[CaptainCrunch]

Good episode last night that focused around Sabine and the Dark Saber.

For an episode that featured no battles against the Empire and no characters put into jeopardy, it was a emotionally dense episode that finally allowed us to dig into a main character in Sabine, we were also allowed to glimpse into the damaged psyche of Kanaan.

Basically the Dark Saber is the one weapon that would allow Sabine to reunite her family and get the Mandalorians to join a rebellion that's desperately in need of soldiers. However Sabine when offered this opportunity wants nothing to do with it.

At this point we get some nice background history of the Dark Saber a weapon forged by a Mandalorian who became a jedi. This is interesting because we've seen the Jedi and Mandalorian as functional enemies who have fought and lost to the Jedi consistently over time. Because of that the Mandalorians have spent a lot of effort in creating weapons to kill Jedi.

For those that watched the Clone Wars series this weapon is a familiar and key plot point as it was used prevalently in the Mandalorian/Maul story lines and welded by.

Basically the last Mandalorian to weld the Dark Saber was Pre Vizla who felt that the Mandalorian pacifist stance was wrong and led the splinter Death Watch which over threw Sabine with the health of Darth Maul, who killed both Pre Vizla and Obi-Wan's love Satine with it.

Anyways, Kanaan eventually convinces a reluctant Sabine to train to use the Saber so she can return to her family and basically convince them to join the Rebellion.

This is where we start to see the problems with Kanaan who is still frightened of training incorrectly and he starts to train her using training sticks. The fights between her and Kanaan and Ezra are painful and almost to the point of useless as Sabine continues to fight her past which beyond knowing she was at an Imperial academy.

We get a real revealing moment as well when Rau gives her Mandalorian weapons that she uses to take Ezra down a few knots and we see Kanaan using his lightsaber to beat her down and remind her that the Jedi beat the Mandalorians. It was actually an ugly moment for Kanaan who is still dealing with a lot of guilt and indecision as well.

At this point, Sabine still harboring a emotional hurricane flees and Kanaan talks to Hera who reminds Kanaan that she knows what its like to come from a dysfunctional family that abandons you.

At that point Sabine does return and Kanaan allows her to use the the Dark Saber to train which he hopes will allow Sabine to own her training.

We see a really interesting training cycle that reminds you of the wax on wax off Karate kid scene where he runs her through the progressive forms or motions of light saber battle and we see it get faster and faster, but we also get the feeling that Kanaan is pretty much toying with her and it affirms how much faster and better Jedi are then non force using people.

During this training we finally get Sabine's back story and in a lot of ways its heartbreaking and the voice actor Tiya Sicar does a great story of conveying Sabine's hurt and sadness and anger and resentment towards her family as we find out that Sabine designed weapons for the Empire that were used against the Mandalorians, and when Sabine sickened by it speaks out against the Empire, Clan Vizla turned their back on her and chose the Empire. We also see that Kanaan is still having struggles with his emotions probably from the guilt of abandoning his Master during Order 66.

In otherwords behind the sometimes light facade of this series we really are dealing with a pretty emotionally shattered group

Hera has her family issues with her father not exactly being a good father who was willing to abandon her for what he thinks are a higher calling
Zeb watched his people get wiped out by the Empire
Ezra is still dealing with the death of his parents, and Ahsoka and the fear that he can't protect his friemds
Kanaan for the end of the Jedi order and the death of his master.
Sabine with the abandonment of her clan and the fact that she helped kill her own family
Chopper though is the only one without a key backstory except that he was abandoned during the Clone Wars.
In the end this is the start of the Mandalorian arc and the emotional side will ramp up as she returns to Clan Vizla to face her past decisions.

Some small observations

The Convoree's returned in this episode is large numbers, Dave Filoni has described these birds as messengers and observers with a deeper meaning. We really last saw them in a noticeable way when Ahsoka entered the Dark Temple at the end of last year. We also saw that Sabine had painted one on her shoulder armor.

During the training when Hera asks about the training sticks, Kanaan says that she's not ready to wield a lightsaber. This to me was a critical glimpse into why Kanaan is probably not a good teacher. He failed to remember that Sabine is not a Jedi trainee, but he's trying to train her like one. At some point in the Episode Sabine lashes out at poor Kanaan telling him that he's an awful teacher

One of the biggest questions when it comes to Sabine is who her mother is. Conventional wisdom is that it is Bo Katan who was prevalent in a couple of TCW's Mandalorian story lines and was a member of Death Watch though she came from Clan Kryze. She was also the sister of Countess Satine. Which when you look at the names Satine and Sabine could be a hint to their family link.

Anyways a really strong emotional episode after last weeks Zeb filler.