Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 4 Episode 14: A Friend in Need
What is it ? : A meeting between the Separatists and the Republic has been organised on Mandalore, and as the meeting is beginning, Lux Bonteri (last seen in Heroes on Both Sides) comes in and accuses Count Dooku of murdering his mother. He is arrested by the Separatists as a citizen of the CIS and as Count Dooku sentences him to death via hologram, Ahsoka Tano rescues him. Fleeing Mandalore in a starship, he stuns her and reveals he has a meeting arranged with allies who will help him kill Count Dooku.
Arriving on the winter world of Carlac, Bonteri meets with his allies, the Mandalorian Death Watch, and reveals he has a holotrace device which tracked Dooku's signal, and now the Death Watch can ambush and kill him. While Ahsoka masquerades as Bonteri's betrothed, they see the nature of the Death Watch as cruel murderers, and when they begin massacring a innocent village for defying them and wanting their womenfolk back, Ahsoka fights back, but is lassoed by numerous Mandalorians and captured.
R2-D2 has meanwhile been repairing the various droids that the Mandalorians use for combat practice, and he leads them into battle, and Ahsoka goes into 1 on 1 combat with the leader of the Death Watch, Pre Vizsla. Lux, R2 and Ahsoka barely escape, and once back in space, Lux steals the escape shuttle from their starship and heads off to seek revenge once more.
High Points : A nice solid story which is told complete within one episode, after so many multipart stories lately, this feels tight and a joy to watch.
I was especially impressed with Carlac which appears to be a winter world (or a temperate world where it is winter?), which differs from the various ice worlds we've seen, because there are plants, which appear to be a subtle pink colour, like cherry blossom. The colour is then muted, and almost totally invisible at night, when covered with frost. It looks particularly lovely, and would make a pleasant place to spend a winter holiday.
The other point I must make about this episode, is Ahsokas amazing leap as she gets her lightsabers back off R2, she decapitates 4 Mandalorians in one move, swinging her lightsabers in an arc, and cutting the heads off 2 with each saber, damn impressive.
Finally, the speeder chase to the heroes starship at the end is particularly well done, with Lux piloting the speeder and Ahsoka (and R2) defending it from the Mandalorians following on their jetpacks. It's well paced and action packed, with the fight feeling quite dangerous but totally allowing the heroes to be heroic with desperate moves and action.
Low Points : There's not a lot to fault in this episode, and the only one I can really see is the use of the Holotrace to track Dooku's location. It never occured to me that Dooku hid somewhere, he seems to be constantly moving from place to place during the series, aboard command ships in one episode and on Naboo the next. And from what we've seen, the idea that finding out where he is now would allow you to track him down seems a little far fetched.
So what do you really think ? : I really enjoyed this episode, the Mandalorians Death Watch suffered a little from being bad guys for bad guys sake, killing the villagers "because they are weak", but overall the episode was a good one.
I was a little worried that the episode was about to go into another multipart story when I could see there were only a couple of minutes remaining and the end didn't seem to be in sight, however they wrapped it all up quickly, and we're onto a new story next time. I enjoy the multipart stories, but somehow feel robbed of variety when it's just multiparter after multiparter.
Final Words : I don't think I've mentioned before that I have a problem with the Death Watch leaders name, Pre Vizsla, I keep thinking that it means we're waiting for the Vizsla, and one day there will be a Post Vizsla.
Score : 8.5/10
Comments made about this Article!
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17/Feb/2018 05:46:55
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Posted by Alex Panzerkit
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Ahsoka's winter outfit was really cute
I found Lux rather annoying, I didn't recall him being that way when introduced
If I am ever a Jedi, I will carry so many spare lightsabres on me!
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17/Feb/2018 15:57:52
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Posted by Freddy
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When reading up on Lux Bonteri, I hadn't realised that it was Onderon that his mother was Senator for. I've always liked Onderon since I first read about it in the Knight of the Old Republic Graphic Novel, and based a couple of adventures there, introducing my Beast Rider Stormtroopers for use in D/6. And most recently I played in a original trilogy era campaign which we were based on Onderon.
So I'm looking forward to the Saw Gerrera Episodes, which I understand Lux Bonteri is heavily involved in.
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20/Feb/2018 21:29:29
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Posted by Freddy
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Totally forgot to mention in my review, there are a number of scenes that you can see the Mandalorian helmets aren't sealed to the suit, and you can see their flesh at the neckline.
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