Hello everyone and welcome to another double dose of catchup clone wars action with 2×4 and 2×5. Starting with episode 4, even though I felt that it was the weakest episode of the season thus far, that says more about the extremely strong opening episodes as I still enjoyed much of this episode. In general I would say that the more Padme centric episodes are some of ,y least favourite because I don’t particularly care for the character, but the undercover Senate spy concept was a solid enough idea.
It was inevitable to have “dirty” Senate members s it was interesting to see how the Jedi dealt with it. Rush Clovis was portrayed as a rather sleazy individual who you weren’t meant to like, but it was nice to see him get a slight form of redemption by the end of the episode. He was not going to let Padme die and went against the Separatists. It’s that shade of grey that makes a show that much more engaging, so it is nice that we get this type of pseudo-villains who aren’t like the full on dark side Sith.
Anakin struggled quite a bit keeping his jealousy under control this episode, taking multiple chances to get one up on Clovis whenever he approached Padme in any form of romantic way. You can see why he wasn’t happy about it but did he not get that there needed to be a certain level of acting involved? Padme had to be somewhat flirtatious in order to get information so you can’t blame Clovis for thinking she was being serious. They did used to be a couple after all. But jealousy is of course one of the paths to the dark side and we get a good look at Anakin’s jealousy here.
Episode 5 was much more action packed than episode 4 and was all the better for it as if you watched these back to back, you would want a bit of livening up due to the previous episode being rather dialogue heavy. The whole thing felt bigger than the battles that the show started with which shows how far they have come in regards to the animation because this looked really really good. It was great to return to a familiar location from the films in the form of Geonosis, and Obi Wan’s lack of enthusiasm about returning was a nice nod to his capture there in Attack of the Clones.
I always like it when the show gives screen time to characters who don’t get much to do in the films, and among them are various members of the Jedi council who were really only in the films to make up the numbers. That’s why it was fun to see Ki Adi Mundi play a key role in the episode. The voice and design was very much like in the films and he took on the role of an older general while not being too high and mighty about it (he freely admitted to the clones he wasn’t sure where he was going). It was also nice how he bridged the gap that has been noticeable between the older and younger jedi like Anakin and Ashoka. Obi Wan (who himself is often the middle point between the generations of jedi) could not understand Anakin and Ashoka’s score keeping yet Ki Adi indulged them and joined in (and winning in the process!) Hopefully we get to see more of him before he meets his now much sadder end in Revenge of the Sith. It was also nice to see the two clones who rescued the child last season. Whenever you can differentiate the Clones it is always a positive.
Overall another great episode and one that was still good even though not great. I am looking forward to seeing what else season 2 has to offer.
DD Rating: (4) 6/10 and (5) 8/10
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