Review of the Jedi: An Old Friend

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

That's Rush Clovis. I'd probably pull a gun on him too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, we've got the beginning of a whole new story arc this week. And it's another espionage thriller kind of story. I'm not sure what exactly caused it, but it seems like there was a shift in the writers in The Clone Wars' later seasons. They moved away from more straight-up action war stories to mysteries and almost dramas in a few cases. Not to say there's been a lack of action, just that it's taken a back seat to character interaction and intrigue. I suppose this makes sense in the grand sweep of the Star Wars narrative. As the war drags on and we move closer to the Empire, things get darker and trust gets muddier.

Moving onto brighter things though, our protagonist this time out is Padme. I like this, The Clone Wars' wider scope allowed the writers to tell different kinds of stories but it was still rare for Padme to take a starring role. More often she ended up paired with Anakin or Ahsoka. But this time she takes center stage.

It's a good setup too. Padme has been sent to the neutral planet Scipio, where the Banking Clan is based, to negotiate a loan for the Republic. War costs money after all. While there she runs into Rush Clovis, a man she apparently has a bad history with. Rush tries to convince Padme the Banking Clan is up to no good, they're out of money and taking loans from both the Republic and the Separatists to pay the other side off, and he needs her help to expose them. Padme doesn't really trust Clovis, but he's persuasive enough to get her to agree. Unfortunately his plan ends up with Padme arrested and making things worse is Embo (a bounty hunter from previous seasons) apparently trying to kill her.


I have to wonder about the planet's name. For those of you who skipped Western Civ, Scipio was the name of a Roman General who finally defeated Hannibal (the elephant one, not the cannibal) in the Second Punic War round about 202 BCE. His son, also named Scipio, would then raze Hannibal's home city of Carthage to the ground 50 years later. They were anything but neutral, so it's an odd name for a neutral planet. Unless they're not. BTW, the fact that the galaxy's banking center is on a neutral planet is a nice realistic detail. There may be a war on but both sides still want to do business, so having their money out of the line of fire just makes sense.

The Council of 13 welcomes you to
The Guild of Calamitous Intent

On that note, Scipio looks beautiful. It's clearly based on Switzerland, being a neutral power and covered with lovely snowcapped alps, and given the spy-like goings on it put me in the mind of the underrated Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Which brings me to our (possible) spy Rush Clovis. Guy's hard to get a read on. Just going off how Padme and Anakin react to him, he's clearly untrustworthy and having Embo following him around doesn't help. But he doesn't act that way. He seems like a perfectly reasonable guy, he even gets that Padme has no reason to trust him but is reaching out to her anyway. But there's still something about him that sets my bad guy alarm off. Maybe it's the way he keeps contriving reasons to get close to Padme, how he convinces her against her better judgement and plays on her sense of patriotism. I also don't see what he gets out of exposing the Banking Clan, who are his employers, so that makes all his actions suspect.

In the meantime I'm glad he's around because he leads to some good character interaction. While Clovis manages to get Padme on his side, Anakin still hates the guy. And the feeling is mutual for the most part. This also causes a rift between Anakin and Padme, making them bicker like an actual married couple. I really appreciate that since we've never seen those two not act loving, professional, or sad around each other. Clovis acting as a monkey wrench in their relationship is entertaining because it's relatable to the audience. We've all had that person we love but someone close to us just can't stand, and we've probably gotten into arguments with them over that person.

"Why do you have forehead tattoos?"
"I was in a Glam Rock band in college.
I didn't you were supposed to use makeup."

But Clovis and his relationship to Padme also works with the mystery. Unlike last time with Fives where we were able to see all sides of the story, this time we're just as in the dark as the characters. We don't know Clovis from Adam and from what we hear about him from the characters he's kind of shifty. It's established we shouldn't trust him. But then he gets Padme on his side and we accept Clovis for now. His role is ambiguous and his going along with our main characters creates drama because we don't know exactly what he'll do. Is Padme's trust misplaced? Or is Anakin just letting a grudge cloud his judgement? Additionally, it's left unclear what he did to get on Padme and Anakin's bad side in the first place which is just another layer to the mystery. All this uncertainty about Clovis, along with being with our main characters, hooks us into the story and makes us want to find out what his deal is. Not bad for a guy who sounds like he's doing a bad Sean Bean impression.

Overall, while An Old Friend's main story about banking corruption fell flat the character of Rush Clovis managed to get me into the story. The main problem though is that this episode is mostly setup. It's good, intriguing setup but it's had the same problem all the Netflix episodes have of feeling too slight. I'm also disappointed by Anakin's appearance near the end. While the bickering his interaction with Clovis brought was good, I would have preferred to see Padme get her way out of a situation without her Jedi husband getting involved. Also Padme had a handmaiden this episode who was just a plot device, a disposable droid could have served the same purpose.

These are minor flaws though. An Old Friend didn't waste any time getting into its mystery and Rush Clovis looks to be a good wild card character. While it is just setup, it's good setup and makes you want to see where the story is going. And the sled chase at the end was a short but sweet action scene for an episode that hadn't had any. Add in some scenery, and you get a good part one.

See you next week.