Since the six-episode limited series was effectively two stories, we separated the reviews into two posts. The first three episodes focused on the origin of Morgan Elsbeth, who we first saw in Season Two of The Mandalorian.
SPOILER WARNING! The following contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Tales of the Empire! Do not proceed if you wish to avoid spoilers!
MAJOR POINTS
- General Grievous killed Morgan’s mother on Dathomir, making her fear losing everything
- She allies with Thrawn, who understands her anger and lust for revenge
- When New Republic representatives arrive, she kills them in hate.
Morgan Elsbeth’s story begins in media res with the massacre of The Nightsisters of Dathomir where she witnesses Grievous himself kill her mother. While she is rescued by The Mountain Clan, her fear quickly wears out her welcome.
Later, Magistrate Elsbeth unsuccessfully pitches the TIE Defender to The Empire. This catches the eye of Captain Pelleon. However, her failure raises the ire of the citizens, who trusted her to bring them jobs and prosperity. Morgan shows her anger by gaslighting her own people over how they were nothing when she found them. That night, she is attacked by Rukh, the Noghri assassin. When she takes him down, she is approached by Admiral Thrawn himself. They begin a partnership, using her anger and resources for The Empire.
Sometime later, a New Republic transport lands. A diplomat tells Morgan that Corvus will be welcome in The New Republic, but only if she steps down. Morgan lashes out in hate, as her loyalty was to The Empire. She kills the New Republic diplomats, and destroys their ship. She then torches the forests of Corvus, effectively rendering the planet worthless.
MAJOR QUESTIONS
- How long after the Battle of Endor did the New Republic reach out to Corvus?
FINAL GRADE: B+
If you’re familiar with The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, then these episodes filled in some major background. We finally understand the loyalty Morgan had to Thrawn. It was hard to take their allegiance so seriously when we’re only given one verbal exchange between her and Ahsoka.
The animation was excellent, as usual. This also felt much darker than The Clone Wars, and even many episodes of The Bad Batch. Probably because we knew the story had no happy ending. The brutality of the violence is best left implied, and this was the perfect balance for that.
It’s appropriate that the episodes were titles “The Path of Fear”, “The Path of Anger” and “The Path of Hate” since they outline The Path to The Dark Side as Yoda described it. Also, having her story end by bringing about the same destruction done to her as a child was very fitting. Much like Anakin Skywalker, she became that which she hated.