Clone Wars -- "Bounty" (Ep. 4.20)

-- Who we are never changes; who we think we are does.

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Asajj Ventress is alone and on the run after Dooku's second or more attempt to have her killed. Trying to both survive and lay low, she ends up in Boba Fett's gang of bounty hunters. Despite his young age (and lack of Mandalorian armor), Fett is already in charge. Both Bossk and Dengar are in the gang.

This episode has ninjas. Or close enough.

And Simon Pegg does the voice of Dengar.

As opposed to the previous arc, which included a lot of bounty hunters who were fairly superfluous to what was going on, each member of Fett's team has a place and a use. They didn't feel like mere window dressing. As such, this was a really good episode. We get to see them all in action and see some of their personalities. It probably helps that we already have some familiarity to Bossk and Dengar, and it's nice that they are not just standing around in the background.

It's a good episode. Part of an arc, yet able to stand on its own. We get to see more of Fett's evolution, which is interesting. I hope they some day do a solo Fett movie but, until then, it's nice to have his background explored somewhat in Clone Wars.

Also, Ventress may not be quite as mercenary as she would like to think.

Clone Wars -- "Bounty Hunters" (Ep. 2.17)

-- Courage makes heroes, but trust builds friendship.

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Hondo is back!

But not in a good way. Seriously, if this episode is your first interaction with Hondo, you'll come away from it wishing that Anakin had just finished the job. The job being Hondo. So to speak. He is almost without his former charm in this episode. Unfortunate.

The episode doesn't have a lot to do with Hondo, anyway, other than that he's the bad guy leading a band of pirates against a defenseless village in order to steal their very valuable crop of... something or other.

This is one of those episodes where the Jedi attempt to teach the villagers to defend themselves so that they can be self-sufficient in the future. It would be a fine episode -- well, it is a fine episode taken all on its own -- except that there was one of these in season one, also. Maybe there was more than one? I don't remember. Or maybe there are more coming up. Whatever the case, it feels like a thing they fall back on when they need a one-shot episode: "Let's teach the villagers to defend themselves!"

The more interesting aspect of this episode is the disagreement between Obi-Wan and Anakin over the fate of the village. Obi-Wan actually wants to leave the village to fend for themselves because they are on an urgent mission and, to him, that takes priority. Anakin wants to stay and fight (Anakin always wants to stay and fight). Of course, the decision is taken away from them by the arrival of Hondo. I would have liked to have seen if Obi-Wan resorted to pulling rank to keep them on task.