Episode 108 - Bombad Jedi
Heroes are made by the times.
The Clone War threatens the unity of the Republic! As battles rage across the galaxy, more worlds succumb to the seductive lure of the Separatists and leave the Republic.
On a vital mission of peace, Senator Padmé Amidala journeys to the Outer Rim world of Rodia, desperate to ensure its loyalty remains to the Republic....
Jar-Jar Binks is the most controversial character in the Star Wars Universe, widely hated, and seen by many as the epitome of everything wrong with the prequels. The main complaint was that he was a character aimed at children - for the first time, a group of slightly older Star Wars fans who had enjoyed years of books, comics and video games aimed directly to them now had to face the idea of a character that was aimed at
someone else. While he's nowhere near as bad as some people would like to tell you, the slapstick nature of Jar-Jar did stand out in The Phantom Menace, when all he was surrounded by dour Jedi and talks of trade negotiations.
But amazingly, for some reason, Dave Filoni thought to bring this character back, and even get Ahmed Best back as well to do the voice. And somehow... he kind of works now??
Because of the episodic nature of The Clone Wars, it's now easy to just have one 25 minute episode that has a different tone than the rest. As this episode is obviously more comedic than anything we've seen before, Jar-Jar's antics don't feel as out of place. Another thing that helps is the way people react to Jar-Jar. In The Phantom Menace, people were either massive dicks to Jar-Jar (I'm thinking mainly of Qui-Gon, here), or they just didn't seem to notice how over the top everything he was doing was (another reason why it didn't seem to fit as well). Now people actually seem to notice, and get annoyed at, Jar-Jar's craziness, and as such it's much easier to handle them because we have characters reacting to it properly. This is something that is helped by pairing him with 3PO, acting as his straight man (YES, IRONICALLY BECAUSE 3PO IS REALLY CAMP).
Padmé: Go back to the ship and call for help.
C-3PO: I regret the transmitters on the ship are out of order.
Padmé: What?
C-3PO: The ship has been destroyed.
Padmé: Battle droids?
C-3PO: No.
Padmé: Jar Jar?
C-3PO: Jar Jar.
Even Padmé, who is a generally nice person and actually likes Jar-Jar has "MOTHER FUCKING JAR-JAR AND HIS FUCKING SHIT" moments.
Padmé herself gets some nice moments, especially when she frees herself and is generally the cool and competent person we know from Attack of the Clones. She even wears her white outfit.
PLUS, Nute Gunray's here, and he's still a cowardly slime ball and that's great.
Episode 109 - Cloak of Darkness
Ignore your instincts at your peril.
Viceroy Gunray captured! Senator Padmé Amidala has scored a victory against the Separatist Alliance on the remote world of Rodia, securing the arrest of the diabolical Confederate leader, Nute Gunray.
The Jedi Council has dispatched Master Luminara Unduli and Anakin Skywalker's Padawan Ahsoka to escort the Viceroy to Coruscant under heavy guard. Once there, he will face trial for his many war crimes....
Hey, it's Luminara! She's cool! After only having seen her in the background of Attack of the Clones, and a short cameo in that Tartakovsky series, it's nice to get more time with the character. As she spends most of the episode hanging out with Ahsoka, we mainly see Luminara in contrast to Anakin as we see how Ahsoka fares with a Jedi that is a bit more straight-laced than him, and there's a nice arc throughout the episode where Luminara comes to accept Ahsoka's more rash way of doing things. I like Luminara, she comes across as a play it by-the-book Jedi, but still not boring and unemotional.
We also get guest star James Marsters as the Senate Commando who betrays everyone, this episode coming out during the period where James Marsters seemed to be guest starring in literally every genre show at the time. He's... not very good? His delivery is flat and boring, he just does a really generic English accent for some reason, and for a character that could have had some interesting characterisation he just comes across as a bit blah. His character also has really stupid hair.
But the star of this episode is Asajj Ventress, who
finally gets an episode where she actually wins! We finally get to see a Ventress that is cool and badass and powerful, and who easily fights off both Ahsoka and Luminara. She even kills James Marster's stupid character! Ventress is great and it's good that she actually gets to win sometimes instead of just ending every episode shaking her fist shouting "I'll get you next time, Jedi!".
The episode also looks a lot better than some of the recent ones. The lightsaber fight in the burning engine room is probably the best one we've had on the series so far.
This episode was fun, and good, and both Asajj Ventress and Ahsoka were in it so it really can't be that bad.
Nute Gunray status: Still Nute Gunray.
Episode 110 - Lair of Grevious
Most powerful is he who controls his own power.
Viceroy Gunray escapes! En route to Coruscant to stand trial for war crimes, evil Separatist leader Nute Gunray has broken free of his Jedi escort. With the help of Count Dooku's sinister agents, the villainous viceroy has made a daring getaway.
Alerted to the bold prison break, Jedi Master Kit Fisto has traced the stolen ship to a remote system, hoping to recapture Gunray and return him to justice.
For a Jedi that had about a minute of screen time in Attack of the Clones, Kit Fisto made a real impression. Mainly because, well, he looks cool. And he had that smile. And his name is
Kit Fisto. As with Luminara in the previous episode, this episode does a good job at taking what was essentially a background character in Attack of the Clones and turning them into an actual character. Phil LaMarr does a really good job portraying Fisto as this wise master, who is always cool under pressure, and there's only a few parts of the episode where he starts to sound like a Serious Hermes. Pairing Fisto with his ex-padawan Nahdar means that once again we have a one-off Jedi who we actually care about. As a younger Jedi, Nahdar is shown to be quick to show off his force powers, and quick to use force instead of thinking things through. As Yoda comments at the end of the episode, this is something that the war is turning the young Jedi into, meaning that the same could be said for characters like Ahsoka.
This is the episode where Grievous goes from moustache-twirling villain into something of an actual character. We get our first bit of backstory about Grievous, namely that he was once a powerful warrior who replaced his body with a droid body (voluntarily) as a way to 'improve' it. I remember this being quite controversial at the time, as it was the first time this series deviated from something already established in the EU (where Grievous already had an origin story), but now all the old EU has been swept away and this version of his story is the only one that matters! There's also a nice bit where we see Grievous upset at the death of his crazy cyborg monster thing, which is probably the only time in the whole series we feel any sympathy for the guy.
The episode itself looks really good, the design and lighting of Grievous' lair gives the whole episode a real atmosphere. We also get a glimpse of the crazier side of Grevious' fighting, where his legs are cut off and he is crawling around on the floor with his four arms - something that's more of a nod to how he would move in the Tartakovsky series than anything he did in Revenge of the Sith. Grievious once again comes across as a real threat, and it's only because Kit Fisto was a Jedi Master that he was able to escape.
This episode comes together really well, giving us much needed backstory on a central villain, and an introduction to one of the major Jedi. It's all put together with excellent design and direction, and some really good action scenes. A good episode.
