Reviews Of Blah: Star Wars Rebels S03E11 "Visions and Voices"

Synopsis

Haunted by visions of Maul, Ezra must journey across the galaxy to engage in a strange ritual to sever his connection with Maul.

What I thought

Maul is back, which you know means it's likely to be a good episode, what with his meddling ways, and that there'll be a high likelihood of lightsaber action; he delivers on both these elements this episode. Despite it being weeks since he and Ezra were joined together with those holocrons, now he's starting to contact Ezra who, poor chap, thinks he's hallucinating, almost taking out a random rebel with a lightsabre. Seeking Bendu's help, Kanan & Ezra find out that Maul is still linked to Ezra because the joining of holocrons wasn't completed (Kanan stopped it). Thus, Maul knows where the rebel base is and turns up literally on cue. Bendu has legged it though! I'm sure him being there would get in the way of the story anyway but also I expect he doesn't want to get involved or be seen by others. We know by this point that Kanan has put a tracker on Ezra but the conversation between these three is still a little daft in some ways. Kanan lets Ezra go off with Maul in order to get the answers this time to what they both seeked (something he didn't want to let them do last time!). Yeah, it's hard to fathom a little but that's the way it goes.

Maul and Ezra land on the gorgeously looking Dathomir, which Clone Wars viewers will remember well. It looks like it's been wasted by the Empire, much as Maul confirms to Ezra. Seems he's been hiding out there as he has a little home with relics everywhere, including an interesting lightsaber underneath a painting of a female. Goodness knows how Ezra has the guts to do it, but he drinks a potion with Maul and the classic Night Sister green mist comes out of both their eyes and it's over in a flash. Maul says Obi-Wan's name, and Ezra mumbles words that must mean they are talking about the same person. Despite now having clear visual details, both lack knowing where this actual planet with two suns is. Typical huh? Anyhow, things start to go real Night Sister spooky as green mist comes out of an altar and starts attacking them. Maul had made a pact with Night Sister's to promise them flesh and blood in return for the magic. They escape to outside the cave they were in, which is apparently as far as the magic can go, but not before Kanan and Sabine (who tracked Ezra) all too easily and dumb-like, get touched by the mist. They are now possessed, green eyes and spooky night sister voice and all. After Maul begs Ezra for the upteenth time to join him and gets a no, he legs it, and leaves Ezra to battle to save his friends, which he does by forcing Sabine outside the cave and thus away from the magic, and saves Kanan with some strange conversation with the sisters. Ezra convinces them to possess him instead and to leave Kanan, which they do ... by letting Kanan go first? Yeah, they are stupid aren't they? It all seemed like a rather too plot convenient moment for me as to why they'd just do that. Anyhow, Ezra then nukes the altar with two lightsabers which renders the sisters inoperative and history once again.

It's an enjoyable episode on the atmospherically spooky Dathomir and those creepy sister's green mist. Maul himself is at his awesome best with some trickery and random mumblings. My biggest problem is that this episode actually adds little to nothing to the Maul plotline, because we all heavily suspected they both saw Tatooine and Obi-Wan when they were joined by the holocrons in Episode 2. We also learn that neither actually know where the darn planet is, despite this extra magic. We do of course learn more about Maul's backstory and Dathomir which is all interesting enough. The episode as a whole was visually beautiful and entertaining but I'm left just wondering if this was just an excuse to return to Dathomir.

A few questions I'm left with:

Is that the sith holocron in Ezra's room?
What's with that funky lightsaber?
Who is that lady painted on Maul's wall?

What I liked

Maul's was awesome with his presence and mumblings, the nightsister's return, the mystical and eerie nature of Dathomir, nightsister's versus Ezra, that funky lightsaber, confirmation of Obi-Wan. Oh, and the small scene with AP-5 was cool :)

What I didn't like

This actually added very little to what we learnt in the last Maul episode, no Thrawn or Empire, still a little unsure on Kanan's eyesight and intelligence, Bendu legs it when Maul arrives?