Doctor Decimate
Member
Previously:
73: Darkness on Umbara
74: The General
75: Plan of Dissent
We finish our journey into the heart of darkness with episode 76 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Rex asks Krell to reconsider his decision to court martial Jesse and Five, but Krell once again denies the request, saying that if they are not punished, others may be inspired to rebel. He muses that some clones are simply defective and incapable of following orders as a result, and he comes to the conclusion that they cannot waste time on a court martial. He then orders Rex to execute Fives and Jesse. This is actually within the bounds of his authority to “render judgment during combat,” Rex explains to the prisoners as he prepares to take them before a firing squad.
The firing squad is, of course, led by Dogma. Before the order to fire is given, Fives gives a mediocre speech about how they’re not numbers and must be trusted to make the right decisions. As soon as he’s done talking, Dogma gives the order, but none of the clones hit their targets. Everyone fires at the wall instead. Dogma protests, but Rex informs him that he’s not going to find anyone on the base willing to execute Fives and Jesse. Krell is unsurprisingly pissed about all this, but his shouting match with Rex is interrupted by a transmission from a clone trooper, who reveals that the Umbarans have stolen clone armor to disguise themselves. Krell postpones the execution of Fives and Jesse and orders Rex’s men on the offensive.
Deep in the jungle, Tup keeps Dogma from stepping on the tentacle of a Vixus, a plant-like creature from the first episode of the arc. Then the shooting begins, with the enemy disguised in yellow clone armor. As the numbers of his men fall, Rex notices one of the enemy corpses has his helmet partially off. He removes the helmet to reveal the face of a clone; there are no Umbarans, only clones killing each other. Rex tears off his own helmet and runs through the battlefield screaming for the firing to stop (as an unfortunately melodramatic choir BWAAHs in the background). He tackles one yellow trooper and pulls off his helmet, too, to show that they’re both clones. The fighting stops, and in the aftermath the dying commander of the other clone unit reveals that it was Krell who gave them the order to attack as well. Rex enlists the survivors to arrest Krell for treason against the Republic.
The clones march on the airbase (Dogma deserts the group on arrival) and head up to the control tower after releasing and arming Fives and Jesse, where they confront Krell. As he is surrounded, the general goes on about how he’s surprised that a lowly clone could figure out his plan. He uses the Force to disperse the circle of clones around him and activates his lightsabers, killing many. Eventually he leaps out of the tower and heads for the jungle, slaughtering clones as he goes. When Rex reaches the exterior of the airbase (via elevator because he’s a normal person, not a Jedi frog man), he is confronted by Dogma at gunpoint, who calls them all traitors. Rex gives another speech about clones and numbers and not droids and all that jazz, prompting Dogma to give up and be thrown in the brig.
Back in the jungle, Krell laughs like a mustache-twirling villain in the distance before he begins killing clones again. Tup spots a Vixus and manages to lure Krell toward the creature, which ensnares the general. He loses one of his lightsabers but eventually manages to cut himself free, but after being spun around by tentacles he is disoriented enough afterwards that Tup is able to stun him. Back at the airbase, Rex confronts Krell in the brig. Krell reveals that he planned to sabotage the Republic’s war effort to take Umbara in the hopes of gaining favor with Count Dooku. Basically, he’s a Sith wannabe who believes the Republic will lose the war. He’s right, but still. Dogma in the next cell over is pretty upset about all this, as he feels completely used. Later, a trooper informs Rex that Krell sabotaged the transmitter and that they were able to repair it in order to receive a message from Obi-Wan. Apparently the capital has been captured, but the remaining Umbarans are headed to the airbase. This leaves Rex with a dilemma: his forces have been significantly cut down in the struggle to capture Krell, and it’s a very real possibility that the Umbarans could recapture the airbase and gain access to what the general knows. He realizes that Krell is too dangerous to be kept alive. Back in the brig, Fives releases Dogma in preparation for the Umbaran attack, and Rex points his gun at Krell in order to execute him, shaking. As Krell begins to mock him, the Jedi is cut off mid-sentence by a laser through the back, killing him. The camera pans to reveal Dogma holding a gun he grabbed from Fives. Later, it is revealed that Obi-Wan’s forces managed to intercept the remaining Umbarans before they could reach the airbase. Dogma is led away in restraints for some reason (I suspect this might be a hazard of writing a children’s show and standards couldn’t allow killing Krell to go unpunished or something stupid like that) and Rex randomly questions what the purpose of the war is, as well as what will happen to the clones afterwards.
I want to like this episode a lot more than I actually do. The idea of some clones taking down a rogue Jedi is fucking awesome, but in practice I can't help but feel the writers ended up taking a lot of shortcuts. I think Krell the Guy Who Hates Clones is a much more interesting character than Krell the Wannabe Separatist, and I feel like it's a bit of a cop-out to make the guy evil. Throughout this arc, the idea that this guy is evil was probably at least at the back of every viewer's mind, but he could have easily just been a huge asshole. With that being said, I like to have some kind of alternative in mind when I criticize the direction an episode takes, and I can't really think of one. While the morally ambiguous Krell is better than obviously evil Krell, I appreciate the route this episode takes much more, if that makes sense. The alternative pretty much boils down to Krell learning his lesson, which pales in comparison to Krell fucking shit up. So I'm kind of torn here, but either way i think the handling of Evil Krell is a little too cartoonish and the fact that he ends up as a wannabe separatist is just disappointing. In these write-ups I've also made an effort to highlight the things Dogma does, but I do this with the benefit of hindsight. If I was writing these without having watched the entire arc in advance, I might have left him out. He simply does not have much of a presence and he lacks a character arc for someone who plays such a pivotal role in the finale; it's hard to see his involvement as anything more than simply taking the easy way out of Rex's moral dilemma with choosing to shoot Krell or not. I'm giving this episode a B because I like what it tries to do and I think it plays with some pretty incredible ideas and has a very strong plot, but content-wise I think it's probably closer to a B- because of the execution. But hey, the fights are awesome as hell!
Grade: B
I think I originally called this arc the best of Clone Wars so far, but I think I've cooled a bit on that assessment. It's definitely still ONE of the best, but after a strong opening I think it feels a little stretched and its conclusion isn't as satisfying as it could be. One of the main problems is one that plagues this series in general: obviousness, even when dealing with content far beyond the realm of the average children's TV show. It spells things out too much with Krell being too clearly an asshole early on and too cartoonish toward the end, as well as a handful of rather mediocre speeches regarding the arc's themes about the nature of the clones and their individuality. It's a great concept that mostly works, offering some of the most striking scenes to date, but it could have been better.
Umbara Arc Grade: B+
