The Clone Wars - S7E7: Dangerous Debt
THE CLONE WARS / DISNEY +
Similar to the third episode of The Bad Batch, the third episode of Ahsoka’s arc, Dangerous Debt, is also centred around action. The fighting only lets up for one brief monologue from Rafa but, other than that, the plot revolves around Ahsoka and the Martez sisters attempting to escape from the imprisonment that must have come shortly after the last shot of the previous episode.
As an action-centric episode, Dangerous Debt is neither great nor terrible, but merely fine. The action isn’t anything that avid Clone Wars viewers haven’t seen before, but it also does a good job of clearly laying out the locations of numerous characters. It also includes a fair share of comedy, most of which comes with the playful bit of Ahsoka needing to keep her force powers hidden from her companions.
The need for concealment, if it wasn’t made crystal clear in earlier episodes, will surely come after Rafa’s aforementioned monologue. It wasn’t the most surprising backstory one could have expected, especially for fans of superhero movies where ‘collateral damage’ becomes an easy target for the skewering of masks and capes (Batman vs. Superman, Captain America: Civil War).
Rafa’s story, which is made far more touching than the bland writing deserves, along with Kevin Kiner’s elegant score simply adds fuel to the fire, implying that the Jedi aren’t all they seem. It’s a common undercurrent that has run through a ton of Star Wars related material; the Jedi aren’t anything more than soldiers without a war to fight. All this episode does is add a human face (or two, more precisely) to that sentiment. If only Trace and Rafa had more to their characters than being stand-ins for a moral conflict within Ahsoka, the latter’s monologue could have been more powerful.
Still, for those who aren’t fans of forced sentimentality or subliminal (though not so subtle) messages, Dangerous Debt also provides a tease of Ahsoka’s next conflict. This comes in the form of a trio of warriors that owners of a Disney+ subscription may recognise from another Star Wars TV show. It’s not particularly complex or innovative storytelling on the part of the writers, but it will definitely make viewers a little bit more excited for what comes next, and it could make some forget about the narrative missteps that have plagued Ahsoka’s arc so far.
This episode is easily the strongest in Ahsoka’s arc, if only because it has so much going on: action, emotion and a tease for the next episode. If one of the three is disappointing, there are always the other two to keep viewers invested.
