Tales of the Empire: The Path of Fear
What is it ? : We start during the battle of Dathomir as the Nightsisters are resisting the forces of the Separatist army led by General Grievous. Morgan Elspeth is fighting alongside her sisters against the droids, until Grievous joins the battle. Morgans mother Selena tells her to run as she engages Grievous who butchers her. Morgan flees and hides, but is spotted by a Droid Commando which she fights and stabs with a knife before collapsing unconscious.
She is left for dead but rescued the next day by members of the Mountain Clan, and when she awakens she looks down from the mountains at the smoking remains of her home in the jungle of Dathomir.
In the next days she joins the Mountain Clan in their hunts, and witnesses Droid Gunships still scouting for survivors. She speaks with the young of the village about defending themselves, and leads some of them to the Nightsisters remaining supplies, but they are spotted by a Probe Droid which summons a Gunship which drops off a number of Battle Droids.
In the village, the Matron notices that Elspeth and the other young are missing, so she follows them to the Nightsister camp, where she finds that there have been deaths. She summons a ball of energy and destroys the droids. Picking up the wounded she heads home, telling Elspeth just because she doesn't want to fight doesn't mean she can't fight, and saying that Elspeth has chosen her path, and that the Matron pities her for what is to come. . .
High Points : The biggest thing I have to say for this episode is that they made Grievous terrifying. He is a destructive force of nature in this story, and his laughter echoing through the forest as he slaughters the Nightsisters is truly haunting.
The entire battle sequence is pretty darn excellent as well, as we know what is going to happen, but we still feel for the Nightsisters despite their doom. They fight bravely, but we're aware that this doesn't end well for them, so there's a morbid curiousity in seeing them beaten despite their skills and bravery by Grievous and the crushing numbers of droids.
And finally, it's nice to see one of the other tribes of Dathomir, although it does raise questions as to where they are later on? They're force users (or at least the Matron is), so does Palpatine have them slaughtered as well? Does Elspeth sell out their existence to the Empire?
Low Points : It's a short episode, so there's not much story here, but essentially, Elspeth is rescued and warned that the Droids are still looking for her people. She ignores that to gather weapons and is found by the Droids, so is rescued by the Matron of the Mountain Clan who tells her she's made her decision. There's really not much here, and it's really obvious.
So what do you really think ? : A first episode, so it does a lot of heavy lifting in setting us up with Morgan Elspeth's history. It gets off with a bang as we start with a battle, which is well done, but as a stand alone episode this really wouldn't work, which is kind of sad as Tales of the Jedi had each episode standing on it's own merits.
Final Words : Speaking of Tales of the Jedi, that series ran in a kind of Chronological order, telling us about the birth of Ahsoka, then the young life of Dooku, then returning to Ahsoka during the resultant Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire. Swapping between the two storylines as we moved on (although now I think about it, Ahsoka's birth probably shouldn't be the first episode, the first two should probably have been swapped, but anyway.). Tales of the Empire spends it's first 3 episodes telling Elspeths story, and then the final 3 telling Barriss Offee's, which just makes it feel like 2 episodes cut into sections rather than 6 short stories.
Score : 8.5/10
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