Tonight’s episode of Clone Wars, the last one of 2008, advanced the stakes of the conflict in a way that I’m quite pleased to see.

Dissatisfied with Grievous’ recent failures against the Jedi (losing The Malevolence, etc.) Count Dooku decides to spring a trap for Grievous so he can prove his worth. Since Nute Gunray’s escape last episode, the Jedi have been tracking him and it’s been left to master Kit Fisto and his former padawan Nahdar Vebb to track him. Following the signal of a tracking device, they are led into the very den of General Grievous who isn’t home, but is on his way back.

When he gets to his lair he realizes something is amiss when he’s not greeted by his bodyguards.

Basically, the rest of the episode is an elaborate game of cat and mouse with each side gaining the upper-hand at one point or another until they find themselves in a stalemate. Regrettably, Nahdar Vebb is killed holding Grievous off while Fisto makes his escape (or tries to).

This episode played more like an old-school haunted house thriller for kids (if you can imagine that) and it worked fairly well. In fact, I would have liked to see this episode broken up into two longer parts even.

But there are a few things of outstanding greatness I’d like to point out about this episode.

First, the feeling and the architecture of Grievious’ lair. It felt very much, at times, like something out of H.R. Giger’s mind. The statues of the warriors seemed as out of place as the spaceman in the first Alien picture and it helped set the creepy tone of the episode in an extremely effective way.

Second, Mon Calamari Jedi with blue lightsabers in low light situations look pretty bad ass. So bad ass that I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that we’ll see more of them in action.

Third, this is the General Grievous I wish we’d have seen more of in the movies. When he had his legs cut off by Fisto and the clones were trying to cable him to the ground, but he was holding both the Clones and the Jedi off and hopping around on the ceiling and the floor using only his arms. It was pretty great. As good as that was, though, the final showdown between Fisto and Grievous at the end of the episode was spectacular.

So much so, in fact, that I see myself watching this episode one more time tonight when it reruns and probably again as soon as it turns up on www.starwars.com. Or maybe I’ll watch the Saturday morning rerun.

In any case, this episode is by far and away the most bad ass. I still think Duel of the Droids is the best episode for story, but this is the best episode for kick-ass Jedi action and all around tone.

I say it every week, but they always seem to outdo themselves.

So, until next year: May The Force Be With You.