Week 9 - Holocron Arc, Bounty Hunters

They advertised Bane so much, but he only appeared in the first 3 episodes of S2.

Technically the season did start and end with Bounty Hunter arcs so I guess the promotion kinda makes sense.

I remember they had had Robinino on the promotions and he never even showed up.

Lightsaber lost?

But yeah I’m pretty sure he shows up in Lightsaber lost right?

Felucia is a pretty cool planet. I know they're not really related, but it makes me wish we got to see Kashyyyk in TCW also.

Bounty Hunters is good I watched it recently a while ago. It seems to be a trope of going into a defenseless village and training them to fight. Doctor Who did it as well

Cargo of Doom is definitely my favorite of this arc. Not only does it give us an AT-TE battle on top of a Separatist frigate, but also a zero-gravity fight within the ship. Both scenes are awesome, and they really shake things up. Bane was ruthless in this episode, especially when he killed Ropal. I remember thinking how dark that scene was back when I first saw this episode.

Yularen has a substantive role in this one, but I feel they overplayed him being so "by the book", and it came off silly. Like when Anakin suggests boarding the other ship, Yularen freaks out and dismisses the idea. Then in the next scene, he approaches Anakin to help him out with his plan, but reacts the same way when the AT-TE strategy is mentioned. Not a big deal, but it kind of degrades his character a little bit for me.

Other than that though, I have no real complaints about this episode. It was very well done, and the pacing was good. Even all the battle droid humor was pretty nice.

Man Embo is easily top 5 best characters created for TCW, maybe top 3. Also I kinda thought that female sniper was the one from The Box later on but I guess not, since it would seem she died in the episode.

Kinda cool how Embo goes from real small time in Bounty Hunters to having the second most Bounty Hunter tallies in the Galaxy by the time of The Box. Must be kinda awkward as well that Embo is fighting Anakin in Crisis on Naboo. Also I wonder if Sugi didn’t get an invite to The Box or she just doesn’t work for Separatists. We see her again in the season 3 finale and then she’s protecting the Hutts later on with Embo, Dengar and Latts.

Anyways Bounter Hunters is really cool cause it explores a lot of less touched on topics. It’s easily one of the best standalone in the show, I’m gonna say 9/10.

Children of the Force is a good conclusion to the arc. I like the direct continuation of the story from the last episode, and having Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace return was nice. I like that they chose to give Mace a bigger role that didn't involve him solely being in battle, and his interactions with Obi-Wan were very nice I thought.

The moment when Obi-Wan and Mace disagree with Anakin over informing the Chancellor was also great, since it better develops how those characters feel in ROTS (and I really appreciate them both giving reasons to support how they feel. It was simple and brief, but it really goes a long way in making it better). Speaking of the Chancellor, it was a good inclusion to have Anakin go to Palpatine but not have Ahsoka be invited inside his office. Even though it's somewhat obvious why after seeing ROTS, this again illustrates how Anakin's relationship with Palpatine has become so strong by then. It's also pretty cool to travel to so many different planets in a single episode.

Bounty Hunters is a pretty cool episode and very different from most others in the series. I like pretty much everything about it, I just wish it didn't feel so rushed. I feel like it's a story they could've made into a 2-parter. The characters were all pretty cool, including Dilanni who was borderline annoying.

It's kind of weird to think Hondo only appears once more this season and then doesn't come back until S5. Seeing him hold his own against Anakin was nice too.

I'll give this episode 6.5/10. I enjoyed it, but the pacing was kind of bad, especially after Hondo appears.

Next one will be up later. Forgot last night.

Holocron Heist is kinda forgettable too... I remember getting pretty hype though after they were hyping up their bounty hunters theme. The Felucia battle was a cool opening. This is also the first time we really see the Jedi temple properly. There was that tidbit with Mace and Yoda and Kit at the end of Lair of Grievous which honestly felt out of place but other than that we haven't seen it before. It felt a little empty though they should've had some more background characters.

Also what's up with Todo being in Hunt for Ziro? Inconsistency or new droid...? Oh and I think they should've called the crystal something else since kyber crystals are in lightsabers

Damn Obi-Wan didn't try at all to stop Bane on Rodia lol he was right there smh... But what exactly was Sidious' plan? Why did the babies need surgery... "slave conditioning" lol what... This arc had some weird plot points and serious mcguffin syndrome

Did anyone just find this arc was overall weird? Like they had some really odd scenes and dialogue and pacing was all over the place. It wasn't necessarily bad... It was just weird... idk