Star Wars Rebels Recap: “Visions and Voices”

Darth Maul is back on Star Wars Rebels. This time, he offers Ezra the chance to recover the knowledge of how to defeat the Sith, using witch magic.

In the midseason finale of Star Wars Rebels season 3, “Visions and Voices,” Maul returns and offers Ezra the answer to defeating the Sith. In order to get that answer, Ezra and Maul must perform a magic ritual on Dathomir, the ancient home of the Nightsisters.

The episode opens on Adalon, where Hera briefs the Ghost crew on a recon mission to scout out the Imperial installation on Lothal in preparation for their impending attack. Ezra is supposed to lead the mission, but he keeps getting distracted by voices calling his name. Moreover, he thinks he sees his old enemy, the former Sith lord Maul. But every time he points his friends to what he sees, Maul disappears. Hera, Kanan, Zeb, and Sabine grow increasingly concerned. Finally, Ezra turns around and sees Maul right behind him. He falls back, bangs his head against the hologram table, and falls unconscious.

Ezra wakes up on The Ghost surrounded by his shipmates. He reveals to them he saw and heard Maul calling his name. Zeb thinks Ezra has been under too much stress lately. Hera suggests what Ezra saw was a Force vision. Kanan is uncertain. Ezra decides to brush everything off. He insists he is still capable of leading the mission.

Later, Ezra and Sabine are loading up The Ghost for their mission to Lothal when Ezra sees Maul again. This time, Ezra follows him. Sabine tells Chopper to get Kanan and then runs after Ezra, calling for him to stop. Ezra corners Maul and raises his lightsaber to kill him. But Kanan,

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Ezra corners Maul and raises his lightsaber to kill him. But Kanan stops him with the Force and tells him the man he is trying to kill is not Maul. Ezra’s vision finally clears and he realizes the person he thought was Maul is actually a terrified rebel. Ezra lets him go, apologizing profusely. On his knees in despair, he wonders what is wrong with him.

Time passes and Hera readies to depart in The Ghost. Ezra is no longer on the mission, and Kanan and Sabine are staying on Adalon to keep an eye on him. Hera leaves reluctantly with Kanan’s reassurance that he has a plan in mind to help his apprentice. After The Ghost clears the port, Kanan pulls Sabine aside and tells her to place a tracker on Ezra’s wrist comm unit. If Ezra and Maul leave Adalon together, the rebels will  be able to track them.

Next, Kanan takes Ezra to speak with Bendu, the mysterious Force being who lives on Adalon. Ezra tells Bendu what he has been experiencing. He adds that Maul was the dark sider with whom he connected the Jedi and Sith holocrons. Ezra severed the connection before either of them got the answers they wanted. Bendu says that isn’t good. Kanan asks what they can do, and Bendu replies by asking what they want to do. Ezra says he wants to stop seeing Maul. And Bendu says, “Then don’t turn around.”

Kanan and Ezra do turn around and there is Maul, watching. Kanan asks Bendu what they should do, but Bendu has disappeared. Maul approaches and says he did not come to Adalon to fight. He offers Ezra another chance to find the answer to defeating the Sith. When their minds melded through the holocrons, the information they wanted got mixed up. Maul found out what Ezra wanted to know and vice versa. In the exchange, Maul also received bits of information from Ezra’s mind, like the location of their rebel base. He threatens to send the location to the Empire if Ezra does not accompany him. If Ezra does come with him, however, he promises Ezra will learn how to defeat the Sith.

Related Story: Star Wars Rebels Recap: An Inside Man

Ezra decides to go with Maul, despite Kanan’s protests. They don’t really have a choice, Ezra says, since Maul possesses their base’s location. Plus, he may finally get the knowledge he has been seeking. He leaves aboard Maul’s ship. Kanan goes back to the base. He and Sabine follow the tracker in Ezra’s wrist comm in a ship of their own.

Maul takes Ezra to Dathomir, the home of his kin, the Nightsisters. Maul is all that is left of his people. He says the Nightsisters were witches and dangerous to the Empire. The witches used the Force, but their true power lay in their connection to their planet.

Maul leads Ezra into a cave, in which he has made his lair inside a fortress made of rock. Inside the fortress are artifacts from Maul’s past. Ezra spots a painting of a woman (whom fans of The Clone Wars know as Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore). Beneath the painting, like a shrine, is a lightsaber on display. Ezra starts to touch it but Maul stops him. Ezra inquires after it, and Maul says it is a lightsaber unlike any the young Jedi would know. If Sabine were there, he adds, she could explain it to him.

Maul hands Ezra two goblets and then leads him out of the fortress to an altar. Maul mixes a potion, pours it into the goblets, and tells Ezra to drink. They each empty their vessel. When they open their eyes again, a sickly green fire has filled them. The melding of their minds has begun.

In the vision conjured by the holocrons, Ezra saw a planet with twin suns while Maul saw, to his glee, someone he was looking for alive. This time, Maul sees the planet while Ezra sees the person. The connection severs and the pair processes what they witnessed. Maul says, “Of course. It ends where it all began. The desert planet with twin suns!” Ezra keeps saying, “He’s alive!”

But Ezra and Maul don’t have time to act upon their newfound knowledge. Ghosts rise from the altar, green specters of ancient Nightsisters. Maul reveals that a price of flesh and blood must be paid for what they did. He warns Ezra to not let the ghosts touch him.

At that moment, Kanan and Sabine, who have  been tracking Ezra this whole time, run into the cave. The ghosts touch them and possess them, turning their eyes green. Kanan and Sabine attack Maul and Ezra under the ghosts’ control. Maul tells Ezra to follow him and they run out of the cave. The ghosts inside Kanan and Sabine cannot follow, for their power stems from proximity to the altar.

“Of course. It ends where it all began. The desert planet with twin suns!” – Maul

Maul wants Ezra to leave his friends behind. He says their destinies converge on the desert planet with twin suns, and they should arrive their as friends – as brothers. But Ezra will not abandon Kanan and Sabine. Maul leaves in his ship, disgusted.

Ezra decides he has to lure Kanan and Sabine outside the cave to get the ghosts to leave their bodies. He reenters the cave only to be confronted by Sabine, who now holds the lightsaber he spotted in Maul’s lair. She ignites a black blade; it is the Mandalorian darksaber she is holding. Ezra fights her and disarms her. He then successfully Force pushes Sabine out of the cave. The ghost leaves her. Then Ezra heads back into the cave to find Kanan. Kanan sits

Ezra finds Kanan sitting on the altar and surrounded by ghosts. Ezra tells the Nightsister possessing his master that he is the one the Nightsisters want. He wants them to let Kanan go. But the Nightsisters want to know which Jedi is stronger, so they make Kanan fight Ezra. Ezra manages to knock Kanan down, defeating him, and the ghost inside his master leaves. Then Ezra takes up the darksaber which he grabbed from Sabine and uses it and his own lightsaber to slice into the altar. The altar explodes in a blast of light and the Nightsisters’ ghosts disappear.

An exhausted Kanan tells Ezra they are never working with Maul again. Then he asks if this was all worth it. Ezra tells him the secret of defeating the Sith lies with Obi Wan Kenobi, who is still alive after all these years and living on a planet with twin suns. Kanan says they better find him before Maul gets to him. If they don’t, there won’t be any way to stop the Sith.

And on that note, the first half of season 3 of Star Wars Rebels is over. What did you think of “Visions and Voices?” Are you excited for an Obi Wan Kenobi cameo in the second half of the season? Tell us your thoughts below.