With only a few weeks left before Rebels comes out, it’s time to get down to the very last of The Lost Missions! Which, of course, reminds me that we’re getting down to the very last of The Clone Wars period… *sniffles* But within these last four episodes, there will be so much awesome that four posts will barely contain it! Seriously.
So join me, will you, for a bit of discussion and thoughts on this incredible episode? 🙂
Contains spoilers from Episode I, Episode II, Episode III, Episode V, and TCW Episodes The Lost One.
(Original screencap credit: Netflix)
So we get to see Plo Koon again (yayyyy!)… or not see. I mean, that planet he went out to respond to that distress call is dusty like heck! Not the point, but seriously we can’t really see anyone in all this mess!
Plo and the clones are searching high and low in the soup, but not really coming up with anything for a while. Until, suddenly, a crashed ship comes into the picture. Am I the only one wondering how a distress call came from a totally crashed abandoned ship? Was it sent a long time ago and it just didn’t reach the Jedi until now or what? Oooooh, mysteriousss!! It’s even more mysterious on the inside, as yeah, it’s a totally crashed, abandoned ship. Emphasis on the “abandoned” part… it’s emptier than Palpatine’s soul! (sorry not sorry) Except that Master Plo finds something in the dust and debris… a lightsaber. That belonged to somebody. And that somebody might be someone we have yet to get some dirt on. That means all this junk is heading back to Coruscant!
So if you didn’t already know, that somebody would be Master Sifo-Dyas (*phew* I spelled it right!). This Sifo guy has always been a mystery to us SW fans… or at least to me, anyway. I faintly remember my brief confusion watching Episode II for the first time, thinking, “whuuuuut…? Why would a Jedi put in an order for a clone army?” I had been watching TCW around the time I saw Episode II (I already understood enough from just having seen Episode I to be able to enjoy seasons 1 & 2), so learning that was where the clones came from was surprising. (Admittedly, I forgot this query for a bit amidst the Fett showdown and Anakin-Padme cuteness) But even now, after having watched all the movies and almost all of TCW, this Sifo-Dyas thing is something I still haven’t been able to figure out. Well, good thing The Lost Missions decided to answer those questions, right?
Anyway, the Jedi are intrigued by Plo Koon’s find, but they’re still as confused as we are. Obi-Wan knows what he heard, that on that fateful day he walked into the kaminoan cloning facility. The kaminoans had been expecting Master Sifo-Dyas, who apparently was in charge of the whole cloning deal. And of course, Sifo-Dyas pulled that stunt entirely without asking the Jedi Council. Apparently, this guy was quite the rebel in his own right… just… not in a good way as far as the Jedi are concerned. Evidently, Sifo had figured that they’d eventually need an army, even though the rest of the Jedi were all “psh, you cray!” But no one was complaining when Yoda arrived in that gunship with a bunch of ready-to-fight-for-the-good-guys clone troopers after the Jedi were surrounded by droids and geonosians! Ever since then, they’ve kinda dropped the subject. But now… the big questions have returned…
So the Jedi dropped by the temple library to get some big answers. But things aren’t matching up; Sifo-Dyas died trying to resolve conflict on Felucia, but exactly how is it the ship crashed? (OK maybe I’m just wondering that) And on top of that, the rest of the information on the case has been mysteriously locked up… by the Supreme Chancellor. Why am I not surprised about that? Yoda sends Obi-Wan and Anakin off to gather some dirt on Felucia, and Yoda decides to have a little talk with Palpatine. Oooooh this is getting all so mysterious!!
But man oh man, am I the only one who shudders a little watching Yoda and Palpatine having a normal conversation? It’s not the only time they’ve talked, I know, but as far as I can remember, this only time they’ve talked mano a mano! Yeeesh! It just gives me the shivers… how is it this guy pulled off such a charade with such smart, strong Jedi around?! Just watching the chancellor in this conversation… seeing him clearly playing dumb. I’ve been talking about how, throughout most of the episodes this season, he’s been particularly sneaky and creepy, and it appears to be all accumulating here. I mean, really… dude, we know you know something about all of this… a lot of somethings, actually. About Sifo-Dyas, about the clone army, about this wonderful plan of yours that the Jedi are completely oblivious to! All I can say is that he’s one good Sith, clearly, if he can play innocent around this amazing Jedi and not arouse his suspicions. Palpatine’s all “Hey look man, I wasn’t even in office at the time Sifo died. Go talk to Valorum if you want answers!” and that’s what Yoda does. Meanwhile, the secret Sith gives his “little green friend” the creepiest, nastiest look ever upon his departure. Ohhh I literally got goosebumps people… YIKES.
As Yoda’s about to head out, he gets word from Obi-Wan and Anakin that, despite some communication difficulties with the Felucian natives, they’ve found out that another Jedi accompanied Sifo-Dyas on that fateful mission. The communication issues have kept them from knowing who it is, though, soooo yeah… “one of those days, it has been.” But at least Yoda’s got an idea where to head next.
So wow, it feels really crazy to be seeing ex-Chancellor Valorum in TCW. I honestly feel bad for the poor guy… he’d tried to do his best as chancellor back in the day and got kicked out of office by some swaggering Naboo senator (who turned out to be a Sith Lord). Ughhhh if he was going to get kicked out of office, why couldn’t they have elected Bail Organa?!?! What grief you could have spared!! Sorry. My point was, it’s really interesting seeing Valorum again, no longer in the big chair, but doing all right, seemingly. Anyway, according to Valorum, the reason for the secrecy was because Sifo was originally involved with some serious spice ring busting, and the then-chancellor didn’t want that very sensitive, potentially dangerous information to get out there at the time. But what he didn’t call for was that the Master would get sidetracked trying to make peace between the Felucian tribes and wouldn’t make it off the planet alive. So that explains the whole mix-up, I guess. As far as this other Jedi, Valorum has no clue what that was about, though he had sent his personal aide Silman along with Sifo-Dyas on that mission. Again, not exactly the info our heroes were looking for, but enough to lead them down another path, hopefully closer to finding the answer to their questions.
