The Rebels Season 2 finale might be the most dramatic episode yet of both Rebels and The Clone Wars together.

We hope you had a chance to watch today's one hour episode of Star Wars Rebels. The announcement of the season 2 finale created lots of expectations with it's title "Twilight of the Apprentice. " In a previous article we discussed how this title not only made reference to Ahsoka, but to other characters as well.

Fans were expecting to see the end of Vader's old padawan Ahsoka Tano. Disney has posted articles about her and even about Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka) on their website, which was quite ominous.  So, what actually happened? Did she meet her demise? What was Darth Maul doing on Malachor? Was this episode a real game changer as announced?

Keep reading at your own peril. BIG spoilers ahead!

 "Twilight of the apprentice" is a masterpiece. Ashley Eckstein does an amazing job conveying Ahsoka's emotions, The return of Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) opens new possibilities for season 3, and James Earl Jones voicing Darth Vader is the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae. We get to see more connections between Rebels, the prequels and The Clone Wars. It is a one hour long episode with non-stop action and moments that kept us on the edge of our seats.

To summarize it:

• Lots of good lightsaber fights.
• Ezra feels the call of the dark side but resists it.
• Maul kills the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother. The remaining inquisitor (new to the series) dies escaping. This inquisitor was on Malachor in search of Maul. He actually didn't know the rebels were there.
• Darth Maul fights alongside Ahsoka and Kanan but later he betrays them. He wants Ezra to be his apprentice. But we saw this coming (right?). Even his words at some points mirror those of Palpatine in ROTS when talking to Anakin about the Sith and the Jedi.
• Ezra and Maul opened the temple together (the rule of two). Ezra activates the temple using the holocron they found there.
• The temple is a battle station with the power to destroy life itself.
• Darth Vader appears to claim the power of the temple in the name of the Emperor.

So what happened in the end?

Darth Maul burns Kanan eyes with his lightsaber. But Kanan still defeats him throwing by him over a cliff. Unfortunately Maul survives. Now Kanan seems to be permanently blind. Just like Ram Kota in the Force Unleashed games (nice nod to the game). 

Ahsoka and Vader had an amazing lightsaber fight after he tells her that he killed Anakin for being weak (same words Kylo Ren uses in a conversation with Han Solo about Ben Solo). He ends up throwing her over the cliff too, and no, she doesn't die because of this. She comes back right at the moment when Vader is about to snatch the holocron from Ezra's hands. She breaks Vader's helmet with her lightsaber and sees Anakin's face one more time (with yellow Sith eyes). It seems that for a second the real Anakin calls to her, but just a second. I don't think she fell for it, but she still tells him "I won't leave you this time" to which he answers "then you will die here." They start fighting as the temple collapses on top of them. 

So, is she dead? Did Ahsoka actually die in this episode? Did Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) finally kill her?

I would answer that with a most likely yes. Why do I say most likely? Well it seems like both Kanan and Ezra felt it. And we see Vader and Maul leaving the planet Malachor (in separate ships) but we don't see her at all. The good news is that we don't see her getting killed either. All we see is a cave under the temple's remains which she could have used to escape. They leave that to our imagination.

The next scenes are sad ones.  The rebels are at the edge of despair by the end of the episode. But they seem to hold it together and appreciate the fact that Vader didn't get the holocron, which is of no use to them (only a Sith can open it). But one person crosses to the other side. The anger of losing the battle and a friend is too much for one of our rebel friends. Anger seems to turn into hate, in the mind of Ezra Bridger. During the last moments of the season finale, we see a focused Ezra opening the Sith holocron with his eyes changing color to match his grim, almost evil expression. That is the real twilight of the apprentice. We were all expecting Ahsoka's demise, but we didn't expect losing to the dark side, which, at the time period of the show (the dark times), seemed to be the last hope. 

But let's be a bit optimistic. Ezra giving in to his despair and hate doesn't necessarily mean that he has turned to the dark side. It only means that he has taken the first step (like 10 actually) towards it. In my opinion at least.

The one bad thing about this episode: The Inquisitors using their lightsabers as helicopters... Yeah, that happened...

But one thing is for sure: leaving this kind of open ending for the character is the best thing Filoni and his team could have done. A clean, explicit ending wouldn't have had the dramatic effect this episode delivered. Seeing Vader killing Ahsoka could have pleased many fans, but the truth is, it is what everybody was expecting, so it wouldn't have neither surprised nor shocked anyone in the audience (except for young viewers who would need years of therapy to overcame the trauma caused by their beloved character dying a Han Solo death).