This is the episode that I’ve been the most conflicted on with this show. On the one hand, I think it’s the best paced episode of the season, but on the other hand, it’s ultimately too short and ends really frustratingly. It ends on a pretty big cliffhanger, but not the good kind of cliffhanger. It ends just as the Sith Lord appears and starts to attack the main cast right before ending the episode. It’s clear the intent with this cliffhanger is to get people talking and excited for the next episode by leaving it off with a shock, but I think it massively backfired here. It would’ve been way stronger if they let the confrontation play out to its conclusion, maybe ending on a character’s fate being unknown which would have worked.
Back to the positives though. The tone setting of this episode is strong throughout as the characters are traversing through the forest. The fog and increasing darkness due to the sun setting adds a really creepy and unsettling feeling leading up to the reveal. They’re really laying it on thick with the whole mystery of what the Jedi did on Brendok what with Sol’s conversation with Venestra, and then later on with Osha. Qimir continues to be my favorite character and the show really seems to be setting up as either a red herring for the Sith Lord, or to be the Sith Lord himself. Mae wavering from her mission and deciding to surrender to the Jedi, coupled with Osha feeling the dark slug insect creature through the force, is making me wonder if they’ll flip the two sister’s positions by having Mae come back to the light side, whilst Osha falls to the dark side. I also think this episode does a much better job of developing Jerrick and Yorde’s relationship with Osha. Having Jerrick smile and open up to Osha and Lorde display understanding and concern for Osha really helped endear them more to me. The next episode is going to need to really deliver on a lot of what the show has been setting up or I fear that this is not going to go down well. I’m thinking more and more like this show will benefit greatly from a movie fanedit as it unfortunately is feeling like it didn’t need to be 8 episodes.