Fyraltari watches The Clone Wars (2008) for the first time

[Fyraltari]

Season 1, Episode 16: The Hidden Enemy

This is my favourite episode so far, second to the one on the outpost.

Spoiler: Recap

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We open on the strategically important world of Christophsis, this seems to be set just before the pilot movie.
Anakin and Obi-Wan have laid an ambush for an oncoming droid battalion splitting, their forces into two different towers. The droids however, do not spring the trap but separate. Before our heroes can figure out what's up, the B1 burst the doors open and start shooting at Obi-Wan's group. You know when they just shut the hell up they actually manage to look somewhat intimidating. Anakin orders a pilot named Hawk to bring his gunship to Obi-Wan's tower and uses his clones grappling guns to cross the street with his group while the ennemy shoots them. They meet up and escape through the roof. Stupidly the tactical droid in charge lead his troops himself so Cody rips its head off in the hopes of finding out how they knew about the ambush.

Back to base, the droid's head self-destructs after revealing that the Separatists had complete knowledge of the Republicans' plans but before revealing how. Also the clones call them "Seppies", does that make them "Reppies"? Anakin and Obi-Wan think that this goes beyond a mere security leak, there must be a trairor in their mist. This retroactively makes the ease R3-S4 will have infiltrated them twice as dumb, by the way. They decide to to infiltrate the Separists own base themselves and leave Rex and Cody to try and root out the traitor. This is Anakin and Obi-Wan's only meaningful contribution to the plot. Rex orders D2 to run an analysis of the main computer, hoping the traitor was sloppy. But before he's done though, they discover that a comm-link was switched on during their discussion and the traitor presumably heard the whole thing, they leave the room and spot a figure in the corridor who immeadiately runs away (what was he doing here? Those comm bracelets have way more range than that) and loses himself in the mess. The mess where only clones are eating. The traitor isn't just a fellow Republican, he was born into their clone as well. This hits them pretty hard. As they come back to the strategic room, R2 shows them his findings: a specific interference that comes back every few days, always coming from the same barrack. Which makes the unit there especially suspect.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are driving towards the Separatist base and the droids despite spotting them do not open fire and let them proceed. They immediately spot that it is a trap but anakin is cocky enough to go see what it's all about anyway. Hey, I can hear Sun Tzu roll in his grave all the way from China. Their interaction is pleasant enough as they seem to generally value each other's input. The Separatists' headquarters turns out to be a former library where they are met by the the mastermind behind all this: Asajj Ventress. And I'm sorry but are she and Obi-Wan flirting!? What? Who? Why? I don't... Anyway they fight for a bit until she says she has distratec them long enough and lead them outside the room where her army has assembled and challenge them to take her on, now. They opt to steal two jetbikes and hightail outta there. Ventress orders General Loathsome (not even bothering with a clever name there) to delay the Jedi (he doesn't) until her master's plan is accomplished. I don't remember Dooku's plan from the movie having anything todo with christophsis but okay. Loathsome is the same elephant-like guy from the beginning of the movie, by the way, he only gets a visual cameo because I guess they didn't want to pay his voice actor. This takes place all ove the episode but since it's unconnected to the rest of it, I'm summarizing it here.

Rex and Cody have summoned Sergeant Slick who leads the unit in the suspicious barrack. He is adamant his men would never betray the Republic but his pleas are cut short by the arrival of his men, all five of them. (they get an entire barrack for six guys? Comfy.) Rex and Cody starts the interrogation: #1 is embarrassed to admit he was cleaning his weapon, which the others confirms he does obsessively after each mission, Cody asks if he turned on the computer for that to which #1 says he hasn't, all flustered-like. Ah, I was wondering if there was going to be adult jokes in this show, glad to see there are some. Though this is making me wondering about the clone's... err... anatomy. #1's weapon is freshly scrubbed so our detectives move on. #2 and #3 were in the mess. This raises their susîcion especially when they claim "lot's of guys" as a witness. Slick insists he gets a moment alone with his men, but #4 would rather get this over with: he was in the infirmary getting a minor wound tended to he shows his bandage as proof and says the medical droid will confirm. #5 at first refuses to answer then claim to have been in the mess which #3 immediately denies before rectifying that Chopper (#5) did get to the mess but he was late. Rex and Cody starts pressing the guys for answers and he amits he was hiding near the south exit putting together a necklace of battledroid fingers. He explains that he feels that they owe him something (probably because of the burn scar covering most of his face). Everybody else in the room is disgusted as taking trophies is apprently illegal for some reason (I'm pretty sure I've seen clones with tally marks on their helmets and armour so what gives?) one clone even calls Chopper "defective". this is interesting, I'll come back to it later. Chopper gets defensive when Slick points out that A) this is not an alibi and B) this does not speak to his moral charcater and Slicks tries to calm him down by promising a proper investigation when the Jedi come back. Chopper just gets more riled up and asks where Slick himself was as he's seen him go through the south exit towards the command center rather than head to the barracks or the mess with the rest of them. Slick denies saying tha Chopper is obviously making things up to try to deflect blame. Cody simply asks him how he knows the Jedi aren't currently at the base since that's classified. "I really wish you hadn't noticed that, sir." A quick brawl ensues as Rex is flaggerbasted by Slick's treason.

