyone from tracing the transmission, Ventress sarcastically remarkes that by doing so Ahsoka is adding another act to her own criminal record — a record which by this point includes sedition, terrorism and multiple murders.
- Badass Normal: The Coruscant Underworld Police officers give Ahsoka a serious run for her money on the train. Doubling with Badass Bystander, a few civilians try and attack Ahsoka on the train... and actually slow her down.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The unidentified Dark Jedi manages to get away and further frame Ahsoka.
- Bait-and-Switch: It seems like this episode's Aesop ("Never become so desperate you trust the untrustworthy") is about Ventress. In the following episode, it's revealed to be about a different character.
- Big Shadow, Little Creature: Ventress sees a shadow coming towards her that resembles Ahsoka, but it turns out to be a tooka, a small cat-like creature.
- Bounty Hunter: As we've seen before, Asajj Ventress is making her living as a bounty hunter now and tracks down Ahsoka for the bounty on her head.
- Call-Forward: The way Windu distrusts Anakin would make the mission more complicated due to his emotional connection, is similar to his doubts of Anakin later mission he would give him.
- Combat Pragmatist: The Hooded Assailant ambushes Ventress by hurling a heavy piece of metal at her before knocking her out with a pipe. Later, she throws heavy barrels at Ahsoka during their duel and detonates containers of high-pressured gas in her face.
- Creator Cameo: The Gotal bum Ahsoka trades with for a cloak is voiced by Dave Filoni, who is the series' supervising director.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Ahsoka and Ventress beat up a dozen clone troopers unarmed (Ventress only uses her lightsabers to cut up their blasters) in a matter of seconds, without seriously harming any of them.
- The Hooded Assailant ambushes Ventress and knocks her silly without any chance for her to fight back.
- Cutting the Knot: The Coruscant Police shoot out the controls of Ahsoka's elevator, sending her and a Twi'lek child plummeting. She spends a few seconds freaking out, then starts trying to cut her way through the ceiling... then the child walks over to a second panel and hits the emergency brakes.
- Dark Action Girl: Ventress and the Hooded Assailant qualify for this trope.
- Downer Ending: Ahsoka is arrested, knocked out, and further framed for the crime she didn't commit.
- Foreshadowing: The Hooded Assailant is feminine enough to be confused for Ventress, and she is able to find Ahsoka and Ventress shortly after the two made contact with Barriss Offee.
- In the Hood:
- Ahsoka gets a hooded poncho by bargaining with a bum. She uses the hood to hide her face in an effort to evade arrest. It doesn't really work out.
- The Hooded Assailant combines a cloak with Ventress' stolen mask and lightsabers to hide her identity.
- Mythology Gag: While chasing Ahsoka through the underworld, Rex mentions she's on level 1312, which means Ahsoka passed through level 1313.
- No OSHA Compliance: Subverted; the turbolifts have emergency stop buttons in case they start falling and they work. The only reason Ahsoka doesn't use it is that she was too exhausted to think about it, but the Twi'lek child with her did.
- No Sense of Personal Space: A few times Ventress gets uncomfortably touchy with Ahsoka.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Ahsoka and Ventress realize that if nothing else, their respective current situations are similar.
- Shout-Out: The title is a shout out to the saying/film, "Set a thief To Catch a Thief".
- Throwing the Distraction: During their fight, the Hooded Assailant distracts Ahsoka by moving a couple of metal pipes with telekinesis.
- Train Escape: Ahsoka has to escape from one of the trams when the security recognizes her.
- Worf Had the Flu: Ahsoka, in her duel against the Hooded Assailant, has a double dose of this. For one, everything she has gone through until that point has left her exhausted and confused (the latter of which even she herself realizes and admits) and she also lost one of her lightsabers while escaping from the GAR HQ.
- Wretched Hive: The Coruscant underworld is this.
