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Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Monster

The latest episode of the Clone Wars takes a dark turn as the recently betrayed Ventress is assigned to find a replacement for Darth Maul to serve count Dooku as a spy. When I catch flack for admitting to watching anything Star Wars, this is the episode I'd show people to prove them wrong. This episode had such great character development, story arc progression, and was able to expand on the one thing from the prequels that was awesome.

In the previous episode (the best of the season so far), we saw a character that no one cared about get a serious does of backstory and development. I always hated Ventress. There was nothing about her that made her interesting. She started out as filler for the series as she was made for the cartoon. But in last week's episode, they turned her into a wild card. She has been betrayed by her master and now seeks vengeance. It's something that you hope they would do, but never thought they would. It seems like the writers of the show are finally growing a pair in order to take chances with the show.

Why couldn't he be in the prequals?
The story of the episode itself revolves around the Sisters of the Mist setting up Dooku with a new apprentice who will eventually betray him and Ventress is put in charge of the tryouts. Remember football tryouts back in school? Imagine that, except the coach actually followed through on his threat to kill you. It’s typical Sith to do this sort of thing, but the characters that are forced to tryout are given just enough to keep you interested, especially Savage Opress and his brother. The way those two stand up for each other and how Savage keeps his brother as his number one priority (up to a point) is pretty compelling. And this is post prequel Star Wars content people... that’s surprising!

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. I’ve always loved the Clone Wars TV show. It’s had a lot of good aspects such as great characters, clones with depth, and villains with real problems. You know, what the prequels didn’t have. Okay, okay, enough prequel bashing. The set up for what will ultimately be the season finale is really making me excited. It'll be really interesting to see Obi Wan get some serious deja vu when he sees the Darth Maul replacement for the series.

Another interesting part is the fight choreography. It’s really exciting to watch; half of the episode is Ventress kicking the snot out of the scrubs was had me thrilled. There were no lightsabers; it was all hand to hand combat. A lot of the moves were based on obscure Japanese cinema from the 80’s that I couldn’t help but geek out over.

This season of the show has been slightly disappointing. It started out strong, but then it devolved into the political trash from the prequels. However, in this recent arc they’ve started to develop Ventress and Dooku, which means the Jedi are about to get interesting again. I absolutely cannot wait for rest of the season. If you haven’t been watching this clone wars, watch last weeks episode, then this one. This is the very definition of a jumping on point. You can watch this without past knowledge of the show and it’ll be at its best.

Rating
8.5

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