I was curious whether Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi would alternate between episodes about Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku, considering the series is split evenly among them, but instead creator Dave Filoni seems to have taken a different, less predictable approach.
Episode three of Tales of the Jedi, entitled “Choices,” follows up on the previous installment concerning Dooku (Corey Burton) and his Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn by giving us another Dooku story, this time in which he teams up with Jedi Master Mace Windu (voiced by actor TC Carson, who played the character in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, picking up where Samuel L. Jackson left off in the theatrical films) to investigate the death of another Jedi.
“Choices” sees Dooku and Windu traveling to the planet Raxus Secundus to retrieve the body of a deceased Jedi Master without asking too many questions about what exactly happened to her, as ordered by the council. “Your devotion to rules is sometimes inspiring and sometimes maddening,” Dooku says to Windu, who wants only to follow directions, despite the former insisting on probing into the events surrounding the untimely death further. Upon arriving on the planet, the Jedi meet with Senator Larik (Theo Rossi of Sons of Anarchy), who claims that the Jedi was killed while nobly protecting him from a band of rebels. Windu seemingly accepts this explanation, but Dooku demands to see the location where the incident occurred. Mace admits that the senator seems to be hiding something, but insists that the Jedi take this information back to the council on Coruscant. Instead, they go with Larik into the forest, where the senator’s story doesn’t quite add up when considering the evidence at hand. When confronted, Larik breaks down and admits that the Jedi was killed by his guards, who immediately shoot him in the back as well for betraying them. After a clash of lightsabers and blasters (not to mention some pretty sweet-looking battle droids), Windu and Dooku take the one remaining living guard (Terrell Tilford from Switched at Birth) into custody. The guard tells the Jedi that he and his compatriots had learned that Senator Larik had become corrupt, selling off their planet to industrial companies. They killed the Jedi who had been sent to protect the senator, but let Larik live in order to force him to put forth their agenda in the Republic Senate.
The guard then accuses the Jedi of only serving the rich and powerful by doing the bidding of the senate. Dooku seems affected by this, but they put the guard in prison anyway. In private, Dooku confesses to the guard that his ideology has its points, though he does not agree with their group’s methods. Similarly unhappy with Dooku’s tactics, Mace Windu brings the fallen Jedi’s body back on his ship and the pair return to Coruscant with the corpse. The Jedi Council holds a funeral for the Jedi, with a silent Master Yoda attending at the front of the group. Ki-Adi-Mundi (Seinfeld’s Brian George) gives the eulogy as a beam of light emanates from the compartment in the floor where the Jedi’s body is lowered. After the ceremony, Dooku learns that Windu will be promoted to the Council, perhaps due to Mace having stuck to the mission, while Dooku veered from the path. In this episode, writer/director Charles Murray (Luke Cage) and his co-writer wife Elan Murray have further laid the groundwork for Dooku’s disenchantment with the Republic. It’s interesting to see how Dooku is beginning to see the Jedi Order as ineffective, and very nearly takes the guards’ side even though they went so far in their cause as to murder a Jedi. I also like how the lines between right and wrong– and good and evil– are being blurred here, much like how they are in the current Star Wars: Andor live-action series on Disney+. Plus the visuals in that autumnal forest are just so cool, further proving that Filoni and his creative team definitely know what they’re doing in this series, both on the writing and animation fronts.
All six episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi are now available to stream, exclusively via Disney+.