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Feb. 3rd, 2018 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsMy old computer died sometime in between the last time I did a Clone Wars post and today, which means that I lost most of my notes on the per-episode death rate of clone buddies! That said, it feels like we've seen a lot fewer clone buddy fatalities in Season Three so far. (I hope I have not just jinxed a whole battalion of clone buddies to come.)
Anyway! Episodes 1-10 of Season 3
1. Clone Cadets
Baby clones + clone janitor! This episode is mostly interesting because we already saw "Rookies", the season one episode that takes place between this episode and Season 3 Episode 2. As a result we already know that this Ragtag Band of Misfits Clones in Clone Training are indeed going to Learn to Work Together and also that most of them are going to later die heroically. Sorry, Ragtag Band of Misfit Clones.
No clone buddies die in this episode, but ...
2. ARC Troopers
... the disabled clone janitor we meet in "Clone Cadets" is not long for this world. COLOR US ALL SHOCKED. Our two remaining Ragtag Band of Misfits come back to cloneland just in time to thwart an attack from Sith who want to steal clone DNA for reasons I don't remember. At some point, I want to go back and watch "Clone Cadets," "Rookies," and "ARC Troopers" in proper order as the three-parter they should be so that I can remember who all the Ragtag Band of Misfit Clones actually are and correctly identify them by personality, something that was definitely a lost cause during these two episodes.
3. Supply Lines
Bail Organa and Jar Jar go to convince a neutral planet to provide humanitarian aid to a bunch of besieged Twi'leks! I love Bail Organa and his comfy-looking space turtleneck and I'm always excited when we get a Bail-centric episode, even if it comes with an unfortunate side order of Jar Jar. And at least in this episode, Bail plays to Jar Jar's talents: send him out somewhere to be a weird, annoying distraction while other people do actual competent and helpful things in the background.
4. Sphere of Influence
The tiny blue Senator who stars in this episode first showed up in the Season 1 episode "Trespass," in which she was browbeaten by a colonialist general from her home planet until she finally stood up to him and declared the ascendancy of international politics over internal military policy, and now every time I see her doing a helpful political thing I just have this surge of affection, like "aw, you've come so FAR! Go, tiny blue Senator, go!"
Anyway, in this episode she teams up with Ahsoka to rescue some other blue women who were kidnapped for political reasons, and is satisfyingly intelligent and effective at doing so. Go, tiny blue Senator, go!
5. Corruption
Padmé goes to Mandalore to hang out with Duchess Satine, in what the show says is a diplomatic mission that is very clearly just an excuse for the only kind of girl's night out that two prominent galactic royal-political figures are likely to have this decade. And they're so bad at it! It's very endearing.
SATINE: Padmé, I'm so sorry, we seem to have walked into a policy argument on my council -
PADME: Oh, don't worry, it's my day off and I love NOTHING MORE than to use my off hours backseat diplomatizing other people's political disputes!
SATINE: Well .... you united my council in the fact that now they're all annoyed at you and the Galactic Senate .... so good job, I guess?
PADME: Well, that was a stressful day. We should do something fun to take our minds off things!
SATINE: I know! Let's go pay a state visit to the hospital and visit the sick and injured!
PADME: YES PERFECT.
SATINE: Oh no, someone is poisoning our city's shipments of Gatorade for the children! You know what this means --
PADME: We should sneak around at night in bad disguises and investigate? :DDD
SATINE: I was going to say, alert the proper city authorities, but your way sounds better, let's do that.
This episode is also notable for I think the first appearance of Padmé's Bangs. Given that all of Padmé's other hairstyles feature long hair with nary a bang in sight, we came to two conclusions: a.) the bangs were a polite homage to Satine's casual bangs and b.) actually, Padmé circa Clone Wars has no hair, just a series of wigs chosen to match the occasion.
6. The Academy
Ahsoka teaches Mandalorian cadet school! The most important figure we meet in cadet school is Satine's nephew CORKY (ok, the wiki tells me it's spelled Korkie, but I'm choosing to ignore that) which I love because it's such an upper-class-heir-to-something-British-goes-to-boarding-school nonsense nickname. Corkie's real name is definitely something like Charles Fitzwilliam George Wriothesly Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes the Fifteenth. Bless you, Corkie.
Anyway, Corky and his friends discover that Mandalore's prime minister is evil, which they probably should have known just based on the fact that he's a Prime Minister (never trust an evil vizier!) Meanwhile, Ahsoka gets to be the older, responsible one for once and is not thrilled by it. But we are!
7. Assassin
I enjoy Ahsoka-Anakin episodes, but I'm also kind of loving all these episodes of Ahsoka Doing Things that don't necessarily have much to do with Anakin at all! In this episode, she has visions of Padmé getting assassinated by Boba Fett's bounty hunter mom, and as a result tags along with her to an important professional conference, because Padmé WILL GIVE HER KEYNOTE SPEECH COME HELL OR HIGH WATER.
The end of this episode also ... introduces? re-introduces? ... Ziro the Hutt as a major villain. Full disclosure: I'm still not sure who Ziro the Hutt is or why we care.
