Ryan Shoots First: The Clone Wars (S7 Ep2) “A Distant Echo”
It’s week 2 of the final season of The Clone Wars and on the heels of last week we are back with the Bad Batch, Rex and Anakin as they hunt down the truth to the revelation from last week that Echo is alive. Before they leave Anakin sneaks away with the help of Rex to meet with a projection of Padme in her Revenge of the Sith attire. Showing just how close we are to the end. The idea that Rex knows and is covering for Anakin is cool. They have this connection and it is cool to see their brotherhood as they help each other out. Anakin’s facial animations are far improved over previous seasons. The team seems to have really put the work in as every episode looks like theatrical release quality.
As Obi-Wan tells Anakin he hopes he told Padme hi for him the team is off. The planet they are on has a race of primitives who have flying reptiles that attack the team. They snatch up Anakin but Hunter manages to hitch a ride but bails as the locals take Anakin to their village. Again the Bad Batch armor scheme looks heavily inspired by N7 armor in Mass Effect and I am all for it. They free Anakin and after some lost in translation back and forth they get help to try and locate Echo. Wat Tambor gets tipped off to the team possibly coming and Tambor says they will be ready. Some infighting between the Batch and Rex breaks out as Rex refuses to admit Echo is dead. Anakin and Rex have a heart to heart and Anakin gives his friend his support.
Tech breaks the team into the tower that Echos signal is coming from and for the second time this episode Wrecker is forced to deal with heights. The team splits up to search for Echo and Rex’s team believes they have found him but Wat reveals it is a trap and says Echo is dead but his mind is theirs. Rex breaks into the door and discovers Seps have Echo in a suspended state with stuff hooked up to his brain and his lower half is artificial like Maul. The episode ends with Rex telling Echo he is going home.
Another strong episode with the Batch and it appears much like the past few seasons the season will be broken up into 3 episode arcs with the finale for this arc likely happening next week. Again it’s great to Rex slowly steer away from the straight laced Commander he has been over the years. This of course is leading up to where we see him in Rebels and one wonders how Rex handled Order-66. Was he able to break programming or did he turn on a Jedi? Since he is usually with Anakin and Obi-Wan and we know he did not turn on them in RoS maybe we will get answers soon. The animation continues to be top notch and the Batch while more side characters in this episode still give us some depth and variances to the clone archetype. I look forward to seeing the conclusion of the arc next week but I would be lying if I didn’t say I am ready for some Maul, Mandos and Ashoka. But the joy is in the journey and we will see you next week as we bid farewell to The Clone Wars.