Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 2 Episode 22: Lethal Trackdown
What is it ? : Boba Fett and Aurra Sing have their hostages from the crashed Star Destroyer, and taunt the Jedi to track them down to save their lives, before putting Clone Trooper Ponds to death to prove their point. With Anakin and Mace Windu still wounded, Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano take on the investigation to track down and rescue the hostages.
Aurra takes them to Hondo Ohnaka's current base of operations, and when the bounty hunter Castas who has been helping her is overheard talking over the comm trying to sell her out she kills him.
Meanwhile, Ahsoka and Plo Koon have been hitting the bars of Coruscant, and meet the contact that Castas was speaking to and discover Aurra Sings location.
The Jedi head to Florrum, and with some help from Hondo, who convinces Boba that doing the honorable thing would be what his father wanted, they discover the location of the hostages. Ahsoka rescues them, and captures Bossk, but Aurra escapes in a heavily damaged Slave 1, which apparently explodes in the distance.
High Points : One of the most risque and funny lines in the entire series shines its way in this episode, when Hondo meets his ex-lover Aurra Sing and notices young Boba by her side.
Hondo: "Not mine, I take it?"
And Hondo continues to shine throughout this episode, as his relationship with Aurra is revealed, and he basically is the Hondo we all know and love.
The investigation through the depths of Coruscants slums and bars is interesting and well realised, although Plo Koons idea of subtle being he slaps his lightsaber down on the bar, is the very antithesis of subtle.
They picked up the storyline with Boba empathising with his Clone Brothers, but it's barely touched upon, and could have done with spending a lot more time on that just Boba being somewhat affected by the death of Clone Trooper Ponds (in fact he seems just about as affected by the death of the Bounty Hunter Castas, who he seemed to dislike), so while I liked this storyline, and was glad it was continued, they really didn't give it the treatment I think it deserved.
Low Points : Anakin and Mace Windu being in hospital at the beginning of the episode could have done with a little explaining, as at first I thought they were just out of the sauna together, in their pyjama's while Mace reclines on a bed, I really wasn't sure where they were, apart from in a bedroom together.
The "investigation" by Ahsoka and Plo Koon is incredibly lucky. It just happens that they end up in a bar where Casta's contact is sitting talking about Casta's death at the hands of Aurra Sing, at the very moment that Ahsoka is stood nearby. Out of all the bars on all the planets in the Galaxy, they just happen to be in that bar at that time. It's less of an investigation and more of blind luck.
Mace Windu's final line is just weak. Boba is captured and tells Mace, "I'll never forgive you for what you did to my father!", to which Mace responds, "You'll just have to". Which doesn't make much sense at all, Boba doesn't have to forgive him, Mace could have said something better about, "I know you loved your father, but he did some questionable things, and even if you can never forgive me, perhaps one day you'll understand why it was necessary." Some kind of apology to a grieving child, rather than a pretty abrupt, your dads dead, live with it. It just made Mace just seem cold hearted.
So what do you really think ? : A pretty good finale to the season, some good action, especially on the Speeder Bikes between Aurra and Ahsoka, missed opportunities all over the place. But I enjoyed it, and it did touch on a number of interesting storylines, especially with Boba, and between Aurra and Hondo.
Final Words : So, two seasons down. Season two had some incredible highs, but has faltered badly in the later part of the season losing all the momentum and interest it had gained early on. I'd hoped that they would have learnt what worked and what didn't by the end of season 1, but they still don't seem to be sure. They've ditched a number of the tropes which really annoyed me about season 1, with Battle droids not often being used as incompetent comic relief, and General Grievous not turning up to run away every couple of episodes.
They've tried a few interesting storylines, and tried to be a little more risky with what they're telling about the clone wars. So basically it's a lot better than Season 1, but it's still making more mistakes than I'd have hoped for by this point. Fingers crossed they keep on in this direction, and there are more interesting storylines and successful ideas next season.
Score : 9/10
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