Ryan Shoots First: The Clone Wars (S7 Ep7) “Dangerous Debt”
Our coverage of the final season of The Clone Wars continues and to pick up from last week, Ashoka, Trace and Rafa are now prisoners of the Pykes and are looking to get out of town.
While in prison Ashoka starts dropping hints that she is in fact a Jedi. This causes Rafa to tell her a story about how Jedi ruined their lives when chasing Zero the Hutt. Yes, Ashoka was part of this and the Red eyed man she mentions was Cad Bane. During the chase a ship went out of control the Jedi steered the ship away from a public platform but unfortunately into Rafa and Traces home killing their parents. Ashoka seems heartbroken but no time to mourn as the Pykes come for Rafa. Later Rafa is returned to the cell beaten and passed out and they take Trace to be interrogated. Trace actually pulls a smart move and fakes feinting to get a jump on her captors. Ashoka decides to quietly use the force when no one is around to get out of the cell. She wakes up Rafa and they head to help Trace. Again Trace does a smart move freeing some other prisoners to help her. She seems to have gotten a lot smarter in just a week. After running into Ashoka and Rafa the three of them get to the platform where yet again! Trace recognizes flammable barrels and shoots them causing an explosion. When a bridge retracts Trace decides her only chance is to try and make the jump. She doesn’t quite get far enough but again Ashoka uses the force to help her get across. Ashoka of course clears the jump with no problem causing Rafa and Trace to wonder what’s up. But no time to question as they are still trying to escape.
After regrouping they decide to split up with Ashoka going to take down the gate. Ashoka clears her task without much trouble and heads to help the sisters. Free to use the force away from the sisters she helps them in taking out the gangsters. Unfortunately they run into a drunk hobo alien in the spaceport who eventually rats them out for some space booze. Back on the run they pass a hooded figure wearing a Mandalorian helmet. Ashoka gets split up after Rafa and Trace are captured and we discover the Mando is none other than Bo Katan, she believes she recognizes Ashoka and informs her people to follow her. Meanwhile Ashoka rescues Trace and Rafa from being executed but before they could leave it’s revealed it was a trap to draw Ashoka in. Recaptured all three are back in their cell where they started. Rafa finally apologizes for taking the job and the episode ends with all three right where they were at the beginning.
A much better episode all around this week. Yes it’s somewhat pointless as our heroes ended up in the same place they started but now Bo and the Mandos are aware of their presence and will likely save the day. Also, pushing the story further was some much needed motivation and progression of the relationship between the three with Rafa and Trace revealing their tragic backstory and their distrust of the Jedi. This will of course come to ahead when they discover Ashoka’s past. It’s also nice to see Ashoka use more of her force abilities, driving home the fact that she is living in secret but when you have this power it is impossible not to use it to help people in need. I mentioned it in the recap but Trace herself seemed to wise up quite a bit from the annoying character who could do nothing right last week to a much more competent scoundrel type this week. Using savvy and wits multiple times, the type of wit you assume a young girl growing up alone in the underbelly of 1313 would have. I like this version of her character much more than what we saw last week. While we didn’t push the actual story along too much we did manage to improve the characters and now that the Mando’s are in the fray things should pick up soon.