This episode brought us a neat closure to the first arc of the new season, terrific action, and some intriguing character development for the Jedi. For me, three major characters stuck out to me from this episode: Echo, Anakin, and Mace Windu. Let’s jump in and you’ll see just what I’m talking about.
Echo has probably had one of the most satisfying character arcs this show has offered. As the Republic seeks to win back Anaxes, Echo and Rex lead a daring mission into the Separatist base so that Echo can feed Separatist leadership a battle plan that the Jedi can easily match and outmaneuver. It felt great seeing Echo, broken and scarred as he was from his internment and experimentation, so eager to use his new abilities to strike back at the Separatist regime who had used him. While there was some forced intrigue about “is he really on our side or not” during the episode, Echo offered a terrific arc about how one can rise above their circumstances and turn their weaknesses and trauma into new resilience and strength. I personally loved seeing him decide to join the Bad Batch at the end of the episode, and his last interaction with Rex offered some good closure to the storyline. I will admit, however, it would have felt a bit more meaningful if we didn’t know Order 66 was soon incoming.
This episode also featured Jedi Master Mace Windu, and he had an interesting scene during the Battle of Anaxes. As he and Obi Wan crashed the main headquarters and confronted a large force of battle droids, Windu went into a short speech about how he had already dismantled thousands of droids so far during the war and that he would give them one chance to surrender and not join their fallen brethren. I’m extremely split on this scene: it was cool to see the Jedi actually attempt diplomacy and offer a peaceful resolution since, you know, that’s supposedly their whole deal as peacekeepers. I can only think of a handful of times that surrender is even presented as an option before lightsabers get to whooshing and force powers get to tingling. However, it felt pretty weird hearing the diplomacy speech from Windu of all people. It’s difficult for me to believe that Windu, a jedi whom we have seen be the most aggressive and trigger-happy of all, would offer an eloquent speech about surrender before just bashing droids. If you’re forgetting, the first thing we saw him do was decapitate Jango Fett like Wal-Mart slashes prices on camping equipment moments before a virus hits. The attempt at diplomacy would’ve felt much more natural coming from Obi Wan, but hearing a character like Mace Windu plea for pacifism just took me out of it.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we also got a scene with Anakin that had more foreshadowing than that dream you had two months ago of a burnt cheeto reassuring you that everything’s fine while all your loved ones turned into zombies covered in toilet paper (mummies??): Anakin tracks down Separatist Admiral Trench and demands to know how to shut down the bomb about to go off in the facility. Trench refuses and invokes the Jedi way of peace and proper treatment of enemies (again, remember when Windu turned Fett into Swiss cheese if Swiss cheese looked like a father without a head?), to which Anakin replies by swiftly cutting off Trench’s arms and bellowing “You think I’m like them?!” Shortly thereafter, when Anakin receives confirmation the bomb has been shut down, Trench attempts an escape, which is obviously the morally wrong thing to do here with his unstable and dismember-happy captor, and Anakin swiftly kills him and meets up with the clones after a nice little “See ya later, Admiral!” for style. While this scene could be a little over-the-top, it definitely demonstrated that Anakin is as dark as we have ever seen him. His treatment of Trench (regardless of how his gross spider-body disgusted us) set the tone for his development this season, and it honestly felt pretty in-character for Anakin, a character who we’ve seen in this show force-choke folks on a whim. It will be interesting to see just how Anakin’s characterization continues: as his darkness grows, will we see more serious aggression, or will we see more of the callous nature he displayed with his farewell to a dead prisoner? Either way, I will be eager to see the show’s attempts at characterizing more Jedi and setting the stage for the impending Order 66. I’m excited to see what new story will unfold next!
