Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of Clone Wars catch up, this time focussing on 2×12 and 2×13. Starting with episode 12, we had an Obi Wan centred episode with his team mate Anakin only making a short and single appearance at the end. His partner was instead the Duchess of Mandalore and their relationship swung between flirting and being irritated with each other throughout the episode. They worked well and had good chemistry together. If this is part of a longer arc (which it very much seemed to be) then I have no issue seeing them team up again in the future.

Now I don’t know if it was just me being forgetful as it may have been mentioned in the films, but I didn’t realise that Mandalore was where Jango Fett came from. All this really meant though was that all the bad guys had his outfit on. It was kind of weird as it just seemed like a bunch of low level rip-offs. The general did rectify this somewhat but it still felt odd for some reason. The outfits seemed a bit slimmer as well and didn’t look to limit movement in any way. They managed to double bluff me as I initially suspected him but then went off the idea due to the reveal of Dooku’s involvement…and then he was dodgy after all! As for the black light sabre… I didn’t mind it. What I like most was how it was shaped a bit more distinctly sword like.

The Duchess headed up the neutral nations in the senate and I always find it interesting the reasons why planets choose not to join the war, and how they view the two feuding parties. The Duchess does seem to favour the Jedi (or at least Obi Wan) over the Seperatists and I could see them helping the Jedi later on. Death Watch may push them to as they shown they weren’t to be messed with. And that one guy just straight up killed himself: I didn’t see that coming! I’m surprised they shown it on Cartoon Network.

The next episode quickly granted my earlier request for Obi Wan and the Duchess to team up once again, as he and Anakin escorted her while trying to prevent any assassination attempts on her life. They really delved into more of the personal history between Obi Wan and the duchess and the story was all the more interesting for it. It was nice to get a Qui Gon Jinn mention too as I’m still sad he’s never returned in force ghost form. Finding out that Obi Wan and the Duchess liked each other in the past was one thing, but the later revelation that Obi Wan would have left the Jedi order to be with her if she had asked all those years ago really put their history in perspective…it was a big deal. It mirrored Anakin in a way as we all know that it is his forbidden attachment to Padme that plays a key part in his path to the dark side. It portrayed him and Obi Wan as similar in their feelings, but as we all know they took very different paths. The relationship didn’t feel forced either which is always a possibility you want to avoid.

The robot spider droids were effective villain support but they just really reminded me of the robot spiders in the first season of new doctor who. They even copied the whole “discover who sent them” idea weirdly well. I am sure it was just a coincidence but it’s funny when you just make random connections like that. The treacherous senator was fine for what he was (he didn’t really need to fleshed out anyway) and his death coming at Anakin’s hands was the right choice and caught me by surprise. I thought he was going to escape rather than Obi Wan or the Duchess killing him but instead we got option C. Anakin being the “cold blooded killer” was foreboding in a sense as that is exactly what he becomes later on.

Is this it for Manalore for the time being I’ll just have to keep watching to find out.

DD Rating: (12) 7.25/10 (13) 9/10