'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Season 7 Episode 9 Review: The show kicks things into high gear for the final arc
Spoilers for 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Season 7 Episode 9 'Old Friends, Not Forgotten'
A brand new episode of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' is here and boy, it's a doozy. Season 7 Episode 9 'Old Friends, Not Forgotten' more than makes up for the lackluster previous arc with an epic story that feels more like a short film than an episode of a show.
Right from the very beginning of the episode, 'Old Friends, Not Forgotten' makes it clear that this final arc of the show is going to be something to be remembered with an opening sequence that calls back to the 'Star Wars' movies. That's quite fitting when you think about it since this arc coincides with 'Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith' AND it's the final story of the last 'Star Wars' project George Lucas personally helped create.
The episode begins with Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) rescuing his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) from certain death at the hands of a massive army of droids. It's a pretty epic action sequence that highlights Anakin's sheer coolness the way the earliest seasons of 'Clone Wars' used to do.
After the battle comes Anakin's much-awaited reunion with his former Padawan Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), who is preparing to go to Mandalore to help Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) overthrow Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) and liberate the planet. There's a bit of debate about the politics of Republic forces going to Mandalore but the discussion is cut short later on in the story when news comes in that General Grievous (Matthew Wood) has attacked Coruscant and Chancellor Palpatine (Ian Abercrombie) is missing. We all know where that's headed (it's literally the whole of 'Revenge of the Sith).
Anakin and Obi-Wan say goodbye to Ahsoka but not before a platoon of clone troopers with helmets painted to match her markings, led by Ahsoka's old friend, the newly promoted Commander Rex (Dee Bradley Baker). Skywalker also gifts Ahsoka her old lightsabers and she wishes him luck in a truly powerful moment that's especially heartbreaking because we know this is the last time these two will meet before Anakin's fall to the dark side.
On Mandalore, we meet Maul's cronies, Prime Minister Almec (Julian Holloway), Gar Saxon (Ray Stevenson) and Rook Kast (Vanessa Marshall), all of whom have some really cool armor. We also get to see some more spectacular action with Ahsoka effortlessly taking down a fleet of ships before landing on the ground with an explosion going off behind her, 'Power Rangers'-style.
Moving down to the sewers of the planet, Ahsoka and her platoon get ambushed with all the clones dying like the cannon fodder they sadly are. But that's just set up for Darth Maul to make his entrance, setting up another mindblowing episode to come.
New episodes of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Season 7 drop on Disney+ every Friday.
