Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2: Story 11: Uprooted
What is it ? : The Jedi Youngling Linh is gardening at the Tenoo Temple, with Kai and Nubs, she mentions her love of gardening, and Kai tells her that Nubs loves it too. Nubs shows them a picture of a rare barelia flower, and Linh tells him that one exists on Tenoo.
Knowing that the rare flower is due to blossom that very night, they go into the forest to see this sight, only to discover that the flower has been removed and only a patch of dirt exists where it once was.
They follow a trail of droid footprints, discovering a greenhouse in the forest with many rare plants and flowers in it. The greenhouse is owned by an older woman, Prue Canti, and she tells them she keeps the flowers here safe from the wilds outside. Linh notices the flower is wilting, and explains that it cannot survive indoors, but Prue refuses to release the plant so sets her droids on the Young Jedi.
Despite their best efforts, the Droids capture Kai and Nubs, but Linh sprints outside with one of Prue's plants, Prue demands it back but seems afraid of leaving her greenhouse. Linh shows her the datapad with information that the barelia flower needs the light of the Tenoo moons to flower, and Prue realises her mistake. They take the flower back to where it belongs, and as the moons come out the plant flowers and pops out a seed for a second plant. Prue says the sight is beautiful, and Linh tells her the gardens at the Jedi Temple are beautiful, but there is also beauty to be seen in the wild.
High Points : I really liked the character of Prue, even thought she's supposed to be in the wrong, and does set her droids on some kids. She is just someone who is caring for plants in her greenhouse, and some kids come barging in and want to take the plants away.
The episode goes quickly, there's a little action, but mainly this episode is about convincing someone they've done wrong, so makes a pleasant difference to some of the more action based recent episodes.
Low Points : We don't get to the bottom of Prue's reluctance to leave her Greenhouse, although obviously she states that it's safe inside, and given some of the dangerous wildlife we've seen on Tenoo she could very well be right. But it feels as if there should be some additional trauma or backstory as to why this older woman, cut off from the world is initially so afraid of leaving her greenhouse.
Why is this a Linh episode, it feels with the interest in plants, that this should be a Nub's episode, with Lys taking the secondary role, instead of Nubs taking that role to Linh? I know one of the strongest elements of this show is extending it's cast beyond the main characters, but I still feel that the main characters should be in every episode, but Lys is totally absent this time.
So what do you really think ? : A fairly interesting episode, and it's done well, but looking for yet another animal or plant in the wilderness of Tenoo feels like we've seen it so many times already.
The absence of Lys also really bothers me, especially as mentioned above the role needed is already contained within the 3 main characters, but for some reason they're set aside for a character which has been seen only a couple of times before in a very minor role.
Final Words : And so we pass the halfway mark of this batch of Young Jedi episodes, and it does feel as if they're unsure of what the series should be in a way they never suffered in the first season.
Season One, they established quickly the competitive nature of the relationship between Taborr and Kai, and we saw how the Young Jedi ended up being a good influence on the young pirate. And while that wasn't the focus of every season 1 epsiode, and has continued into season 2, there seems to be no linking storyline this time. The Ganguls have featured a few times, so perhaps the storyline will emerge about them being defeated rather than converted like Taborr has been, but there is no sign of any movement towards that so far. But perhaps it's just slow getting going, and something interesting will emerge thoughout the rest of this batch, and through the second half of the season as it's released.
Score : 7.5/10
Comments made about this Article!
There are currently no comments for this article, be the first to post in the form below
