We reach the final few episodes of season 2, aside from a few stragglers and I feel I’m making progress through this series at a surprisingly good clip. Jumping right from a trio of episodes detailing the revamped Mandalorians, we take a little side hop to focus another of Mandalorian heritage. Although at this point in the canon, who even knows if Jango Fett even was a Mandalorian or not. And Boba’s status is even more ambiguous. Doesn’t seem like there’s any eventually becoming Mandalore like he did in the old canon.
Season 2, Episode 20: Death Trap
Before I get into this episode proper, I feel like I’m overdue in highlighting voice actor Dee Bradley Baker in this series; the voice actor who have been providing the voice for every Clone Trooper throughout this entire series. Voice acting is a grossly under-appreciated talent, and Baker’s performance throughout the Clone Wars is an example of how much range and creativity these guys have.
He’s been playing a countless number of characters throughout the series, all of which essentially have the exact same voice. It’s impressive how he manages to portray so many different tones and personalities through the clones in how individual they are. Typified by him playing a child clone in this episode.
In Death Trap, a group of child clones are visiting a Republic cruiser as part of their training in getting some first hand experience of what life is like in deep space. I’d say this seems like a weird thing for them to do during war time with some kids, but then again, these aren’t normal kids are they.
Having no real memory of this episode, even I looked at the clone “Lucky” and thought, that’s obviously Boba Fett, which soon turned out to be true. Fett has managed to infiltrate the group of young clones in his quest to assassinate Mace Windu in revenge for killing his father Jango during the opening battle of the Clone Wars.
Aboard the cruiser are both Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker, and when called upon we see that Anakin is much better with kids than Windu is. Something that comes as kind of a surprise to me. The Anakin bit, not the Mace bit. From what I’ve gathered about Mace Windu during the time I’ve been watching Clone Wars is that he is not a people person.
The Jedi wear many hats in their roles are galactic peacekeepers, I get the impression that Mace is a little more limited in his abilities than some Jedi may be, being as standoffish and imposing as he is in most situations. Along with the two Jedi, the cruiser is led by the non-clone Admiral Kilian, whose presence seems a little odd to me.
The character is introduced purely for this three episode arc, and ultimately doesn’t seem like he needed to be a presence that couldn’t be filled by a clone. Given the events of what happens to him in later episodes, maybe they wanted a non clone to add a little more tension to events, which I find pretty disrespectful personally.
Anyway, this episode shows Boba to be highly capable, an expert in heavy weapons and adept at subterfuge and sabotage. Several times throughout the episode, it’s said to the young clones that the only difference between them and the adults is experience. Well, it seems like Boba has plenty of experience, from being personally trained by his father, to whatever he’s been doing in the time since the war started.
Plus, given the accelerated ageing of the other clones, he’s probably about the same age as some of the adult clones serving aboard the cruiser anyway. Boba’s plans to kill Windu are foiled several times, mostly due to bad luck, and in the end he is coaxed into destroying the entire by his contact on his comm.
Which he does. It’s pretty impressive that he’s able to bring down a military ship all on his own, but then again he has the perfect cover and is able to hide in plain sight while gaining the trust of any clone that he meets. Lying to them and stunning them when they turn their back. Although he stops short of killing them.
That’s because, as we see several times throughout this episode, Boba is still a kid and not quite the ruthless killer that he may or may not become in the future yet. He has some reservations about killing anyone aside from his target, who he does indeed feel a seething rage for. It probably doesn’t help that all of the clones he’s dealing with share the face of his dead father.
In end Boba escapes aboard an escape pod with several other clone kids and is picked up by Slave I, aboard which is Aurra Sing and Bossk. Sing is one of those characters that got all mixed up and changed quite a bit during the transition between the old Legends canon and the post-Disney Canon.
Originally, she was a human-hybrid Padawan, given a pretty unstable one, who eventually got kidnapped and sold into servitude with the Hutts, then trained into a lethal, force sensitive assassin by them. All of that has gone out of the window in this continuity though. Now she’s just a ruthless Palliduvan Bounty Hunter based on the character that made a cameo appearance during the podrace scene of The Phantom Menace.
Season 2, Episode 21: R2 Come Home
This episode expands upon the relationship between Aurra Sing and Boba Fett. Fett, for the skills he possesses, is ultimately still a kid and has now found himself part of Sing’s crew. She’s done well out of it though as she seems to have taken possession of Slave I in the deal. The pair have an odd relationship, she seems to be playing the part of a very strict but doting parent figure to him. While it’s obvious that she’s a very dangerous and ruthless individual, she seems very invested in Boba’s crusade to kill Windu.
A mission that continues in this episode. As Mace and Anakin fly down to the planet surface on which the destroyed cruiser has crash landed, they once again find themselves on the wrong end of a deadly trap set by the Bounty Hunters. This time it’s Anakin who seems to take the brunt of the blast, saved by Windu who realises the identity of his would-be assassin just in the nick of time to pull Anakin away from the worst of it.
The pair are still crushed under a ton of debris in the destroyed command bridge though and call upon R2-D2 for help. While R2 is a focus of this episode, I’m not going to go into him all too much, seeing as I’ve already done so before and this entry is already going to be a million years long.
All I’ll say is that the little droid is absurdly brace and tenacious, as we’ve come to know him over the decades. As he goes to call for help, the Bounty Hunter climb the destroyed ship to make sure the job is finished. During which time, R2 Home Alones the heck out of them, bashing debris around and throwing explosives at them and to prevent their progress.
