We take a break from our usual war antics this week with something a little different. The Republic has managed to intercept one of General Grievous' encoded messages but without the key they aren't able to decode it. Guess they don't have an Enigma machine. But they have learned that the Separatists' decoder chip is onboard the cruiser Dreadnought and have come up with a daring if unorthodox plan. Four astromech droids will infiltrate the Dreadnought and steal the decoder chip. The idea being that the battle droids won't suspect other droids to be working for the Republic. Not a bad plan actually. In addition to our four astro droids (R2, a pink girl droid named QT, an orange conehead and a green one called BZ) on this mission are a pilot droid named Wack and Col. Gascon (we'll get back to him). Wack is the only droid who actually talks so of course he's an annoying fuckup. His arrogance and slapstick get grating after not too long, though he gets less annoying as the episode continues. Col. Gascon is, well...
Tiny. Like less than a foot tall tiny. He's a little slug/frog alien who's orchestrated this secret mission. After Wack gets off on the wrong foot with him, Gascon leads the astros to get some special upgrades. From a weird tentacly German-sounding alien doctor. Seriously, he sounds like a stereotypical Nazi mad scientist. This guy comes out of nowhere and is only onscreen for a single scene but it's really immersion breaking. Anyway, the weird German alien gives R2 new rockets, QT a flying magnet in her head and the conehead a powerful laser. What about BZ? He hollows out his head so Col. Gascon can drive his body around as a disguise. And sounds way too happy about taking the poor droid's brain out.
More after the break,
Gascon and the droids file into a stolen Separatist shuttle and head off to where the Dreadnought is anchored, so to speak. Just an aside, where do the heroes get these shuttles? And wouldn't these shuttles have some kind of designation? And if they do, wouldn't the Separatists check the approaching shuttle's designation and know that it's stolen? Anyway, Wack disregards Gascon's plan to prove he's more than a pilot droid only to get them into trouble. The Separatists tractor beam their shuttle aboard, but finding only droids inside they think it's just a malfunction. With more ire between Wack and Gascon established, the droids move out to where the decoder chip is held. Using his laser, the conehead blows a fuse box for a distraction. But the conehead is kind of stupid, so he ends up burning more than the fuse box. Now they need a new distraction. Wack volunteers and just when I think he's going to do something dumb he manages to trick two super battle droids into a closet. Fuckup he may be, but I'll give credit where it's due. Good on you mate.
Gascon and the droids move forward and come to a locked door. No problem usually, we've seen R2 do this a thousand times, but because this door is outside a vault it's booby-trapped. Gascon tries to unlock it but ends up shocking BZ's body. I guess this kills BZ but how you kill a droid whose brain has been taken out I don't know. All these shenanigans have attracted the Dreadnought's captain, Kalani's cousin Otto. I like Kalani's family, they aren't idiots. Otto notices weird shit around the super-secret decoder chip and immediately heads down to check it out. With his plan falling apart, we find out that Gascon is actually an armchair commander and this is his first field mission. He curses the fact that he's stuck with a bunch of droids. He and Wack macho-talk for a little while, comraderie is restored and the mission continues.
R2 unlocks the door and QT uses her head magnet to attract a bunch of hovering mines. That go into her head. Okay. They get into the vault, but just as R2 hovers up to grab the decoder chip, Otto shows up. He's ready to shoot them all on the spot, like I said he's not stupid, but R2 turns the gravity off. What follows is actually a pretty entertaining and short zero-g fight. The conehead uses his laser to scorch the droids, QT unleashes her head mines, and Gascon wrestles Otto's head. Just when it seems the droids will fail, Wack turns on the gravity and R2 lands on Otto, knocking his head off. Gascon thinks they're out of the woods until an intruder alarm in Otto's head activates. Wait, why did he have an alarm in his head? Does it only activate if his head is knocked off? Does that happen a lot? Otto, get your neck screws checked dude. Gascon and the droids make their escape with the chip, but run into a group of battle droids. Because they're droids, the battle droids don't even notice them. Our heroes grab BZ's dead body and head out, mission accomplished.
Overall, just an okay episode. The story was simple and well-executed, not many surprises. I'm glad it was a one-off. The long four episode arcs were getting a little exhausting, so it was nice to have a breather. It would probably benefit the show to do some more of these. I'm also glad we've moved away from straight up action. This is a war, and wars are fought in many ways. I have an interest in the more espionage side of warfare so it was cool to see that here. And good to see villains not acting stupid. That happens too often in cartoons.
The shift to comedy wasn't exactly well-executed. It's good to see different dramatic presentations, but it didn't work very well. Most of the comedy was either annoying or just weird, like the German doctor alien. The character interactions weren't great. Not bad, but not as good as I expect from this show. Pacing was good, light and breezy. I didn't feel the story dragging at any point.
All in all, decent filler. Here's hoping we get something more substantial next time.
See you next week.
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