Downfall of a Droid – Clone Wars episode 1.06

Blue words.

“Trust in your friends and they’ll have reason to trust in you.” Pfft. How many of us have been burned by that one?

Narrator.

A series of defeats have loosened the Republic’s grip on the Outer Rim. These battles will be covered in a forthcoming series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Outer Rim Wars. In it, the ‘roger, roger’ battledroids will sing South Pacific.

Downfall of a Droid.

Kenobi advises retreat. Anakin wants to stay. Ahsoka advises retreat. Kenobi tells Anakin he should listen to his padawan. “As you listened to yours?” he retorts. What? But…what? You’re the one who doesn’t listen, Anakin. You! I’m a grown man yelling at the TV.

Anakin lures Grievous’ fleet into a trap. Anakin leads the fighters. Ahsoka is in charge of the Star Destroyers? (Now I know why the Clones turned on the Jedi. “Bloody hell, Bruce. I’ve been passed over for a 14-year-old padawan.” “That’s shite, mate. You’ve got 10 years seniority on this bridge.” “Union meetin tonight, Bruce. We’ve got the numbers to pass Order 66.”) Grievous escapes in his ship. Anakin pursues but loses his ship. He wakes up in the medical bay and learns that R2 is lost. Kenobi says, “Pfft, so what?” Anakin says we have to find R2 because his memory hasn’t been erased. For all we know this could be another of Anakin’s fibs. (Or else Anakin wants to get the space porn he’s stored in poor little R2.)

R3 is R2’s replacement. He’s supposed to be gold, but he looks jaundiced. Anakin, Ahsoka and R3 find a Trandoshan scavenger ship and hop aboard pretending to be customers. In the cargo hold, Anakin asks R3 to open a door. R3 turns on the lights instead. Anakin takes out his lightsaber and starts cutting open the door. Real nice. Very heroic. The lights aren’t the only thing R3 accidentally turned on. IG-88 assassin droids also switch on. The two Jedi destroy them. Anakin threatens the merchant with his lightsaber and elbows him aside to get past. These aren’t the actions of a Jedi about to take a tragic fall. These are the actions of a douchebag about to turn into a Sith douchebag.

After our heroes leave, the Trandoshan contacts Grievous and reveals he has R2. This is the first time we learn the merchant is unscrupulous. Anakin didn’t know this, so he was just being a twat. Meanwhile, R2 knocks off his restraining bolt (which, you know, you’d think would be difficult considering the nature of restraining bolts). The Trandoshan catches him.

Anakin goes on a new mission to find a MacGuffin. He goes alone with R3. R3 activates a tracking beacon instead of the long range scanners as Anakin asked. Grievous warps to his location with a new fleet. R3 keeps screwing up and Ahsoka flies in to rescue him.

To the next episode, Duel of the Droids, or back to the episode guide.