Even the score sounds like it’s making an effort to sound like the music from Home Alone. Maybe that’s what the title is a reference too actually.
Either way, the hunters get fed up of having things thrown at them and give up, instead deciding to just blast the bridge using Slave I. R2, who has jumped into a fighter, manages to lead them on a merry chase, Fett and Sing believing the fighter to be piloted by Windu. R2’s a good pilot, and manages to escape all the way to Coruscant himself and barge into the Jedi Temple, finding Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano for help.
There’s some interesting stuff in this episode for my overly analytical brain. I find it kind of strange how familiar Anakin and Mace are with one another. Despite Windu being in a very senior position in the order, the pair seem to talk to one another in a way I’ve never really seen Anakin speak to any other elder Jedi. They seem to be on a first name basis.
We also get a further exploration of the dynamic between Boba and Aurra Sing, with the latter showing a vested interest in helping Fett achieve his goal. They also kidnapped the bridge crew when they planted the bomb that almost killed the Jedi, but that’s more of a factor in the next episode.
Season 2, Episode 22: Lethal Trackdown
In this final episode, we follow come to the end of this little revenge bender arc by seeing what seems to be the conclusion of the working relationship between Boba Fett and Aurra Sing. As they make use of the three Republic officers, turning them into bait to try and draw Mace Windu into a trap where they can end him once and for all.
However, the stoic Jedi doesn’t give them the satisfaction of even showing up. As it’s Plo Koon and his not-Padawan Ahsoka Tano who cockblock the bounty hunters and deal with them in much more efficient fashion than either Mace or Anakin could in two episodes.
The juicy parts of this episode come in two parts. The first is seeing a little more of Aurra Sing and how she operates as a Bounty Hunter, falling into the utterly ruthless and doesn’t let anyone stand in her way category, as seen when she murders one of her former compatriots upon overhearing him trying to undercut her. Doing this by going behind her back and contacting a Nautolan on Coruscant. She gives him as little warning as the call of his name before gunning him down.
The second part comes from seeing Plo and Ahsoka descent into the Coruscant underworld, literally descending into the deeper parts of the city and combing the seedy bars of the darker parts of the city. Did I already mention I really want a gritty noir story in this exact setting within the star wars universe, I’m not sure I’ve mentioned that.
It’s a great visual setting and the parts of this series I’ve enjoying the most this season. I’d also like to reiterate a point I’ve made before; why isn’t Ahsoka Plo’s Padawan? They clearly get on incredibly well, and he seems to teach her how to be a better Jedi in a few hours. Where as Anakin doesn’t seem capable of in however log they’ve been together at this point.
But yeah, I’m becoming like a broken record at this point: Anakin = Good at most things, being a “Jedi” not amongst them.
In said bar, Ahsoka listens through the force and picks out the Nautolan contact who saw Aura Sing gun down his guy through the comm. While she’s not subtle enough to get away without getting caught, she still picks up the location of the murder and the pair make their way to Florrum. Home of our favourite Weequay pirate captain: Hondo Ohnaka.
The fact that he and Sing have a history is cool and truth be told, this episode made me like her a whole lot. She’s incredibly good at what she does and seem to enjoy doing it. She seems much more dangerous than a lot of the separatist leaders we’ve seen bumbling their way through the war so far. There’s just something about deadly, pale skinned women… I don’t know what to say…
In the end, whatever trap she and Boba had planned seemed to fall apart pretty quickly, and when Boba is captured by the Jedi she makes the decision to leave him behind and make a break for it on her own. Something which Boba takes very pretty personally, but honestly, it fits perfectly with who she is. While she might have taken a liking to the kid, she was never going to be able to rescue him from two Jedi.
Aurra tries to lead Ashsoka away from the hostages, who Bossk it about to kill. But in the end Ahsoka puts a stop to it and manages to save the hostages and stop Aurra, who is trying to escape in Slave I, which crashes and seemingly kills her in her escape attempt.
The episode ends with an arrested Boba and Bossk arriving on Coruscant in chains. Boba finally comes face to face with Windu. Announcing that while he knows he’s done wrong, he can’t forgive Mace for what he did. To which Mace replies that he’s simply have to. Yeah, real smooth Sam.
Verdict:
I enjoyed these episodes a lot, mostly for the bounty hunter side of the story. It’s something we don’t see that much in the grand scheme of the clone wars series, and I relish it every time it comes up. The big question I have from this episode is what the new canon’s plan for Boba Fett is exactly. These episodes literally exploded Jango Fett’s Mandalorian helmet and then Slave I to boot, both of which are iconic symbols that we see Boba Fett using again in the original movie trilogy.
It makes me wonder where this character is going now compared to what happened to him in the old canon. While I always envisioned him as a ruthless bounty hunter, these episodes paint him as a kid who is torn between becoming a killer like Aurra Sing and being a man of apparent honour like Hondo claims his father was.
I’m scared to look on the wiki too much because we’re reaching the end of the parts of the series I’m familiar with. So I don’t know how much Fett comes back into either this or Rebels, but I certainly hope that he does. Between him, Cad Bane, Aurra Sing and Hondo, the criminal element of the star wars universe have proven far more interesting and effective antagonists than any part of the Sith or separatist army have so far.
Next time: We get into Season 3 proper, and I get a feeling we’re not quite done with all this Mandalorian business yet. Aside from some business with a black and red skinned friend down the road, we’re really getting into the parts of the series I don’t know anything about. And I’m excited to see what’s to come.
- Season 3, Episode 05: Corruption
- Season 3, Episode 06: The Academy
- Season 3, Episode 07: Assassin
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 