Monday, November 26, 2012

Review of the Jedi: A Necessary Bond

Join the Serial Wordsmith every Monday as he recaps and reviews the new season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars



This week's episode hits the ground running as we pick up right where we left last week. Ahsoka and the youngling escaping from Hondo Ohnaka's fortress in a stolen tank with pirates in hot pursuit. Nice, jumping right into the action. And it's a great starting action scene. Building excitement and suspense quickly. The Pirates are about to close in on our heroes so Jeff from American Dad! calls Ganodi back on the Jedi ship. They need to get picked-up but she isn't there. She and R2 were bust fixing David Tennant-bot. Yeah, the Doctor's back!

This leads to the Jedi ship hovering over them with their gangplank out so they can jump on. But the pirates are still following. Eventually, the younglings are hanging in a human chain off the gangplank and their stolen tank is headed for a cliff. The pirates blast the ship and shock R2, who's driving it. So the Jedi ship crashes and the Jedi are forced to surrender. But when they get back to base, they find the pirates have some unexpected company. General Grievous and his army.

More after the break,




Grievous has shown up to take Hondo's planet because Dooku still has a huge hate-boner for Hondo for holding him prisoner. So Grievous is going burn all Hondo's shit and hold him prisoner. Note: Don't piss off Dooku. Seeing the droid army, Ahsoka proposes an alliance with the pirates. Hondo has a secret collection of ships so they can leave the planet, but only Hondo knows where they are. With Ahsoka's expertise on Grievous and the droids, they can rescue Hondo and all escape. With no better options, the pirates agree.

Using R2 as a distraction, the Jedi and Pirates sneak back into the fortress. They find Hondo in his own prison (irony) and Ahsoka presents her deal. Hondo, ever the shrewd businessman, agrees but is reluctant about their chances. The younglings say they can fight the droids and Hondo asks them to prove it by showing him their lightsabers. They all do except Katooni, who hasn't been able to build hers. After some pep talk from Tennant-bot and Hondo of all people, she puts hers together in the same cool slow floaty construction we saw in A Test of Strength. This is actually the start of a weird bond between Hondo and Katooni.

Having broke out,  the Jedi and pirates fight their way through the droids and get to some speeder bikes and a pirate tank. Including Hondo fighting droids with a sword. not a laser sword, a regular sword. Badass. They split into two groups, pirates and Katooni on speeders and Jedi on the tank, and make for Hondo's secret hangar. But Grievous isn't about to let them go. He hops on his hover-chopper and chases after them. The chase leads into a canyon (trench run?) and the two groups get separated with Grievous still on the Jedi's tail. Hondo, Katooni and the pirates reach his secret hangar where they board the Slave 1? How did Hondo get Boba Fett's ship? He's ready to leave the other Jed behind but Katooni uses their weird bond to appeal to his better nature.

Grievous, meanwhile, has crashed the other Jedi's tank and is ready to mow them down and take their lightsabers, cause that's his thing. Ahsoka holds him off for a while, giving the Slave 1 time to arrive and get the younglings on board. Ahsoka does a force-backflip onto the ship and they leave Grievous and Florum behind. Our episode ends on a Republic cruiser where Hondo is trying to bill Obi-Wan for his services. With one last look to Katooni, Hondo departs and the Younglings celebrate a trial well-passed by bringing all their lightsabers together.


Overall, a great finale to this really fun arc. The opening action scene brought back into the action very well while being very exciting. There were great character moments and interaction. Except for that weird relationship between Hondo and Katooni. That came out of nowhere and didn't add anything. Great job from our guest stars, even David Tennant didn't get to do much.

My complaints for this episode is really in the story department. Specifically, Hondo's face turn. Yeah he's always out for himself but it didn't gel as well in this episode. I know the pirates and Jedi have a common enemy in Grievous and the droids but their sudden allegiance feels forced. Also, I wish they had given David Tennant more to do. It was a four episode arc and he was barely in two of them, it seems like if you have a guest star you'd want to involve him in the story.

As for the arc itself, I enjoyed it. It wasn't as heavy as previous arcs have felt, aiming more for light-hearted action and it succeeded well on that account. There are a few problems though. While each of our young Jedi were characterized in The Gathering, half of them seemed to fade into the background in the succeeding episodes. Speaking of The Gathering, I mentioned back in that review that this story seemed removed from the ongoing war. And it worked in the first half of the story, but when Grievous and the war came back in in the second half it felt rather awkward. And while not a complaint, I think I noticed a continuity hiccup. Hondo mentioned back in Revival that his fortress on Florum had been trashed by the Separatists, so when it was intact here I assumed they'd rebuilt. But at the end of this episode, Grievous blows the fortress up. So does this arc take place before Darth Maul's return? I don't know, the internal continuity of this show has always been screwed up.

All in all, a fun, action-packed finale to a fun, action-packed if slightly flawed arc. Good characters and guest stars helped boost this one up. A nice roller-coaster ride, in the Star Wars tradition.

See you next week.

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