Last night’s episode of The Clone Wars, ‘Pursuit of Peace’, continued the story of the senate’s fight to pass or not pass a bill that would create five million more clones to send to the war.
Padme and her sanity caucus, predictably, would prefer to see diplomacy resume with the Separatists, but they have other plans. Last week, we met Padme’s life-long friend and Separatist, whom she convinced to call for a vote for peace with the Republic. Those hopes seemed tenuous by the last episode, but are completely unrealistic after Dooku reveals that the Confederate Senators calling for peace have been killed in an alleged attack by the Republic.
Still hoping to defeat the bill, Padme and Bail Organa play minority whip and try to rile up votes. The problem is that Dooku has hired a pair of Bounty Hunters to rough up the senators thinking of voting against escalation.
I know this episode sounds like a lot of political maneuvering, and it is, but somehow they inserted an urgency and pacing into that maneuvering and made it pretty great. Add to that a great pair of bounty hunters roughing up senators and you’ve got the makings of a great political episode.
A lot of people have complained about the prevalence of political episodes of this show, but I really feel like not only was this one necessary, but that it was a story so incredibly well told that there really is nothing to complain about.
Part of what I really, really liked about this episode was that we get to see a little bit of Palpatine’s side of the scheming. Throughout the course of this show he’s been seen as sort of the doddering old man from The Phantom Menace with hints of who he was in Attack of the Clones, but now we’re finally getting to see hints of his dark side and it enhances the showdown in Revenge of the Sith beyond words.
I can also see conservatives having problems with some of these more recent episodes. The political episodes have been doing a very good job at tackling philosophical issues about greed and corruption in a political setting (and none better than in this episode) but conservatives tend to confuse the words greed and corruption with words like “capitalism” and “free enterprise”. This episode revolves heavily around the fact that the banks have been deregulated and if the government were to take out the required loans for troops there would be no checks and balances on how that money was taken or fair rates of return or interest. Sure, it’s a little heady for some kids, but if that nugget can be implanted in kids now, that greed is wrong and gouging people simply because it’s legal is wrong too, then this show is actually making a positive impact on the world. If nothing else, it will force some parents to have these conversations with their kids and take a long hard look at what they might believe.
I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been more conservative outrage against it yet.
As far as the sets, I feel like these guys are putting in such great work building bars and cantinas that we need a couple of episodes devoted entirely to those locales. When we see the bounty hunters get their jobs in this episode and we sweep through the bar and see the mostly naked (possibly entirely naked) Twi’lek dancers in the dark light and the phosphorescence of the drinks and other lighting… These sets and their lighting schemes are works of art and it feels like these must be some of their favorite sets to build because they always seem to stand out.
As for the one big action scene in this episode, I have to say it was pretty exhilerating. It was a very fun mix between the speeder chase in Attack of the Clones and the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi with a couple of a very determined Bounty Hunters, wishing nothing more than to cause Padme death. It was pretty awesome.
Overall, I would say this is one of the better episodes in this season so far.
My biggest complaint? Where the eff have Anakin and Obi-wan been? I feel like we’ve been so mostly constrained to Coruscant and politics that I’ve almost forgotten that there’s a war on.
But something tells me the episodes for season 3 in 2011 will bring us back to that. Going back to the original press releases for this season and the trailers we’ve seen, we still have the Nightsisters, Savage Oppress, and the Prophecy of the Chosen One to see this season.
And my guess is that they’re saving the best for the finale. And for that I can’t wait.