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REVIEW: Star Wars: The Clone Wars 4.3 – “Prisoners”

24.09.11

After the events of the season premiere, we’re left with a broken Mon Cala, Prince Lee Char and Ahsoka are in exile, looking to find a way to fight back at Tamson, the shark-like Separatist leader. Anakin, Padme, Kit Fisto, and Jar Jar have been captured, as well as pretty much any soldier in fighting shape.

The episode revolves around the Separatists hunt for the missing Prince, and the Prince’s quest to untie the Mon Cala and the Quarren people to fight back. The themes explored in this episode are very much similar to those in The Phantom Menace, with the Gungans and the Naboo uniting.

Altogether, this might have been one of the darkest episodes of the show, not just in terms of lighting under the water, but in tone and emotion. There is a lot of torture and killing in this episode. It’s a little intense, but in a good way. Like Guillermo Del Toro says, there should be frightening things in children’s stories.

The main torture scene, however, had a beautiful brutality to it that was very fun to watch on the show. The Karkaradon General, Tamson, nicks a pinhole in Padme’s mask, slowly leaking water into her helmet while Anakin is trapped inside of electric eels, keeping him contained. I was hoping he’d take another step to the dark side with Padme drowning, but Master Fisto was there and reminded him to use methods that fit within the light side of the force. Beyond that, Jar Jar helped save the day with his “Gungan Water Burp” that was, to be honest, pretty gross. But the kids loved it.

Source: Big Shiny Robot!