Last night’s episode of Clone Wars, “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back” was a pretty obvious homage to the King Kong films.  In the episode previous, the Zillo Beast, a Godzilla-like monster, was subdued on Malastare and brought to Coruscant at the order of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine for study, since Zillo Beasts are nearly indestructible and lightsabers can’t penetrate their armour.

But no thing in the natural world of that size and power can be contained against its will, and the Zillo Beast breaks its bondage and heads right toward the Senate building in otder to exact its revenge on Palpatine.

It was a fairly simple episode, though it had lots of shades of ethics and morals between the Jedi and Palpatine.  In the last episode, the thought of killing this being, the last of its kind, is morally abhorrent to the Jedi and that conundrum was more fully realized and fleshed out in this episode.

This was a very good, fun, episode.  It looked really cool, it had lots of cool stuff in it, and about halfway through the episode I caught myself asking, “How in the hell does the Zillo Beast know exactly where Palpatine is in all of Coruscant?”  There’s never a good answer in the episode for it, and it still nags at me, but on some level I really shouldn’t care.

This episode is Palpatine’s to shine in all of his oiliness.  He’s so drunk with a lust for power it’s obvious and it makes me wonder why no one saw it before and Anakin tries his hardest to stay out of it (since Padme is of course trying to convince the Chancellor to not kill the beast for study and employs Anakin’s aid in the lobbying effort.)  But it’s hard for Anakin because he buys into so much of what Palpatine is saying.  If they kill the creature, they could save countless lives and end the war sooner.  But is that ethical or moral?

Aside from those minor complaints, I found this to be a very enjoyable episode.  The action was cool, Artoo and Threepio got a few really good shots worth of hilarious interaction, Obi-Wan and Mace Windu got to illustrate some really cool force powers, and Yoda got to once more pull out his lightsaber (with the ever-delicious Aayla Secura.)

Perhaps my biggest complaint about this episode is the marketing for the season finale with Boba Fett.  Releasing that trailer for the finale this early has almost caused the mute button to be pushed on all of the episodes that remain between now and then.  I can’t wait for the finale that it’s almost taken a little bit away from these last few in between.

But we don’t have much longer to wait, and if last season was any indication, they always save the best for last.

I’ll leave you with a final parting question, though: Where the eff is Cad Bane?

To catch up on Season 1, you can order The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One at Amazon by clicking the link.

For other Clone Wars news and reviews of previous episodes, click this link.