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Tales of the Empire: The Way Out

What is it ? : A couple and their baby are struggling through a snowstorm, when they encounter a guide telling him they are seeking the Healer. They arrive at a hut and they are invited inside to meet the Healer who turns out to be Barriss Offee.
She checks the child and tells the parents that there is nothing wrong with it, they agree and tells her the Empire tested it's blood and then tried to take it, so they escaped.
Barriss tells them a similar thing happened to her when the Jedi took her from her parents, telling them of the wonderful things she saw and encountered with her master, before the Darkness took her.
A wind passes through the hut snuffing out the candles, and the guide enters telling them someone is approaching. Barriss sends the family away with the guide to it's starship.
Outside the figure approaching is The Fourth Sister, who is surprised to see Barriss when she is not seeking her, but instead seeking the child. The sister ignites her lightsaber, and attacks Barriss who dodges, using the force to switch off the lightsaber. But the sister realises that she is just trying to distract her, so charges after the family towards a cave. Barriss warns her not to enter as she doesn't know the path, but she does anyway telling Barriss that fear is her ally.
In the caves the sister becomes lost, and slashes at the ice walls with her lightsaber in anger, and Barriss tells her to lay down her weapon and she will show her the way out. But the sister fears failure, leading to Barriss telling her that fear is not her ally. But the sister lashes out, stabbing Barriss with her lightsaber.
Barriss tells her that she already knows the way out, so the sister tells her she'll get them out, laying down her lightsaber and carrying Barriss out of the cave where the starship carrying the family can be seen high in the sky. . . .

High Points : So this appears to be set after the Obi-Wan series, as the Fourth sister is seen in it as an inquisitor, and appears to turn back to the light side in this story.

Low Points : But her reason for turning is a little weak, Barriss shows her that she is scared of failing Vader and the Inquisition, so fear is not her ally. But "Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate… leads to suffering.", so Fear is not the ending of becoming Dark Side, but the beginning, so unless the Fourth Sister was still at the first step of turning, then this shouldn't work. Unless everything else collapses for her when her fear is gone? But if that's true it would have been nice to see it.

So what do you really think ? : But this entire episode isn't much of anything. Barriss has become a healer, and lives near a cave which makes you get lost if you're Dark Side? Which seems a very particular effect.
If I have to choose anything decent in this episode, I guess it's that Barriss compares the Jedi kidnapping children as being the same as the Empire kidnapping children. Which many fans have also done. But she then points out the results are very different. When she was taken from her parents she was loved by her master, she was shown the galaxy and many wonderful things, so she lived a great life. Although I argue that the kidnapping still remains the same, even if the results are different.

Final Words : So that was Tales of the Empire . . . and it really wasn't much. There's a couple of interesting episodes in there, but the format of splitting between two characters really stretches what storyline is actually there for Barriss Offee and Elspeth Morgan. Perhaps if they only had 2 episodes each, and we'd had another character for the final 2? But overall, the stories just lacked, and worse than that, they constantly hinted at better stories which were occurring offscreen. Sticking with Force Users also limited the series, the Empire while ruled by the Sith, was about more than that, and these were supposedly Tales from the Empire, so it'd have been nice to see stories about the soldiers and people that actually made up the Empire.

Score : 7/10

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