THE CLONE WARS EPISODES 108/109/110

WATCH REPORT FOR: March 26, 2022

WATCHED: The Clone Wars "Bombad Jedi", "Cloak of Darkness" and "Lair of Grievous"

SUMMARY: Padme Amidala, Jar-Jar Binks and C-3PO travel to Rodia to secure the planet's alliance to the Republic, only to find the Rodians have agreed to Separatist protection in exchange for capturing and handing over Amidala. Through a combination of the trio's resourcefulness, the Rodian leader's reaction to Nute Gunray's cruelty, and the timely arrival of clone troppers, Amidala escapes and Gunray is taken prisoner of war.

On the way to Coruscant for Gunray's trial for war crimes, the Republic cruiser is attacked by battle droids and Asajj Ventress. Ahsoka Tano and Jedi Master Luminara Unduli battle Ventress, while a Senate Commando betrays the Republic for a bribe from Gunray, and helps Gunray escape. Ventress also escapes, and murders the traitor.

Jedi Master Kit Fisto tracks Gunray to the planet, where he joins forces with his newly knighted former padawan, Nahdar Vebb. The tracker they had been following, however, was found by the Separatists and deliberately left behind to lure the Jedi into a trap within the fortress of General Grievous.

OVERALL REVIEW: Just because I watched a Jar-Jar episode doesn't mean I have to talk about it, other than to note two things. Firstly, it does serve as the first part of a loose three-part arc with the other two episodes watched this week, the focus of which is the fate of Nute Gunray, not Jar-Jar (thankfully). Secondly, it feels a bit like the Clone Wars writers are trolling the fans, a bit? Specifically the fans who have pointed out things like Jar-Jar's improbable victories through sheer luck, mostly in the Phantom Menace, and created a fan theory that Jar-Jar was at least force sensitive if not a secret Sith. In this episode Jar-Jar is mistaken for a Jedi because ... he puts on a spare cloak (presumably Anakin's) found in Amidala's ship. That's it. No coincidental displays of Force-like powers, no clumsy backing into deft maneuvers. Just a cloak. It's dumb, and now I'm drifting into a fan theory of my own that's it's very dumb very much on purpose to annoy the "secret Sith" crowd. Also, just after I was talking about how good the physics of animation was in differentiating between the body mass and locomotion and lightsaber techniques of varous characters, here comes Jar-Jar again, who is immune to physics to a Looney Tunes-esque degree which isn't as much fun to watch. And now that's way more than I intended to say about this episode.

The other two episodes are better, with some interesting recurring themes. One is the presence of young Jedi, both Ahsoka and Nahdar, who are both shown to be impulsive, reckless, and all around less chill than their elders. On the one hand this makes sense, as they're both adolescents and have been sent into a war with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance. But to me it always feels strange to keep bringing up that force-sensitive younglings (aka ... sigh ... those with high levels of midichlorians detected at birth) are brought to the Jedi temple at a very young age and raised and trained in the religion all through their formative years. I would think that sheer amount and intensity of indoctrination would turn out young adults who have mastered their passions pretty thoroughly. But apparently not. Ahsoka's not an outlier, if Nahdar is any indication. It's very fun to watch Ahsoka try to play good cop/bad cop with Gunray, much to Luminara's horror, while Nahdar's story is much more the classic war story trope: a young, noble, naive soldier thinks war should be just, while a more experienced and jaded mentor knows that it isn't and urges pragmatism, and ultimately the young idealist sacrifices himself heroically to save the old warrior. Heavy stuff for a kid's cartoon once again.

The second recurring theme is the Separatist bad guys potentially turning on each other and self-destructing from within. This is of course absolutely how things will play out in Revenge of the Sith, but it does make me leery about how they can possibly sustain it for seven seasons of The Clone Wars. Ventress the assassin seems like a strange choice for a rescue mission, unless the plan all along was the betray the betrayer and keep the inner circle of Separatist elites small. The trap in Grievous's lair, meanwhile, is actually double-layered, with Dooku punishing Grievous for recent failures and testing his loyalty by throwing the cyborg general a couple of Jedi without warning. If Grievous is defeated, Dooku has removed a weak link in his chain of command; if Grievous is victorious, then the Republic has two fewer Jedi. Grievous escapes, and Fisto also escapes, so it's kind of a draw. We all know that Grievous will survive all the way to Revenge of the Sith, as will Dooku, and that any other potential allies like the duplicitous Senate Commando won't end up mattering much to the story whether they live or die, so it does kind of feel like spinning the wheels a bit. But on the other hand, if narrative cul-de-sacs like this allow for the mere introduction of sensational characters like Grievous's condescending emergency medical droid EV-A4-D, I am all for it.

HOW MANY TIMES DOES ANAKIN HANG UP ON OBI-WAN? Anakin is barely in this stretch of episodes, and Obi-Wan is completely absent from them. As I just said above, there's much omre focus on the bad guys in this arc, and they hang up on each other a lot. I believe (writing this up a week later) that Dooku and Grievous each get a turn hanging up on each other. Could this be ultra-level foreshadowing, with Anakin's tendency to break off communications parallelling the Separatists' to show how his true loyalties will ultimately align with Darth Sidious and the Dark Side?