4x17 The Box

8.7/10. This one shouldn't have been as good as it turned out. If there's something I've complained about multiple times on this show, it's video game plotting, where rather than a progression in the story, our heroes just start facing "different levels" with little connective tissue between them. Well, this was basically one big video game, replete with levels, where each one led to a new, Portal-meets-Saw 2 challenges.

But damn if that didn't give the episode some pretty great structure. The puzzles that Eval/the show's creators came up with were visually interesting and did a good job at creating tension within a given sequence. A ticking clock is the easiest way to make something more tense, but it really worked here. Plus, the character stakes of Obi Wan trying to live by the Jedi code while not giving himself away, Eval trying to prove his worth and not be upstaged within his own challenge box, and Count Dookue doing his usual "pit everyone against one another" routine helped give an added dimension to all of these challenges rather than making them a perfunctory series of obstacles.

Plus, Cad Bane, who was already a character who could get by on a certain coolness alone, has a great character moment as well, when he saves Obi Wan-as-Jardin because otherwise Eval wasn't living up Bane's wild west code of taking someone out like a man. The final fight between Obi Wan and Eval surrounded by flame was a visual treat, and overall this episode kept you interested and invested the whole time.