by A Necessary Bond
June 25, 2013 in Episode Guides by Firebird
#96 Season 5 Episode 9
“Choose your enemies wisely, as they may be your last hope.”
When General Grievous launches a full-scale attack on the pirate base on Florrum, Ahsoka and the younglings fight side-by-side with Hondo and his pirates to turn back the Separatist forces.
Now free of the pirates, Ahsoka Tano resumes her role as chaperon to a group of adventure-seeking younglings. The situation has become far more dangerous, however.
A Necessary Bond Commentary, Preview, Bonus clip and starwars.com Episode Guide.
Original Airdate: 24 November 2012
Writer: Christian Taylor
Director: Danny Keller
Concept Art and Trivia
This episode answers what exactly happened to Hondo Ohnaka’s base, which was seen destroyed in “Revival,” the season opener. Originally, “Revival” was planned to air later in the season, in proper chronological order, but it was moved to the start in order to better showcase the Darth Maul storyline. In “Revival,” Hondo describes his base being overrun by General Grievous.
The entrance to Hondo’s secret ship vault is marked by a downed vessel — it’s the same animation model as Anakin Skywalker’s Twilight, but heavily distressed.
The Slave I makes its first appearance since “Lethal Trackdown,” the Season Two finale. In that episode, the ship still bore Jango Fett’s paint scheme. In the intervening time, Hondo repainted it with the colors it will bear when it becomes Boba Fett’s vessel.
The evolution of the Slave I. Clockwise from top right: ILM model from Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones; Lucasfilm Animation model from Season Two; paint scheme illustration for Season Five by Kilian Plunkett; ILM model from Star Tours: The Adventures Continues
Ironically, Ahsoka is saved by the very vessel she caused to crash in “Lethal Trackdown.”
Another connection: Ahsoka and the younglings escape through the geyser trenches that are quite similar to the gorges she chases Aurra Sing through in “Lethal Trackdown.”
This was a very good episode. This made up for how badly a bound for rescue was. It took place on florrum (one of my favorite planets), Had Hondo in it, a duel between Ahsoka & Grievous, nonstop action throughout and as well as in the beginning when the younglings were being pursued by the pirates. Good job for this one 9/10.
I love that first picture…I miss Ahsoka… 🙁
Action packed and a good end to okay arc. Ahsoka finally got a rematch against Grievous but it’s sad to think that this is likely the last time we’ll see Grievous since we haven’t seen anything about him in the bonus content and he difinatly won’t be in Rebels (unless they pull a Darth Maul on us again)
You know Hevy I never thought of that. However as much as I like the prequel era, I believe it would be funny to revive Grievous. I mean, wouldn’t be more likely to retain some already known characters from the Clone Wars, without party crashing stablished canon, best examples like Cad Bane, Hondo, Mother Talzin, etc? Well never mind, Rebels will be whatever they want it to be. Im curious to see how much they’ll stick to STAR WARS. Good episode by the way 🙂
I think the title of the new series is self explanatory of what it’s solely going to be about. If it was called “The Dark Times” they could get away with episodes about witches or pirates because it means they’re just using that time period to tell various stories like TCW did. But it’s “Rebels” so anything straying away from that would be considered filler — unless they joined the rebels but that seems unlikely because they have their own goals. 😉
Great ending to one of my favorite arcs!
Would have been better if someone died. Not bad though.
I think they only put Ahsoka in this arc just so she could fight Grievous again. She didn’t really contribute anything else to it.
The episode itself alright. I liked it. But IMO Dooku’s revenge on Hondo could have been its own episode, one that was more serious and unconnected to any childish youngling rubbish.
I think she got a lot of development in the arc.
She got the most development in the Ahsoka arc from season 5 if you ask me. But your right, in this episode she possessed leadership for the younglings and gained some more development overall.
I don’t think babysitting really counts as development.
That’s why I said leadership. I don’t think she was babysitting them. She did teach them some lessons. Just as Master Sinube taught her a lesson of patience and Anakin taught her combat skills and training. She didn’t do that in this arc but most certainly led the way and taught them never to back down from a fight. She did have an impact on them believe it or not. I mean they are younglings, there not like master’s where they can fight anywhere and there strong with the force yet so they did need some protection from Ahsoka. For instance from Grievous & the pirates and keeping them safe. I wouldn’t call it babysitting cause after all they held there own and rescued Ahsoka (maybe in a dumb way but they did it).
Of course. That arc is where she got most development on the show.
Random: How I would have wrote the Young Jedi arc.
Ep 1 would be the same, a little less kiddish though.