8. Evil Plans
I'll be honest: I was disappointed by this episode. If C-3PO and R2D2 get kidnapped by bounty hunters while on a routine shopping trip, I expect R2D2 to go rogue and pull off a brilliant nonsense rescue while emitting beeps of maniacal droid laughter! Or, if that's not possible, at the very least escape and find a Jedi to solve the situation satisfactorily.
Neither of these things happen, R2D2 and C-3PO do not pull off a single victory, and I was left deeply dissatisfied.
9. Hunt for Ziro
Remember when I said I still wasn't sure who Ziro the Hutt was or why we care? That ... remains true. But I do like the plot twist in Ziro's besotted girlfriend turns out to have been a honeypot spy who was playing him the whole time! Way to go, Sy Snootles!
(I also kind of like the confirmation that the Hutts are equal-opportunity xenophiliacs. It's not just human women they find inexplicably attractive, it's alien women of all shapes, sizes, and species!)
innerbrat points out that this episode is very much a Western, which ... also might be why we introduce a Jedi with dark skin and braids-or-dreadlocks whose Special Jedi Skill is being very good at tracking. Our dubious faces about the coding here did not stop us speculating on whether he and Kenobi had ever banged (they definitely did.)
10. Heroes on Both Sides
In theory, we liked this episode in which Padmé whisks Ahsoka away to introduce her to some of her Separatist friends and also the concept that There Are Good And Bad People On Both Sides and Negotiated Peace Is Better Than Endless War. In practice, it would have been nice if the episode that's supposed to teach Ahsoka about the war's politics had ever ... actually .... featured a conversation about the war's politics .....
We did laugh a lot at the fact that Padmé's Separatist friends just straight-up live in a European castle. We also laughed in an 'oh no' sort of way at Anakin's total lack of interest in concepts like 'the war isn't black and white' and 'sometimes, compromise might be a positive!'
Anyway! Episodes 1-10 of Season 3
1. Clone Cadets
Baby clones + clone janitor! This episode is mostly interesting because we already saw "Rookies", the season one episode that takes place between this episode and Season 3 Episode 2. As a result we already know that this Ragtag Band of Misfits Clones in Clone Training are indeed going to Learn to Work Together and also that most of them are going to later die heroically. Sorry, Ragtag Band of Misfit Clones.
No clone buddies die in this episode, but ...
2. ARC Troopers
... the disabled clone janitor we meet in "Clone Cadets" is not long for this world. COLOR US ALL SHOCKED. Our two remaining Ragtag Band of Misfits come back to cloneland just in time to thwart an attack from Sith who want to steal clone DNA for reasons I don't remember. At some point, I want to go back and watch "Clone Cadets," "Rookies," and "ARC Troopers" in proper order as the three-parter they should be so that I can remember who all the Ragtag Band of Misfit Clones actually are and correctly identify them by personality, something that was definitely a lost cause during these two episodes.
3. Supply Lines
Bail Organa and Jar Jar go to convince a neutral planet to provide humanitarian aid to a bunch of besieged Twi'leks! I love Bail Organa and his comfy-looking space turtleneck and I'm always excited when we get a Bail-centric episode, even if it comes with an unfortunate side order of Jar Jar. And at least in this episode, Bail plays to Jar Jar's talents: send him out somewhere to be a weird, annoying distraction while other people do actual competent and helpful things in the background.
4. Sphere of Influence
The tiny blue Senator who stars in this episode first showed up in the Season 1 episode "Trespass," in which she was browbeaten by a colonialist general from her home planet until she finally stood up to him and declared the ascendancy of international politics over internal military policy, and now every time I see her doing a helpful political thing I just have this surge of affection, like "aw, you've come so FAR! Go, tiny blue Senator, go!"
Anyway, in this episode she teams up with Ahsoka to rescue some other blue women who were kidnapped for political reasons, and is satisfyingly intelligent and effective at doing so. Go, tiny blue Senator, go!
5. Corruption
Padmé goes to Mandalore to hang out with Duchess Satine, in what the show says is a diplomatic mission that is very clearly just an excuse for the only kind of girl's night out that two prominent galactic royal-political figures are likely to have this decade. And they're so bad at it! It's very endearing.
SATINE: Padmé, I'm so sorry, we seem to have walked into a policy argument on my council -
PADME: Oh, don't worry, it's my day off and I love NOTHING MORE than to use my off hours backseat diplomatizing other people's political disputes!
SATINE: Well .... you united my council in the fact that now they're all annoyed at you and the Galactic Senate .... so good job, I guess?
PADME: Well, that was a stressful day. We should do something fun to take our minds off things!
SATINE: I know! Let's go pay a state visit to the hospital and visit the sick and injured!
PADME: YES PERFECT.
SATINE: Oh no, someone is poisoning our city's shipments of Gatorade for the children! You know what this means --
PADME: We should sneak around at night in bad disguises and investigate? :DDD
SATINE: I was going to say, alert the proper city authorities, but your way sounds better, let's do that.
