Now that a week has passed and I’ve gotten over my initial objections to Hondo’s unexpected reassertion of cartoonish villainy, I could settle in and really enjoy “Bound for Rescue,” the third part of the Young Jedi Knights arc. And what an excellent episode this turned out to be! This was the worthy follow-up to “The Gathering” that I’d hoped for from “A Test of Strength.” I’m a firm believer that the more bombastic Tom Kane is in his opening narration, the better the resulting episode will be. And Kane was on fire at the beginning of “Bound for Rescue.” “Piracy in deep space!” he belted, with full old-time radio panache. It was the perfect set-up to see our poor younglings, adrift in space onboard their nearly wrecked corvette, the Crucible. The ship, sputtering steam and belching smoke, lay listing on its axis, making us realize how rare it is ever to see a starship at anything but a right-angle in the Star Wars galaxy. But this opening shot, with the ship nearly upside down, showed how beautifully Dave Filoni and the Lucasfilm Animation team are pushing the envelope of spatial possibilities on this show—they’re starting to create an idea of space in which there is no up, down, right or left. Exactly as it should be.
Onboard the Crucible, the younglings succeeded in making a holotransmission to Obi-Wan, who quickly shot down the rash Petro’s idea of a rescue mission to recover Ahsoka, still in Hondo’s leathery hands. He wanted them to sit tight and wait for Commander Cody to come render assistance. That’s not what Petro wanted to hear, but, considering that last week he threatened to challenge Obi-Wan to a duel, I suppose he handled his disappointment a bit more maturely than we might have expected.
As it turns out, there was nothing for Cody to do. Though their battle group was out in the middle of nowhere, a Separatist armada suddenly leapt out of the void and ambushed them. Now Obi-Wan and Cody were the ones who needed assistance.
Back at the Crucible, R2 was trying to put Huyang back together again like some kind of mechanical humpty-dumpty. I suppose these are the droid-repair skills that he’ll later employ when reassembling C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back. And the younglings were putting the finishing touches on their lightsabers. Each one had to be assembled like a puzzle, but a puzzle you put together with no hands, just telekinetic powers, and with your eyes closed for extra show-offiness. The most impressive saber by far was the Wookiee Gungi’s wood-handled blade, carved in honor of the forests of his Kashyyyk home. Poor Katooni’s, though, just couldn’t ignite yet. Which was unfortunate because Petro, Byph, and Gungi wanted to launch a rescue mission of their own for Ahsoka. I mean, they might as well give it a shot, seeing as how Genodi told them they’d have to land on Hondo’s homeworld of Florrum, anyway, to let their engines cool.
(Celebuzz)