Meanwhile, yeahhh Sidious wasn’t too happy about this Sifo-Dyas mess coming up again, and he has to wonder if Dooku might’ve been responsible. The talk went over rather well, Sidious got his “stop-the-Jedi-at-all-costs” point across, Dooku got Force-choked by his boss’s hologram. Andddd I got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies watching the Darth do that. He don’t mess around, that’s for sure.
On the flipside, Obi-Wan and Anakin haven’t been able to find out anything about this Silman character from the natives, but they decide to take a turn to the Pikes, a crime gang on a moon nearish the locale where Plo found Sifo’s downed ship, to try and get some answers once more. Thankfully, the Pikes’ place isn’t all dust, dust, and more dust… our heroes dock into a relatively swanky set of digs, which leads to a long hallway where a guy of questionable integrity sits on a throne surrounded by “friends.” Looks like the dusty moon is also the perfect place to dig up some dirt (see what I did there?? Haha yeah I’m not funny). This guy of questionable integrity is somewhere between really cool and really creepy. Cool points go to his glowy purple eyes and his voice. Creepy points go to his snakelike head and the whole questionable air about him.
As per usual, even though Anakin just wants to get it done and done, Obi-Wan takes a bit more colloquial route and willingly accepts a friendly drink from this dude of questionable integrity. Then Master Kenobi picks up on something: the necklace this guy’s wearing has what looks like Valorum’s crest… something that Silman guy probably wore. Our new friend isn’t too keen on talking about it, and naturally it takes Anakin about three seconds before he takes matters into his own hands. Classic Anakin and Obi-Wan negotiating, woo-hoo! Eh, it kinda works. Surprise of surprises, this Silman guy’s alive! And our Pike friend is (seemly) happy to oblige in letting our heroes meet the guy. Apparently this Lord Tyrannus character wanted Sifo-Dyas dead and the Pikes were like “OK cool.” and helped out with such, but decided to keep a hold on Silman, just in case.
So amidst the bowels of this swanky hangout is a dungeon, and in one of those rooms lies someone who could seriously help our heroes piece together the puzzle. Orrrr maybe… not? Let’s just say that Silman’s not who he used to be. He’s kind of a quintessential “crazy old man”, except with a little extra insanity sprinkled on top. Hehe I like that Silman takes Anakin’s offering of food akin to Yoda’s taking Luke’s food in Episode V… well, except for the fact that Yoda wasn’t crazy like this guy is… er… yeah. Mainly because Silman decides to use it for a tea party with his grub friends. No I’m not kidding. OK, a little — it couldn’t be a tea party because he had no fine china! Sorry that really wasn’t funny. Anyway, poor Silman’s been down here for ten years with no one knowing he was alive. So, yeah, I can cut him some slack for his craziness. But what they don’t know is that just moments ago, Dooku walked in, Force-pushing and Force-choking anyone out of the way who dared cross him! Which becomes a real problem when said guy comes and Force-chokes Silman right before he was about to spill the beans on the whole thing. AW DANG. And Anakin and Obi-Wan don’t have time to be bummed out that they didn’t find out the truth… they kinda have to duel with Dooku now.
Oh man, it was an epicsauce lightsaber battle! My estimate is that this was the last time Anakin and Dooku fought, so wow… I will have to go watch Episode III sometime soon so I can see for myself if Anakin’s powers doubled since they last fought XD Ahhh the stunts! The close calls! The near-misses! The intensity! So much coolness! And then in a weird moment, the Pikes all come out in the middle of the duel and are all “You have no business with us, Tyrannus,” and Obi-Wan and Anakin are like “What?!?! DOOKU is that Tyrannus dude?!” I know I was all shocked like that too when I realized that that mooka is out of the bag! Dooku’s like “Duh, ‘course I am. Again, bro, there is a Sith Lord involved here! I wasn’t doing all that monologuing on Geonosis just to hear myself talk!” to which Obi-Wan’s like “psh yeah right!” But even with all the Pikes and their blasters and our Jedi heroes combined, Dooku still manages to slip out at just the right moment, all while lightsabering a few of our Pike friends while he’s at it. Just as the count was headed off on his ship, Anakin made quite the impressive leap and fought one last duel in an effort to bring him down. But you know what Dooku always says, “when in doubt, down the ship!” (OK so he doesn’t actually say that, but he does do that a fair amount), and that’s what he does. Count Dooku leaves Anakin hanging (literally), destroys the ship he’s standing on, and makes a jump over to his real ship and is gone. Yep that happened.
So wow… the Jedi asked some questions and got some answers… answers they don’t entirely like, like the whole “a Sith helped create our entire army” thing. They decide to keep this matter on the down-low, as they believe in their awesome troopers, but they don’t know what the rest of the galaxy would think. All our heroes know is that the bad guys are up to something seriously convoluted… and seriously awful. And all they can do is keep it secret…
Ooooooh, mysteriousness levels at a dangerous high!! Yeah seriously, this episode blew my mind in a good number of ways… and having already seen the equally mind-blowing Voices, I know these episodes will only continue to blow my mind further as the story unfolds.
The Clone Wars are going out with a bang. For. Sure.
Keep The Peace,
– Twilight
Padawanline 