2x03 Children of the Force

7.5/10. One of the things that throws me off about this show is that its episodes are sometimes neither complete stories nor chapter in a larger story, but instead a series of loosely connected vignettes. That gives it some problems in pacing, but sometimes those vignettes are entertaining enough that it's easy to overlook it. That's the case "Children of the Force", where the three part's of the story -- Bane's capture, the search for the holocrystal, and the baby rescue, have only a loose connection in how the stories affect one another, but each segment is interesting enough that it works.

Bane's escape and recapture was an interesting setup, if only to see him infiltrate various locales and try to do his dirty work. There was something creepy about the way Anakin, Obi Wan, and Mace Windu were collectively mind torturing him, though, and I don't know if it was intentional. While brief, Obi Wan and Mace retrieving the holocrystal was a visually exciting segment that made sense, even if it was semi-convenient for Bane to be able to escape once more.

And the last segment featuring the baby rescue had a certain corniness to it, with the Emperor lording over them and scowling and boasting about his evil plan, but Anakin and Ahsoka's rescue attempts, replete with scalpel-wielding nurse droids, gave it some stakes in a well executed sequence. The whole was nothing more than the sum of its parts, but it was still a good episode all-in-all.