Clone Wars -- "To Catch a Jedi" (Ep. 5.19)

-- Never become desperate enough to trust the untrustworthy.

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[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

The title of this episode is another reference to an Alfred Hitchcock film: To Catch a Thief. As far as I know I've never seen To Catch a Thief, though that might not be true. There are a lot of old movies I watched as a young teenager that I don't remember anymore, and I watched a lot of Hitchcock films, so it is actually possible I've seen this one. Either way, I still get the idea they're going for from looking at the summary of the movie. It does make me wonder if "Sabotage," the first story in this arc, is also a reference to a Hitchcock film, a reference that I'm just not getting. Oh,wait, it is! And it's actually called Sabotage. I suppose I'm going to have to watch all of these again, now, or for the first time, depending. I'm pretty certain I've never seen Sabotage.

Ahsoka's on the run...
Now, let's step back a moment:
Much of the tension in Clone Wars is derived from Ahsoka and the fact that we know she's not around for Revenge of the Sith. We know something has to happen to her, which is something my kids started asking me during season one back when we were first watching the series. So what does happen to Ahsoka?

This arc is the beginning of the answer to that question, which is about all I can say without spoilers. What I can say is that this is one of the best arcs in the series. Plenty of action, plenty of drama, plenty of character development. Because, you know, anything that affects Ahsoka is also going to affect Anakin, and, more than anything else, Clone Wars is here for us to see the subtle shifts that led to Anakin's fall.

Clone Wars -- "Brain Invaders" (Ep. 2.8)

-- Attachment is not compassion.

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As you can see by the quote from this episode, this is another episode that deals with attachment, but this time it's not Anakin's attachment that we're looking at.

As the show has progressed, various characters have pointed out how like Anakin Ahsoka is becoming. Possibly, the area of attachment is one of those areas. Ahsoka is presented with a choice in "Brain Invaders" which is similar to the choice Anakin faced back in "Cargo of Doom" and, like Anakin, Ahsoka fails to make the "right" choice.

Unlike Anakin, Ahsoka seeks help and advice after the fact about what happened. Of course, she seeks it from Anakin, but Anakin is, perhaps surprisingly, quite mature about it. He tells her that attachments are things that all Jedi struggle with and that's it can be difficult to know what to do. Things worked out in her favor in this particular circumstance, but it's not going to always be that way. Did she make the correct choice? Anakin can't really tell her that. No one can.

Except, maybe, Bariss.

"Brain Invaders" is also a continuation, of a sorts, of the zombie story line, but it's a little more Stargate, actually, than zombie. In that, the story arc for this episode is nothing that hasn't been done before, but it's the crisis that Ahsoka goes through that's the point, anyway. The story is just a way to get her there.

Clone Wars -- "Weapons Factory" (Ep. 2.6)

-- No gift is more precious than trust.

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Most of what The Clone Wars has dealt with up to this point in regards to the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka has focused on how Anakin allows his relationship to get in the way of doing his job. Much of the relationship is there to demonstrate how Anakin's attachment issues affect his ability to live up to the Jedi code and show his slow slide to the Dark Side (rather than the sudden shift as it appears in Revenge of the Sith).

However, this episode uses Anakin's issues with attachment to show where the Jedi code is itself weak and how other Jedi could perhaps do well to be more like Anakin.

"Weapons Factory" features Luminara Unduli and her apprentice, Bariss Offee. Bariss and Ahsoka get sent on a mission together. Anakin... well, Anakin frets and doesn't want Ahsoka to go. Anakin and Ahsoka are having issues, just in general, over whether Anakin trusts Ahsoka or not. However, when the apprentices get into trouble, it's Anakin who has faith in his apprentice while Luminara, basically, writes her apprentice off with "if it's her time..."

What we see in the episode is one Jedi, one who strictly follows the code and has no sense of attachment to her apprentice other than her duty to train her, who feels no compulsion to try and save her apprentice and, thus, would have left Bariss and Ahsoka to die if it had been up to her, and one Jedi who has difficulty (unknowingly) with some aspects of the code, specifically in his tendency to form attachments, who is unwilling to give up on his apprentice until he has proof that she's dead. It this attachment that Anakin has with Ahsoka that leads Anakin and Luminara to rescue the two apprentices.

It's also a demonstration of Anakin's trust in Ahsoka's abilities. He believes that she is still alive because he believes in her capacity. Luminara immediately decides that Bariss has failed.

The episode provides an interesting contrast between the two styles and shows, at least from the standpoint of our own sensibilities, that the Jedi have a thing or two they can learn from Anakin and how to invest in those around them.