[Some plotlines may be revealed ahead!]

The beginning of this season of ‘Clone Wars’ felt a little scattered to me.  We began our journey in the underwater world of Mon Calamari, which was beautifully rendered, if not a little confusing.  The world itself didn’t grow old for me so much as the character of Prince Lee-Char did.  There’s only so many times you can promise to lead your people to freedom before you have to actually act on it, a key point which Lee-Char didn’t seem to understand.  Then we met up with Jar Jar again for some hijinks, and took a side trip for a few episodes with R2D2 and C3PO.  While I like the droids (but not Jar Jar) as much as the next person, these felt like distractions instead of plot additions.  Thankfully, we soon landed on Umbara where we got back to the fighting and action.

This season has give us some incredible villains so far.  Riff Tamson, with his enormous shark head, was truly terrifying.  Those jagged teeth were quite intimidating, and on top of that, he was ruthless in getting what he wanted.  The sight of him cracking Padme’s helmet so she could slowly drown was unexpected and alarming, to say the least.  Maybe I have an irrational fear of sea creatures, but Tamson was cold and calculating enough to make me nervous.

And of course, we have General Krell, who was just rude enough to Rex and the other Clones to tip off the audience that something was amiss.  His repeated insults and his disregard for the safety of the 501st became more and more suspicious.  What’s most frightening about Krell is his casual indifference.  The way he arranged for the Clones to fire upon each other and destroy themselves is evil genius, but he didn’t even seem to take notice of what he’d done.  It was the same blank disregard you’d expect from the smashing of a bug.

Of course Krell and Tamson both came to an unhappy end, but there’s no shortage of villains in the show.  The mid-season came to a close with quite a cliffhanger – Obi-Wan, Rex, and Ahsoka have been taken prisoner, and Anakin is on his own if he’s going to save them.  I have no doubt that he’ll think of something, but I’m certainly eager to see how he does it.

Season Four of ‘Star Wars: Clone Wars’ is scheduled to return January 6th.