Hello and welcome back to another The Clone Wars review here at the Star Wars Report! After a six week break for the holidays, The Clone Wars has returned with the conclusion of the Slaves of the Republic arc! Anakin sets out to escape from his Zygerrian captors and free his friends from certain doom! This is episode thirteen titled Escape from Kadavo, which leaves us with only nine episodes left in the season. If you haven’t already, check out Pete’s awesome Clone Wars roundup which shares some information on what we’ll see coming up!
The episode starts with Obi-Wan trapped on Kadavo with Rex. It’s fairly interesting to see the situation that he’s placed in; under the electric whip of the Zygerrian guard, Obi-Wan is not able to stand up and fight, for himself or for the Togrutan slaves surrounding him. I think one reason this episode worked well was using one of the Jedi’s few weak points, selflessness. By the guards not only punishing the Jedi, but also the slaves for Kenobi’s actions, it forces Obi-Wan to turn that Jedi lifestyle of helping others in need into, well, almost a selfishness in order to spare the slaves any more brutality because of his actions! We saw his spirit begin to break over the course of the episode , (though never really snap) fulfilling the Queen’s alleged plan for an army of broken Jedi slaves.
This brings me to a few questions and speculation I have of our villains. There was a fair amount of scheming and secret plans being discussed in this episode, yet not many answers were given. We first see it with Sidious and Dooku, requiring the need of slaves, because ‘many Sith empires have been built on the backs of slaves’. But why, specifically, would Sidious and Dooku need slaves at this point in the game? I wonder if this will come into play later, or if it’s just a device by Sidious to shake things up and send Dooku after the Jedi. But what if it isn’t? Could we see the use of slaves for the creation of another super weapon in a future season? I’m not talking about a tank or an ion cannon, I’m talking about a planet destroyer. Could we possibly see the Force Harvester in the series, or something similar? Sidious mentioned that many empires in the past have been built upon the backs of slaves, it just reminds me so much of how the Star Forge in The Knights of the Old Republic was built by a slave race. Something to ponder, anyway!
I’d like to mention the Queen’s plan to make an army of Jedi slaves. I’m fairly certain that was just a hoax that she made up in order to keep Skywalker with her. Or perhaps she truly was going to betray Skywalker and hand a broken Obi-Wan over to the Separatists. (Which didn’t seem likely considering her attachment to Anakin, and the promise she made to him if Anakin stayed behind.) The Queen’s character, I thought, played out well; I liked that we finally saw her true role beneath that of the queen of a slaver empire, and maybe at heart she wasn’t as much a ruthless villain after all, despite her desires to rebuild her empire. Though I admit I would have liked more discussion between her and Anakin, with whom I wished we’d seen more character development or reflection on his past in this episode, and was disappointed, as for me this was an arc that ties right into the Chosen One’s past.
That wraps up this weeks review! This episode was good, I thought, it was action packed, very well made, and created a decent conclusion to the arc we started in November, even though I would have liked a little more time to successfully wrap up the Queen and Anakin’s story arc. Let us know what you thought by leaving a comment below! Thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you… always!
–Ryan
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