Tales of The Empire episode 4 "Devoted" ending explained

It's been a while since we last saw Barriss Offee with a lightsaber. As the ending of Tales of the Empire episode 4, "Devoted," demonstrates, everything has changed for the Jedi Order.

In the finale of Season 5 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker stops at nothing to prove his Padawan's, Ahsoka Tano, innocence. Things come to a head when he confronts Ahsoka's long-time friend Barriss Offee and succeeds in bringing her to trial just in time for the right Jedi to be held accountable for the bombing of the Temple.

Barriss makes an impassioned speech about her reasons for attacking "what the Jedi has become" and is given a life sentence for her crimes.

In Tales of the Jedi, episode 4 measures the devotion of Barriss to the Jedi, her reasons for devotion to the ways of the Inquisitors, ends with her declaring devotion to the Empire at the feet of Darth Vader. This is, we know, the man who brought her to justice for treating every single Jedi as a villain. Between her confrontation with Anakin and her pledge of fealty to the Empire, she can't know that Anakin had this to say about their fallen Order in Revenge of the Sith:

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy."

- Anakin Skywalker

Barriss is put through a series of tests from the Grand Inquisitor. That finale one entails her killing her once friend, a fellow ex-Jedi, even if it was in self defense. Her skills impress the Inquisitor along with Lyn Rakish, who becomes the Fourth Sister.

This episode ends with the initiation of the Inquisitors, who have turned their Force abilities to the purposes of malice. As Darth Vader passes Barriss for the first time, we see her head jerk up in some sort of recognition. Neither she nor her former persecutor address each other.

She puts a mask over her face in a wonderful callback to their last meetings. This recalls how she disguised herself as Asajj Ventress and how she was identified as a traitor while unmasked

Vader wears a mask that will forever conceal who he was as Anakin Skywalker. Barriss, in declaring her devotion to the Empire he serves, masks herself to conceal the person she was before entering the Inquisitorius.