Ep 2 would be pretty much the same but there’d be different, more serious crystal thieves. Perhaps Aurra Sing and some bounty hunters we’ve never seen before. The younglings would still act stupid and get away from the pirates. They’d kill Ganodi mercilessly, and this would push the others to fight. Now, the younglings start actually fighting and killing the pirates with force powers and stolen blasters. Zatt strikes down Ganodi’s killer in anger. One of the younglings gets shot but survives. Huyang would also die, but he’d get to be awesome first. And Artoo wouldn’t be here. He’s about to get a whole arc to himself, after all.
Ep 3 is where it would change. We still see Obi-Wan vs Grievous in the episode but the duel is a lot longer and Obi-Wan only escapes due to some convenient thing a clone trooper does. And Obi-Wan doesn’t tell Grievous that the Negotiator will be blown up but Grievous’s droids detect it. Okay, back to the younglings. Well Ahsoka would be kidnapped, but she’d be taken to some other world like a Separatist outpost. The younglings would seriously under estimate the facility and decide to just land there. It would be hinted that the droids (who are led by an officer who we’ve never met) know they are coming. The younglings would sneak in through a vent and sneak past some droids. The younglings would split up with Petro, Zatt, and Byph creating distractions while Katooni and Gungi free Ahsoka. Throughout this sequence, the younglings start to mature a bit and don’t do childish things like some shitty circus act. The group would escape, and in a very intense moment, Gungi would die trying to hold off the droids. The ending would be the same, running back to ship. But you would see the Soulless One landing in the background.
Ep 4 would be totally different. Instead of trying to jump on their ship like a bunch of retards, they’d get on the ship normally and contact the Jedi but the ship would be shot down. Grievous would find them and defeat Ahsoka. Ahsoka and the kids would be taken back to the prison and be tortured by Grievous. (No, I don’t know what kinda of info he’d want out of a bunch of little kids. He’s just an ass hole, okay?) Grievous reveals that he knew the Jedi would send a fleet and reveals he has a trap set up for them. Just then, the Jedi Fleet would show up and epic battle breaks out. It is commanded by Ki-Adi-Mundi and Eeth Koth. Ahsoka somehow uses the force to break out the kids and they escape. And they get their lightsabers back. They get outside the base, and it’s total hell. There’s droids and clones and lasers everywhere and hey, let’s throw those bounty hunters back in. And there’s also a space battle being commanded by Mundi. Let’s say this is also a secret base the republic didn’t know about until now so they need to capture it. There’s an explosion that kills Byph and knocks out Petro. So Ahsoka thinks Petro’s dead and keeps running trying to find a gunship or something with Katooni and Zatt (Yah, they’re the only younglings left). Ahsoka, Katooni, and Zatt fight the bounty hunters and it’s really epic. Petro wakes up and is found by Eeth Koth. Then Grievous returns and fights them. Eeth Koth dies. (That’s one less loose end). Grievous taunts Petro and tells him he will kill all of his friends. Petro runs away, now much more hardened. Ahsoka and Co reach the gunship, but then Grievous orders a tank to destroy it. Grievous confronts Ahsoka again in the fiery debris of the gunship and it’s a really intense, personal battle. Maybe there’s even blood. Grievous taunts Ahsoka about the dead younglings. Grievous unfairly defeats Ahsoka and takes her lightsabers. Another gunship appears with Ki-Adi-Mundi, but Grievous orders his droids to attack them. Commander Jet is shot and killed, so his Second-In-Command, Baraca takes this place. (Another Loose End) Behind ranks of Destroyers, Mundi watches helplessly as Grievous prepares to kill Ahsoka. (I’m hoping I’m translating the picture int my head well). All of a sudden, Petro attacks Grievous stops him. He yells at Ahsoka to go but she refuses. I’m sorta 50/50 on whether Petro should die now. What the heck, we’ve had enough death for one arc. Grievous cuts off one of Petro’s arms. Petro closes his eyes and prepares for the end. Then, Saesee Tiin and his men push forward and Grievous is forced back.
CONCLUSION: As opposed to the original youngling arc, Petro grows from his arrogance and is now selfless young man willing to give his life to save his friends. So he’s sorta like Hevy now but he didn’t die. Zatt and Katooni are also much less irritating characters after watching their friends die. We now actually care to see what happens to them. Now, instead of six 1-layered kids that we really never want to see again, we have three mature young Jedi that we can’t wait to see in Season Six.
Long story short, this arc would be really dark.
This is much better than the crap they gave us bravo Spider 🙂 though you lose .1 because Ahoska didnt get brutally slauthered by a Gundark 😛
Oh yah, that would’ve been good. 😛
But seriously, I was hoping to see the younglings grow and change but nothing happened.
Well Hondo kinda changed a bit near the end but nothing with the younglings…..
My biggest problem with this arc is that the younglings is that the didn’t change at all. They didn’t act any different at the end than they did in “The Gathering” I mean we’ve seen how well TCW writers can develop characters over a short period of time. And they didn’t do it in this one.