They pursue Slick to the weapons' dépôt but it turns out he only stayed there long enough to plant some explosives and take out most of their artillery and vehicules. Realizing that Slick isn't trying to escape, Rex and Cody head back to the command center. This is where Slick is hiding, inside an air-vent. Our duo tries to think like their turncoat brother. Where would he go? They both wordlessly realizes that he must be in this very room and stealthily spot his hiding spot. Cody leaves his blaster in plain view of Slick and says that the explosion knocked oout their power which triggered a lockdown, therefore Slick won't try to escape. Rex counters that he would espect them to think that and so must be trying to force their way right now as he moves out of Slicks' sight. Cody pointedly turns his back to Slick and say he will stay to reboot the systems. Rex activates the door to simulate his departure. Slick leaves his hiding spot, takes Cody's blaster and points it at the commander who shows him the magazine in his hand while Rex places his won gun on his neck. Was that a triple or quadruple bluff? Whatevr it was it was clever. They all start explaining their thought process with Slick catching up and they end up quoting what was probably their standard trianing verbatim. Why did Slick betray the Republic? Money, yes but mostly something he doesn't expect the other two to comprehend: he wanted a chance at a free life. There's another quick brawl but he is taken prisoner again and brought to the Jedi. Anakin is severely disappointed but Slick simply calls the Jedi out for enslaving the clones. Rex counter that he endangered his own brothers for his own benefit. Slick is shaken by this but insistis that he loves his brothers and was makign a blow for all clones. Cody doesn't buy that stating that if he loved them he wouldn't have sold them out. Neither actually denies his point of being slaves though. He is taken away and our final shock is of the two brothers framed by the Jedi's legs, looking pensive. Cue the pilot movie.

Spoiler: My thoughts

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During the episode I wondered how Ventress and Slick got in touch, but the other clone-centric episode (with Heavy, Fives and Echo) showed her on Kamino so I guess that's that. I don't think Ahsoka was in that episode and Rex and Cody seemed less used to each other if memory serves os there's a good chance these episodes were in order relative to one another.

Quickly, can we talk about Kenobi's little trick at the beginning of the movie? The one where he pretends to surrender but draws out the surrender long enough to mount a counter-attack. That's a war crime in real-life. Wha'=t's more it pretty much tanled any chance of any Separatist ever wnating to negotiate with Kenobi or take his troops prisoners rather than butchering them. This may have really hurt the Republic's credibility when making ouvertures of peace to the Separatists. You'd think that a skilled negotiator like Kenobi would have known that. Of course it's moot because Sidious, but still...

Alright, this is a clone-centric episode so I ahve to wondered why cut to the Jedi so often? The fight they get doesn't add anything and I just kepts wishing we'd get back to the clones. Feels like this time would have been better used showing Cody and Rex play off of each other some more. I like their dynamic of Cody being methodical and analytical (he notices Slick's slip up) and Rex being more instinctive (he thinks of checking the computer) but both being close enought they can communicate without words because they are thinking alike.

Bakc to the "defective" slur. I hadn't considered it but it makes sense that the cloning process can't be 100% effective (nothing is) meaning that some mutations might creep in or slight differences in an otherwise identical environment might snowball. There would be a Bernard Marx or two. The kaminoan probably have thresholds for what is acceptable and what is defective and the clones are probably closely monitored during their first years to weed out the defective ones. This explains the variations in personnality that we see but it also mean that human social dynamics apply. The more charismatic and headstrong one become leaders, circle of riends form etc. I would expect that, for example the drivers, pilots, footmen, commandos and spaceship crews all have some sort of rivalry going on. And of course every group large enough has somebody that doesn't fit in, somebody the others may pick on. In French that's called a "souffre-douleur" (pain-sufferer) don't know what it's called in English. In this unit that's Chopper because of all their personnalities, his is the quirkiest, the outlier (or at least that's what it seemed). In this environment it's only natural that "defective" becomes the go-to insult to make your brother feel terrible. I imagine they have horror stories about sound clones being accidentally switched with defectives or suchlike.

Now, Slick. Slick wants to defect because he feels like a slave. How exactly a default that big slipped under the kaminoans' radar, I don't know. But it's impressive on his part. After all the clones are born for a purpose, they don't have the anxiety of choosing their path in life as the reason for their existence is pretty obvious and the non-clone people they frequent the most (military people and Jedi) are the least likely in the galaxy to challenge the notion that duty always come first. To throw away his indoctrination like that demanded courage, not physical but emotionnal. It's nietzschean in a way. Of course he should probaly haev tried defecting rather than full-blown selling out but still points for free-thinking. Ironically, overestimating his difference of thinking with his brothers is what caused him to fall for Rex and Cody's trap. He was so used to seeing what the others ignore he didn't realize how close they still were (and therefore, how predictible he still was).

You know, it makes sense that the clone would go on to become the first generation of stormtrooper as they are basically any authoritarian's wet dream. A military force with no-life outside duty, cut-off from the civilian population, trained for birth to obey orders. They wouldn't really care for the ideal of democracy since they never got to taste any of that. As they have always lived under Palpatine's administration they would naturally consider his name to be synonymous with "head of state". If the officers are selected from birth they would naturally see hierarchy as an intrisinc, unmoving structure and so wouldn't care for social mobility and if they were selected among those who showed early signs of being fit to lead (imposed themselves as leaders of their own bands, took responsability for their actions, etc.) they would naturally consider being in a position of authority as proof that you are fit for the position. Both things that lend themselves very well to a totalitarian mindset.
And of course being all humans, it would be easy for them let prejudice about non-humans settle in.
I'm not saying that they would all be blind to the reality of the Galaxy but biases are tricky and I doubt their education had much in the way of history and social sciences.

By the way, does anyone know of a story featuring Cody after Order 66?