After a long winter break, Star Wars: The Clone Wars has returned with “Escape from Kadavo.”  When we last saw the Jedi heroes, they were enslaved, placed in bondage, with no hope for escape by an evil queen who happens to be the antithesis of the freedom loving Padme.  It was a rather bleak place to leave our heroes for a little over a month, but thankfully the time went fast and now Star Wars: The Clone Wars is back. Upon our return, we do not find their situation to have improved and it in fact, it is as dire as ever. Obi-Wan is in a labor camp, Anakin is being groomed to become the Queen’s concubine, and Ahsoka is still hanging in a cage hundreds of feet above the ground. While Anakin is kept by another queen in his private life, this episode proves that the Jedi’s world can be turned inside out. The loving queen is not good here, but evil and manipulative. The people do not see the Jedi as salvation but damnation. It is still too soon to say how this episode arc will be viewed when all is said and done but this could be one of the better episodes Lucasfilm has ever produced on a moment by moment basis. I have yet to watch all three in a sitting, but I think it is going make one of the better features in the end.

The episode kicks off with Obi-Wan in the mines, shoveling space coal into mine carts. A few friends have pointed out they are pretty sure they hear some sound effects from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom here, I have yet to do a side by side analysis of the audio, but it would not surprise me at all. The environment captured the feel of a mine rather convincingly. It actually felt hot in there, which is a worthy mention because the environments are sometimes the hardest things to perceive as real in CGI animation. It feels hellish and horrible and reminds us that slavery in Star Wars is not always cleaning the racks in a junk shop. As I watched the story unfold, it became clear that if there ever was a place to break a Jedi, this just might be the place.

The vindictive Zygerian slaver uses his electro-whip to torture the peaceful Togruta captives. In frame we see the slaves pushing heavy mine carts and other physically taxing labor at the behest of their captors. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Captain Rex shovel space coal and Obi-Wan comments how everything here is meant to shatter the will of the people inside. For speaking and not working, an electro whip slashes Obi-Wan and a slaver, pointing his finger at Kenobi admonishes him, telling him speech is forbidden for slaves. We want Obi-Wan to box his ears for this cruelty, but we see that Obi-Wan has a collar around his neck and acting out only endangers those around him. We see Obi-Wan apologize and start working swifter than before. The slavers begin whipping the Togruta next to Kenobi for his offence. They shock Obi-Wan’s neck with a long electric pole staff. Kenobi looks into the slavers eyes and the slaver suggest perhaps this slave next to Kenobi will perish for Kenobi’s crimes. It is probably the first time we see Kenobi truly helpless in the series. It is a chess game and an exchange will have to take place to achieve victory. But that exchange means losing innocent lives and the Jedi code forbids Obi-Wan from acting until a better path is placed before him.

The range of facial features has improved drastically in this episode. In fact, there was real acting going on, thanks to some improvements in the character model’s faces. I was really struck by it on my first viewing. I was not sure if it was because I had never seen Kenobi make these expressions but then I remembered they upgraded the character models and it appears this is when they finally started utilizing the full potential of those upgrades. A few things with Dooku later on keyed me in on their ability to actually increase the expressive ability of the character models in way we have not seen before. The stone faced Count Dooku has more subtleties in his performance than ever before. This arc saw the addition of flowing hair when riding speeder bikes and now we see much better facial techniques by the animators thanks to the improved models. It always amazes me how far this series has come since the feature film.

Kenobi actually bows before the slaver, begging for forgiveness while the fanged slavers laugh. They know they have found his psychological weakness and they are there to exploit it.  The Jedi attempts to console the whipped Togruta, but the Togruta flings his hand away, repulsed by the notion of the slightest touch. This man hates working next to a Jedi. The slave tells Kenobi that Jedi only make things worse. It makes sense as Force users have pretty much disrupted his entire life by this point. It convincingly sends the message home that this place really is the opposite situation Rex and Kenobi find themselves in the inner rim. They are literally out of their element here. The helpless usually want a Jedi to come and here they want the Jedi to stay as far away as possible.

