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

[Fyraltari]

Season 2, Episode 3: Children of the Force

Spoiler: Recap

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We open with the last scene of the previous episode, which gives me the opportunity to point out that last time Anakin said he could still feel Bane even though he was dead. This coming from a guy who belongs to an order whose core tenets include "your eyes deceive you, trust in the Force." Anakin is a bad Jedi, is what I'm saying. Anyhoo, as the clone leave the shuttle, some green blood is spotted (I don't remember bane getting injured but okay), they realize what's up and try to stop Bane from escaping. They fail. Sure hope that doesn't become a habit! it does.

Bane has reached his lair and informs Sidious of his success. Rether than ask for the data obtained, the Sith tasks Bane with selecting four random kids from the list and delivering them to Mustafar for experimentation. Menwhile Yoda, Windu, Kenobi and Skywalker decide to use the Force to try and devine which children are in danger. There's a cool scene where the four of them are comparing notes about the vision they are having in order to make sense of them. They spot three children, one who is taken as they speak, one on Rodia and one on Naboo. Kenobi is sent to Rodia and Anakin (with Ahsoka in tow) to Naboo. Thankfully, my fears were for naught and I am spared another Jar Jar Binks appearance even though the Naboo child is a gungan.

So it turns out the reason these children aren't with the Temple younglings already is because they are still infant babies. Makes me wonder how the Jedi spotted them. Then again one is levitating toy blocks for funsies. Clearly being able to do that without any training makes them a MArie Sue of the highest order. At least, I'm told that's how it works. Cad Bane has gotten to Rodia first, desguised as a Jedi, and is talking to the mother of the child. He claims he has to take the bay early because of "Jedi impostors kidnapping Force-sensitive babies." Cheeky bastard. She doesn't want to but he uses some hypnotic device on her. When Obi-Wan gets there, the woman tries to stop him with Bane's blaster but he quickly gets her to come back to her senses. Not quickly enough, though, as Bane escapes with the child. On Naboo, he dispenses with the subtleties and tries to simply snatch the kid but is spotted by Ahsoka. They manage to capture him and Ahsoka takes back her hair-necklace thingie that I forgot to say he took from her last time. I think that's a stand-in for a Padawan's ponytail.

Bane is prisoner on Coruscant but refuses to talk as he's more afraid of his employer than of the Jedi (with good reason). Obi-Wan says that trying the Jedi Mind Trick on someone as strong-willed could be dangerous for the bounty hunter, which Anakin couldn't care less about. Windu, Skywalker and Kenobi try together to force Bane into submission. This is a nice creepy scene as the Jedi talk in unisson while Bane is clearly reeling from the invasion of his mind. He manages to push them back, but when Anakin wants to try again he says he'll co-operate rather than go through this again. Windu and Kenobi will go with him to retrieve the Holocron and the children. Anakin says Palpatine wants an update of the situation. Obi-Wan thinks this is a Jedi internal matter and no concern of the Chancellor but Anakin objects that as long as they are part of the military they have to answer to the Supreme Chancellor. I'm with Ani on this one, Bane isn't a Jedi so this isn't a Jedi internal matter and Bane was working with Separatist forces last time, meaning that, as far as they know, this is part of the ennemy's strategy. Obi-Wan says Anakin has just volunteered and leaves.

Ahsoka is excited to meet the Chancellor but even if Palpatine is all warmth and smiles to Anakin he pretty much tells Ahsoka to wait outside while the grownups are talking. Ah, he wants to do his manipulating intimately. Maybe people watching stress him and he can't perform quite as well. Skywalker tell him that Bane works for somebody and he's got a hunch it's not Dooku but someone even more powerful. Meanwhile bane has taken Windu and Kenobi to his hide-out, some kind of derelict space station deep in neutral space. Windu falls for a classic reverse psychology trick as Bane says he'll get the Holocron for him and triggers a trap. The room is filled with lasers, the bounty hunter takes advantage of this and escapes through a secret door before starting the sataion's autodestruct countdown. Kenobi rescues Windu and they escape.

Anakin and Ahsoka are combing bane's ship. He wipes his navigtional computer before each voyage so they can' tell where he's been but they find out he didn't wipe his fuel-computer which lists the last planets he went to (why does it do that?) Inculding Mustafar. So the two of them head there. Sidious meanwhile is overseeing a facility on Mustafar via hologram and getting his creepy old man vibe on. He inteds to use the children to test if some kind of mind control device works, the final goal being to enslave all the prospective Jedi to turn them into his personnal Force-sensitive army. Good to see that he's got hobbies to distract him from making the galaxy destroy itself. One of the droid present tells him that a Jedi ship is approaching. He decides to play it safe and have the whole facility throw itself in the lava below. Scarping this plan for now isn't really a loss but he can't afford the Jedi to find anything they could trace back to him. Ani and Ahsoka land in the facility (I'm guessing they could sense the children but it's probably just another case of Star wars forgetting that planets have more than one place on them). They fight the droids a bit (the principal danger being that the droids are holding the children so they have to be careful not to hurt the babies).

Anakin and Ahsoka reports back to the council and are informed of Windu and Obi-Wan's middling success ("He escaped again?" says the Padawan to the Jedi Battlemaster). However since the Jedi have the Holcron (and the crystal) back and they can somehow tell the data wasn't copied, they decide to close the case for now.

Spoiler: My thoughts

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That was an oaky episode but it felt a bit... crowded? Like Bane escaped the Jedi three times in this and each sequence of action is barely given any time to do anything. There are five different fights (on the cruiser, on Rodia, on Naboo, in the space station and on Mustafar) and I end up with the impression that Bane only wins because his opponents get a plot-mandated drop in competence (like seriously, taking him to his own lair and not searching the place for traps?). Ultimately the plot didn't have anythinf to do with the clone wars but it's good to have Sidious act vilainous once in a while. Even though his scene with Anakin was visibly manipualtion-free it establishes that he doesn't want to deal with Ahsoka which, I'm guessing, will come more into play later as she gets suspissious of him.