Before this first season wraps up, we are in the midst of another trilogy. The “Ryloth” trilogy began last week, where we saw Ahsoka start to take charge – what does the second part entail? Keep reading to find out.
“The costs of war can never be truly accounted for.”
1. Score
I mentioned this really early on in my reviews, but this week, the score really jumped out at me. I don’t know if it was because I watched this episode on my television as opposed to my laptop, and so the sound was a bit better, but I was noticeably moved by the music. Part of that is likely that this was a very tense episode, and the score did a nice job of reinforcing that. Almost the entire episode felt scored, which feels like a change from how they are usually presented though, again, I can’t really back that up.
2. A real sense of the people
So many times when we meet the inhabitants of various planets, we are given such little time with them that we don’t get a great sense of who they are and what they’re all about. Here, we instantly understand the Ryloth citizens. Perhaps that is because we are given a view through a child’s eyes, or perhaps because we see them enslaved, so we are not drawn to any of their perceived negative qualities. No one can be mad at them for being captured (unless you’re a mouth-breathing politician with an IQ lower than his shoe size), and so you are predisposed to care for them.
Numa, the child Waxer and Boil encounter on their look around, is essentially a cuteness bomb, and we can’t help but be charmed by her. The Separatists have drawn a line in the sand by keeping people hostage, and any of the false moral equivalency of them being equally as bad as the Republic is thrown out by this action. The Republic, for all its flaws, wouldn’t have kids held at gunpoint. This is a moment of crystallization for the viewer who was on the fence about the Republic’s actions, if such a viewer exists.
3. Why does Boil hate kids?
In fact, the only person who seems to initially dislike Numa is Boil, an unfortunately named clone trooper. I get that the clones have to be different enough to make the show interesting, but I find it odd that the clones have such different takes on various situations. Now, I get why, say, one might get greedy, or one might decide they like love songs better than metal, but I feel like an aversion to children isn’t really a choice, but a genetic predisposition.
Now, granted, Boil comes around on her, but it still seems weird that two clones who came out of the same genetic material, went through the same training, etc, would disagree so strongly on something like this.
4. Serious Jedi powers
Obi-Wan continues to make a case for himself in the ‘best there is, best there was, best there ever will be’ competition with an absolutely stunning display of Force control this episode, luring the large creatures into a trap with his Jedi mind powers. This was about as baller a display of Force heroics as we’ve ever seen, on this show or elsewhere, and it is so fun to still be surprised by a character that was introduced 40 years ago.
5. Still precious little Windu
One of my major gripes about The Clone Wars is that the series has dropped the ball on featuring Mace Windu. Just about everyone I know was stoked that Samuel L. Jackson was playing a Jedi in The Phantom Menace, and yet we see him do almost no Jedi-ing over the course of those films. I thought for sure that this season would give us a couple of Windu episodes, to show him being the badass we know he can be.
Maybe next year.
