Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 3 episode 14 review, Witches Of The Mist

This review contains spoilers.

3.14 Witches Of The Mist

If the sight of Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress and Darth Maul’s ‘brother’ engaging in a multi-lightsabre orgy of gargantuan proportions doesn’t get the geekoid in you dripping in delight, then it’s game over, mate. You’re dead.

Actually, I say “orgy”, but it’s much, much better than that. The triumvirate of bad ass, and I mean bad ass, Sith have taken over The Clone Wars in the past few weeks and here, in the final part of the three-episode story arc, their battle comes to a glorious finale. But more on that later.

Concluding one of the most memorable stories of the Star Wars animated spin-off is this game of two halves. Witches Of The Mist begins with the Jedi becoming aware of the new terror on the block, Savage Oppress (the aforementioned sibling of The Phantom Menace‘s horny Sith), who recently dispensed some Jedi in a most monstrous of fashions.

Hearing the words “Darth Maul” uttered in disbelief by Obi Wan starts the geek-fest shivers early and the trembles continue as Dooku trains Opress. It’s slightly reminiscent of The Bride’s scenes with Pai Mei from Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 2, Dooku performing cruelty as if taking a breath. There’s also some neat nods to Yoda’s training of Luke on Dagobah, with a discussion of just what is impossible.

The relationship between Dooku and his new apprentice highlights the cruelty of the Sith. Hate is the seed from which their faith grows. This hate also gives rise to the duplicitous nature of the dark side of the force. Trust is not in their vocabulary, as witnessed by Dooku, who is happy to surrender any sense of loyalty for more power.

But this tantalising set-up between the three parties, Obi Wan and Anakin, Dooku and Opress, and the vengeful Ventress, pales in comparison to the, frankly, scorching denouement, which finds them all, at various points, fighting one another, giving us the third week in a row for fans of manic and enlightening lightsaber battles. Amusingly, the Jedi seem totally out of their depth, as their enemies are Sith-bent on destroying whatever gets in their way.

It is a beautiful sight.

And once the dust settles (though it doesn’t, really), there’s yet a revelation to be had. I shan’t spoil it for you, but it will leave Star Wars fans gasping, asking, “How can that be?”. An insanely unexpected move.

As a final note to this trilogy, full marks and a gold star must go to the writer of these stories, Katie Lucas. Not only has Dathomir Trilogy proved to be an instant classic within The Clone Wars series, George Lucas’ daughter has also added an incredibly layered and entertaining addition to the Star Wars galaxy and shown, with some incredible style, that there are many more stories to be told in this universe. One can only imagine and giggle with girlish glee at how essential and immense a Star Wars feature film by Katie would be.

Read our review of episode 13, Monster, here.

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