We then cut to a beautiful shot of space lanes going to and from Kadavo.  We see the familiar solar sailor of Count Dooku coming into proximity of the planet.  Count Dooku sits in his ship, cross legged (a nice touch) and arrogant, speaking to his master, Darth Sidious. Sidious informs Dooku that Sith Empires have long been built upon the backs of slaves. This confirms that there have been many Sith Empires in the past. Sidious sees it as tradition but in their new Empire, they will require millions of slaves. At first this might seem like some fun connection to Star Wars: The Old Republic, which it is. But it is more than just that. This confirms that Count Dooku knew they were moving towards imperialism and on purpose. In context of this series and its continuity with the films, we have only known that Count Dooku is a political idealist who does not believe in the Republic any longer. That could have been true before he fell from grace and is not exactly a call for imperialism. He may plan to overthrow Sidious with his next apprentice, and still bring in his idealistic vision to fruition. However, we know he knows that Sidious wants an empire now. I found that to be of interest. This whole time he could have thought he was doing the wrong things for the right reasons. So now we know he knows but we also know he wants to kill Sidious, another Sith tradition. This tradition is not really that different from Palpatine does to the galaxy after Revenge of the Sith. However, these hands are probably needed to build Death Stars and the like.  The master informs the apprentice that if the queen does not fall in line with their goals, he is to end her rule. Even Count Dooku looks a little shocked at the brutality of the order.

We finally get back to Anakin. He is walking arm and arm with the queen having a nice time compared to his compatriots. She tells him if he agrees to swear loyalty to her, she will free his friends. He replies it is not an easy decision. She then replies she thought the Jedi were selfless, always putting the needs of others before their own. These slavers clearly know how to read a Jedi and his motivations. With that we almost think Anakin is doomed. However, just seconds later we see that they are being shadowed by the real hero of The Star Wars Saga, Artoo Deetoo. The queen’s servant interrupts their walk to let her know that Count Dooku is on his way to meet with her. Anakin backhandedly puts her in her place by commenting that even she has a master. The queen says he will not be attending the meeting and she asks him to promise not to run away. He grabs his lightsaber, put it to her face and says he doesn’t run away from anything. I thought this was a little extreme. Anakin is not like Marty McFly who hates to be called chicken. We can see how that could strike a nerve with him in the context of his mother being left behind and his friends in bondage, but it did not ring true of the character’s overall spirit to me. Her men retain Anakin and she takes his saber and gives a flippant gesture before walking away. It is important to remember that she has let him have his saber as an expression of domination. For those that wondered why Artoo is still running around, he expelled the lightsabers already and is presumed harmless by that point.

As the guards rough up Anakin a little, Artoo comes to the rescue, driving his barrel body into the tail end of a slaver to attract his attention, which works. As the guards get angry at the droid, Anakin jumps over the side of the building. In Anakin’s second close brush with becoming Marty McFly, when the guard goes to look over the side, he springs up, and punches him out. Only he wasn’t using a flying DeLorean’s door to knock him out. Anakin then throws the guard off the side of the building and we see him falling. It was pretty violent. Unfortunately, they show the guard land on some boxes and magically live. But I’m guessing this was softened because more violent actions were needed later in the story. Anakin thanks Artoo for his nice work and asks if he found Ahsoka. He then takes off flying, so Anakin takes that as a yes and the duo go to rescue her.

The Count meets with the queen. She quips about his rude visit without an invitation.  Dooku tells her he was invited, by her advisor. Dooku tells the queen her advisor has been concerned by how attached she has become to Skywalker. She says he is simply a symbol of her power and she abruptly stops herself and says “our” power to enslave even a Jedi. It is clear that Anakin had it right, she is not the real ruler of this Kadavo, the Sith are. Dooku reminds her he was once a Jedi and Anakin is clearly fooling her.  Her response is that Dooku has little in common with Anakin, obviously commenting on his sex appeal. I personally thought this was a missed opportunity. Count Dooku is a dapper gentleman. The queen does not seem very young. I think a flirtation between the two would have been interesting and certainly did not have to be out of the question. She is attracted to power and Dooku is probably the most powerful man she had ever met.  

I loved the montage of the queen explaining how she was breaking Kenobi to Dooku. This was stellar editing. Her conversation is intercut with Kenboi eating food from a bowl on the ground and a slaver kicking it over. Kenobi wants to strike back but his fist lowers and we see they are breaking him. They have identified his weakness. The queen explains to the count that “defiance will become compliance.” Kenobi stops helping people and sits alone as the queen’s plan unfolds successfully. He is arguably more isolated than ever before. Dooku says it is a most ambitious plan to have enslaved Jedi, but it is not his order’s goal, but rather their extermination. In fact, Dooku has come to supervise the Jedi’s execution, despite the queen’s reluctance.

