Broken Frontier

The latest installment of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, titled “Weapons Factory,” picks up where “Landing at Point Rain” left off. Republic forces have dealt a crippling blow to the defenses surrounding a Separatist droid factory on Geonosis, and now it’s up to Padawans Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee to infiltrate the foundry’s catacombs and destroy its main reactor. Meanwhile, their masters Anakin Skywalker and Luminara Unduli must stage a large-scale assault on the factory to distract the villainous Poggle the Lesser and his seemingly endless supply of battle droids and Geonosian warriors. The Padawans succeed, the factory is destroyed and plenty of droids are sliced to bits. But the action in this episode—while suitably bombastic—takes a backseat to the growing tension between Anakin and Ahsoka.

At the beginning of the episode, Ahsoka is holding a briefing on the factory assault, but Anakin interrupts her repeatedly in front of the troops. Understandably, Ahsoka is none too pleased by her master’s lack of faith in her leadership ability and calls him out on it. He claims he is only trying to help—which he is—but his apparent distrust in her seems to stem from the same attachment issues that will instigate his turn to the dark side of the Force. This is a bad sign.

Later on in the episode, when Ahsoka and Barriss blow up the factory’s main reactor—burying themselves in rubble in the process—Anakin refuses to believe that his Padawan might be dead. Luminara, on the other hand, is willing to accept that Barriss may have met her noble end. “It’s not that I gave up, Skywalker, but unlike you, when the time comes, I am prepared to let my student go,” Luminara says. “Can you say the same?”

In the end, Anakin’s unwavering faith in his Padawan’s survival proves that he does indeed trust in Ahsoka’s abilities, but it also highlights how this student-teacher relationship could prove hazardous later on. Smartly, Dave Filoni and the rest of the Clone Wars team have paired Anakin with a character that has no predetermined fate. Will Anakin’s destructive influence lead to her downfall?  Will Ahsoka survive the Clone Wars despite being absent in Revenge of the Sith? If so, what happens to her? Episodes such as this one force us to ask these questions without beating us over the head with foreshadowing.

While not as action-packed as “Landing at Point Rain,” “Weapons Factory” is an exciting continuation of the Republic’s Geonosis campaign. But, more importantly, it sheds new and necessary light on the emerging strengths and weaknesses of Anakin and Ahsoka’s partnership.