This episode is also notable for I think the first appearance of Padmé's Bangs. Given that all of Padmé's other hairstyles feature long hair with nary a bang in sight, we came to two conclusions: a.) the bangs were a polite homage to Satine's casual bangs and b.) actually, Padmé circa Clone Wars has no hair, just a series of wigs chosen to match the occasion.
6. The Academy
Ahsoka teaches Mandalorian cadet school! The most important figure we meet in cadet school is Satine's nephew CORKY (ok, the wiki tells me it's spelled Korkie, but I'm choosing to ignore that) which I love because it's such an upper-class-heir-to-something-British-goes-to-boarding-school nonsense nickname. Corkie's real name is definitely something like Charles Fitzwilliam George Wriothesly Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes the Fifteenth. Bless you, Corkie.
Anyway, Corky and his friends discover that Mandalore's prime minister is evil, which they probably should have known just based on the fact that he's a Prime Minister (never trust an evil vizier!) Meanwhile, Ahsoka gets to be the older, responsible one for once and is not thrilled by it. But we are!
7. Assassin
I enjoy Ahsoka-Anakin episodes, but I'm also kind of loving all these episodes of Ahsoka Doing Things that don't necessarily have much to do with Anakin at all! In this episode, she has visions of Padmé getting assassinated by Boba Fett's bounty hunter mom, and as a result tags along with her to an important professional conference, because Padmé WILL GIVE HER KEYNOTE SPEECH COME HELL OR HIGH WATER.
The end of this episode also ... introduces? re-introduces? ... Ziro the Hutt as a major villain. Full disclosure: I'm still not sure who Ziro the Hutt is or why we care.
8. Evil Plans
I'll be honest: I was disappointed by this episode. If C-3PO and R2D2 get kidnapped by bounty hunters while on a routine shopping trip, I expect R2D2 to go rogue and pull off a brilliant nonsense rescue while emitting beeps of maniacal droid laughter! Or, if that's not possible, at the very least escape and find a Jedi to solve the situation satisfactorily.
Neither of these things happen, R2D2 and C-3PO do not pull off a single victory, and I was left deeply dissatisfied.
9. Hunt for Ziro
Remember when I said I still wasn't sure who Ziro the Hutt was or why we care? That ... remains true. But I do like the plot twist in Ziro's besotted girlfriend turns out to have been a honeypot spy who was playing him the whole time! Way to go, Sy Snootles!
(I also kind of like the confirmation that the Hutts are equal-opportunity xenophiliacs. It's not just human women they find inexplicably attractive, it's alien women of all shapes, sizes, and species!)
innerbrat points out that this episode is very much a Western, which ... also might be why we introduce a Jedi with dark skin and braids-or-dreadlocks whose Special Jedi Skill is being very good at tracking. Our dubious faces about the coding here did not stop us speculating on whether he and Kenobi had ever banged (they definitely did.) 10. Heroes on Both Sides
In theory, we liked this episode in which Padmé whisks Ahsoka away to introduce her to some of her Separatist friends and also the concept that There Are Good And Bad People On Both Sides and Negotiated Peace Is Better Than Endless War. In practice, it would have been nice if the episode that's supposed to teach Ahsoka about the war's politics had ever ... actually .... featured a conversation about the war's politics .....
We did laugh a lot at the fact that Padmé's Separatist friends just straight-up live in a European castle. We also laughed in an 'oh no' sort of way at Anakin's total lack of interest in concepts like 'the war isn't black and white' and 'sometimes, compromise might be a positive!'
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 04:27 pm (UTC)Also for all the issues with Mandalore, The Academy is one of my favorite episodes because it's basically just 'Ahsoka has to teach civil society classes.'
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 04:51 pm (UTC)I was about to write a comment about how much I would watch a whole season of Guest Lecturer Ahsoka when I suddenly realized that what I REALLY want is the Good Place crossover.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-06 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 11:17 pm (UTC)which I love because it's such an upper-class-heir-to-something-British-goes-to-boarding-school nonsense nickname. Corkie's real name is definitely something like Charles Fitzwilliam George Wriothesly Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes the Fifteenth. Bless you, Corkie.
It is a pet fandom theory that Korkie is in fact Satine's son by Obi-Wan, because he seems to be about the right age? Maybe? to have resulted from their teen shenanigans, and we never do see the other Kryze sibling who otherwise spawned him. (I mean, we see Satine and Bo-Katan, but he's not Bo-Katan's kid, so...)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 05:06 am (UTC)Bo-Katan is Satine’s estranged sister, voiced by Katee Sackhoff.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-06 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 03:33 am (UTC)Tiny blue senator is Riyo Chuchi and I love her!
no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 04:46 am (UTC)I also love her, I can't remember her name but I'm SO HAPPY whenever she's onscreen!
no subject
Date: 2018-02-06 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-06 02:58 am (UTC)(both the kidnapped daughters reminded us of Fiona in Shrek)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-08 09:46 pm (UTC)I KNOW. I'm so proud of her.