Ahsoka hangs in her bird cage, outside, after all this time. She still has on her dress she was presented in. Visually, Ahsoka sleeping while imprisoned kind of reminded me of Princess Leia’s meeting with Luke, but that may be a stretch. Anakin and Artoo jump to the ledge to free her. Anakin lifts her with the Force off her cages rack and places her on the ledge beside him. The music that plays here is rather nice and a good leitmotif for using the Force that is not Yoda’s masterful theme or a William’s original piece. Anakin checks on Ahsoka and she is okay. Small little moments like this let us know they care for each other in familial ways.

The episode really picks up as we cut back to queen and the count who are arguing about killing Skywalker. We learn that her advisor does not believe she is fit to rule and has notified Dooku. She angrily brandishes her whip and Count Dooku begins to choke her and lifts her off the ground until Anakin barges in and declares his actions to be enough. She lets out a little whelp, mutters Skywalker’s name and then begins to succumb to her injuries. At this point we see how dark things have become. Dooku tells Anakin if he takes one more step, he will end her life and Anakin says he cares nothing for this slaver scum. Some of the violence against the queen in this episode did not really sit well with me. She is really horrible and I can see her treatment as justified but I hope Lucasfilm made their choices somewhat begrudgingly.

Anakin attempts to fight Dooku with the queen’s whip and fails. We then have to suffer through another sequence of Anakin being shocked by Dooku. I never want to see this happen again. Anakin needs to master catching this stuff like Yoda or it won’t make any sense why Dooku doesn’t just shock him in Revenge of the Sith. In fact, why hasn’t Yoda taught Anakin how to capture lightning? He is supposed to bring balance and that presumably means fighting the Sith. Every time we see Dooku this happens to Anakin. It is rather obvious this is a way out of rather complicated sword choreography which probably cost a lot of money for Filoni and company to produce. Seeing this is probably the boring thing the show can do at this point and I hope it stops doing it now. Some troops hear the noise and run into to see the queen dead. Dooku says she was murdered by the Jedi. Anakin signals Ahsoka who has stolen a ship for them.

Dooku orders the troops to take their vengeance on the man they believe to have killed their monarch. Anakin grabs the queen and jumps out the glass window, shattering it. He clearly meant what he said to Dooku but he also cannot help but try to be compassionate and save her life from the Sith, at least that’s what we assume as first, he mostly wants to know where Obi-Wan is being held. In the cargo hold the queen admits she is a slave just as he is and then she dies after giving Skywalker the information he needs. The improved facial animation had me looking at Anakin’s face here and he just closes his eyes. In the Star Wars films, they usually take their eye line down when this happens, but maybe she didn’t deserve that. I suppose there are some downsides to having such improved character models. The facial expression Anakin is rather ridiculous.

Rex and Kenobi are pulled into the slaver’s office because Count Dooku wants to speak with them holographically.  Dooku says “Obi-Wan Kenobi, in chains once again,” which is referencing the events that started in Attack of the Clones. The slaver is to kill Kenobi and Dooku just wanted to say goodbye. However, Skywalker has landed at the platform to save the day. They shoot his ship apart as he exits. The explosion of the vessel was unlike anything we have seen, in terms of CGI pyrotechnics. The explosion was great. It actually made me hope they “special edition” some of the older episodes one day with the current assets they have created for this season. We then cut back to Dooku who tells Kenobi to tell Skywalker if he does not surrender, the slaves will be terminated in his name. Once again, they are using the Jedi’s moral angle against them.

There was brief little bit of acting the animators pulled off really well. Anakin is cutting through the blast door and it is taking some time. Kenobi pops up on the monitor and says their captives are not happy. Anakin replies you cannot make everybody happy, while continuing to work on the door. That little moment felt like the acting from Revenge of the Sith and their rapport they had together. The subtleties are not to be under looked. They have pulled this off in the series before, but they really did it effortlessly here and it helps make what could be a boring scene, into an effective bit of character work.

We think Dooku has won the fight. The Sith Lord seems to have had an ace up his sleeve. Kenobi tells Anakin this is a fight they cannot win alone. Anakin asks who says he was alone? We then see Republic ships jump from out of hyperspace above Kadavo. Plo-Koon and the Wolf-Pack go in full speed, shooting down turrets and blasting the hell out of the planet. Meanwhile Kenobi and Rex remove their slave collars (which is a little problematic because I will let this slip thanks to the awesome sequence that follows) and begin busting heads and doing really rad Jedi flips. The pacing is breakneck and the action is stellar. Things move as fast as the sail barge sequence in Return of the Jedi which is a pretty amazing feat for an animated show. One guard shoots at Kenobi and he sways left, then another blast comes and he sways right, and then one goes for the bulleye and hits his shackles. He smiles, another great moment worthy of the filmed saga, if not Indiana Jones whom Kenobi channeled often in this arc. I also like Ahsoka’s near Jaws reference of “we’ll need a bigger ship.”

