I think I figured out what the problem with this arc of episodes is. It's that neither of the story's halves, the banking conspiracy stuff and the Padme/Clovis stuff, have enough material to stand alone so they were put together. And that narrative surgery doesn't really work. The guy who betrayed Padme is on this planet because the story needs him to. Dooku is manipulating the banks through him because the story says so. It doesn't feel natural for these things to be happening this way. The only thing that does feel natural is the wedge Clovis drives in Padme and Anakin's relationship and that's the thread that goes unresolved.
The Banking stuff is where this episode really suffers, for the basic fact that it isn't very interesting. Now I'm not saying that bringing wider political ideas like economics into Star Wars is necessarily unworkable, but remember at heart this is a kid's show. Kids can't get invested in the interest rates of war loans. Hell, I'm in my 20s and I can't really get invested in it. So moving the intrigue around who controls the galaxy's money to the forefront this episode hurt audience engagement, even if that intrigue really boiled down to "Dooku blackmailed Clovis to give Sidious all the money".
By contrast, consider The Phantom Menace. Many people made my same complaint about the Trade Federation in that film, but it wasn't as egregious there. Even if you didn't get who the Trade Federation were you could still understand they were the villains because they had a robot army and were invading a planet. They were doing bad guy stuff, so of course they must be the bad guys. Good, let's move on. But in this episode, the audience has to understand what interest rates are and why they would be important to the heroes. And I'm sorry, finance really isn't that interesting a narrative base.
Perhaps that's why the writers connected it to the Padme/Anakin relationship drama. A shame they didn't really expand on that in this episode. Indeed, much of the rockiness the last episode left us on goes unmentioned here. The single scene Clovis, Padme and Anakin share together deals with the fallout of Dooku's manipulation of Clovis instead of the meatier marital drama. Which is really my biggest complaint, the writers spent so much time last episode focusing on the trouble Clovis caused for these two but it all comes to nothing here. It isn't mentioned or resolved.
Which leads to my next complaint, how Padme is utilized this episode. She serves no purpose other than as a damsel, someone for Anakin to rescue and to make Clovis feel bad. It's very disappointing considering the potential this arc had to use her as a protagonist in her own right. And considering how she was in the right in the argument between her and Anakin about his jealousy, so her cuddling up to him for safety at the end of this episode rubs the wrong way.
Rush Clovis feels like a missed opportunity. As I predicted last time, he did end up as nothing more than a pawn but that could have worked. This episode just rushed his downfall, he takes control of the banks at the start and dies at the end. The pathos they want us to feel for him doesn't feel earned. I think Clovis' character arc would have worked better if he'd taken control and been confronted by Dooku at the end of the previous episode. That way this episode could have focused more on the struggle between his ideals and the dirty work Dooku forces on him so he can keep his job. There is dramatic potential there, but the writers don't fully realize it.
The brief skirmish at the end felt superfluous. Palpatine's scheme didn't really need Dooku to invade Scipio to remove Clovis from power. The same effect could have been achieved by a few commando droids taking Padme hostage on Scipio and Dooku revealing himself as the instigator, thus giving the Republic just cause to go to Scipio and remove Clovis from power.
Overall, a very disappointing outing. Unrealized potential is the name of the game for both this episode and arc. Clovis and his relationship to both Padme and the banks provided a lot of fodder for intersting story turns, but ultimately the plot just went down cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac never amounting to much. And the cul-de-sacs that were engaging, like the problems with the Skywalker marriage, weren't resolved.
This has definitely been the low point of the last season. Good ideas that came to nothing. Hopefully the remaining six episodes are better executed. I wouldn't want to see a show of this caliber go out on such a sour note.
See you next week.
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