Clone Wars -- "Senate Murders" (Ep. 2.15)

-- Searching for the truth is easy. Accepting the truth is hard.

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This episode, I believe, is the first episode where we begin to see what and who become the core of the rebellion. I could be wrong about it being the first because I'm not looking back to see, but it is the first episode with Mon Mothma, so I'm going with it. The episode revolves around the issue of putting a halt to the creation of anymore clone troopers for the war.

Which is an interesting question when you're in the midst of a war against an aggressor. The contention of Padme, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma is that if troop production is halted then diplomacy would have to take its place. They believe diplomacy is the road to peace. Palpatine, of course, believes that peace can only be achieved through victory on the field.

At least, that's his stated belief.

I suppose that must be somewhat like playing chess against yourself only with some of the pieces making their own decisions. Hmm... Maybe it's more like playing The Sims. My wife used to get constantly frustrated by her sims going off and doing things she didn't tell them to do.

The action in the episode has nothing to do with any of this, though. All of this is just the backdrop, but I find the backdrop more interesting than what's going on center stage. Not that there's anything wrong with what's going on center stage, because there's not. It's a fine episode and one that doesn't involve the Jedi at all. Or the clones. It's very rare in that. Still, it's the philosophical questions that are touched on that are of real interest, the things you see played out in the background.

Clone Wars -- "Senate Spy" (Ep. 2.4)

-- A true heart should never be doubted.

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This is an episode with, kind of, a deliberately misleading title. I'm not going to explain that more than to say it; if you want to know what I mean, you should watch the episode. It's a stand alone, so you can get away with that even if you haven't been watching the series.

However, it isn't the story that interests me about this episode, though the story is fine. Good even. No, what interests me is the continued exploration of Anakin and his attachment issues.

I suppose it might not be entirely clear why the Jedi are not allowed to have attachments, at least from the prospective of the movies. I mean, it's never stated why Jedi are not supposed to own things or form romantic entanglements or, well, have children. Because it seems like having Jedi have children would be the thing to do if you wanted more Jedi children, right? So the underlying reason for the "no attachments" rule is never given. Anywhere. But The Clone Wars gives us plenty of examples, through Anakin, of the issues that arise from having attachments, everything from disobeying orders to retrieve some personal object, to making some one person a priority over completing a mission, to, well, jealousy.

And that's the real issue: Attachments open the Jedi to the negative emotions that lead to the Dark Side of the Force. And that's what's explored in this episode: Anakin's jealousy over a previous lover of Padme's.

So, yeah, the story of the "Senate Spy" is fine. It's good. But it's Anakin's jealousy and his anger and attempt to control Padme's actions because of those things that make the story of real interest.

And, actually, importance.

It's these episodes where we can see Anakin's slide to the Dark Side and that it wasn't some sudden change during Revenge of the Sith.

Also, we get to see, again, a glimmer of Obi-Wan's suspicions about Anakin and Padme, which is good. I mean, it's good that we get to see that he had suspicions, because it's a bit much to believe that Obi-Wan, of all people, had no idea what was going on.