Anakin clearly murders a guard with his lightsaber and he does so with an un-Jedi like brutality. He did not need to do it but he did. He clearly has a side that is that of a killer. Ahsoka and Anakin meet eyes. She shakes her head. She knows it was wrong. This type of action has happened a lot recently. But this was the first time we see Ahsoka disapprove. Her teaching is grounded enough to know better.  She was not confused by it at all. I always had the sense that she was pondering if the actions her master took were right or justified and in attempting to keep herself in check she simply dismissed those “aggressive negotiations.” However, this was the student knowing her master is not right and that he is flawed. The escalation of this is obviously going to be dramatic. The tension is beginning to rise. She did not speak out against him, but her body language was that of protest, disappointment and disapproval. Soon Anakin is going to slip up and it will come to a head.

I loved Plo’s Jedi Starfighter maneuver. It was a bizarre take on the speederbike sequence from Return of the Jedi but it didn’t feel derivative or cheap. He slams on the breaks, the ship hovers out of control and he blasts the ships that were on his tail. Only moments later a turret shoots at a Republic landing ship, breaking the glass and hitting the pilot dead on in the face, killing him instantly. The scenes in the sky were really good here. They have got really good at air combat and dog fighting sequences and I look forward to more of it in the future.

As Kenobi and Rex fight the slavers, the headmaster flips a switch and the holding facilities’ wall is electrified. The floor then begins to slide away and the slaves are going to fall to their deaths. The slaver punches the terminal so the Jedi cannot turn it off. But Plo cannot help them until the turrets are destroyed. Anakin will take them out as Kenobi arrests the slaver. Ahsoka tells Anakin she is going to help “my people” which reminds us of the significance of this mission to her and is more of a hold over from the comic and really didn’t play out as well in the earlier episode as it could have. Anakin takes control of a turret and blasts the other turrets, freeing Plo and the Pack to destroy the station. But Ahsoka realizes they cannot save the slaves unless Admiral Coburn’s ship can fly under them. I would like to take a moment to say that Admiral Coburn’s face is the coolest looking face they have made for an Admiral yet. I liked him from the "Citadel" arc and seeing him again is awesome.

We see this episode push Kenobi to his limits. Kenobi is seriously considering murdering the slave master. He probably was not going to do it but it was an option on the table for Kenobi. Thankfully Rex pops in as the slaver says he cannot kill him because he is a Jedi. Rex spears him through the heart saying he is not a Jedi. Remember, the clones are capable of all the good and evil in the world just like anyone else. Kenobi probably would have berated him had he not been relieved of doing it himself.  I liked the sequence and thought it justified why Rex was brought along. Rex is rad but he had very little to do for most of the episode. The spear goes through the slaver and his hovering chair which malfunctions and puts his face right into the view screen. It was one of the coolest deaths in Star Wars ever and I had a good laugh upon seeing it.

Coburn’s ship flies under the station, taking out weather device and communications equipment, in a visually stunning shot. Troopers with jetpacks shoot cables up for the slaves to climb down. One woman falls but Ahsoka jumps down and catches her. More slaves fall and the jetpack troopers catch them. It was cool because I didn’t think those people could climb those ropes and they didn’t take the easy way out. They made it exciting.  This is the kind of sequence you imagine when playing with a model of a spaceship and here they made it happen. The slaves are rescued and Plo and the Wolf-Pack blast the station in oblivion, hopefully ending slavery on the planet for now.

The episode ends with Anakin a worse person. Obi-Wan really tested, Rex a killer like the clones will become, and Ahsoka a hero. The Padawan brought the people of Kiros to the Republic. I have to admit that this arc did not excite me like others do but this last episode was so well done and so full of great action that it came out really great. For the first time, you really felt the hero’s fatigue. It really seemed like they were tested and they barely made it out of the ordeal alive, both physically and spiritually. Ahsoka is ready to stop mirroring her master now and I think a lot of great friction is coming because of that. She has Anakin’s flaws but she doesn’t have his secrets. She doesn’t have a secret romance and we aren’t sure what choices she will make with Lux in the future. This episode is a solid 8.5 and I feel like I’m short changing it. This was an episode I was not looking forward to but it was fantastic, proving to me why it is my favorite show on television.