“It is the quest for honor that makes one honorable.”

“Deserter” is a fantastic episode insofar as it is a sincere exploration of the clones as individuals. In fact, this installment is perhaps the best the series has to offer into real character drama. Unfortunately, the episode is an uneven affair, balancing the character work with a subplot that doesn’t really amount to a whole lot, either in terms of buildup or payoff. The result is a surprisingly arresting story that isn’t given enough time on screen.

With Grievous on the planet surface, Obi-Wan lands and tries to track down his quarry. After splitting his forces to speed the search, Rex is shot and his men bring him to a farmhouse to recuperate. Once there, they find a Twi’lek woman and two children — one of whom claims that Rex, “looks like my daddy.” After the troops leave Rex to continue their mission, Rex confronts Cut Lawquane, a clone deserter.

That such a thing has happened seems entirely inexplicable to Rex. Cut tells the story of how, just after the battle of Geonosis his team was shot down and all of his comrades were killed. He alone survived and, having been out of the war for so long, he fell in love and *chose* to live a life on his own, without going back to fight for the Republic.

What ensues is something of a debate between the two characters. Rex is firmly entrenched in his “programming” that fighting for the Republic is the *only* thing that matters — well, that and standing by your “brothers” in battle. Cut counters that there is more to life than dying for someone else’s war. He goes on to say that the power of choice matters and that he has chosen his own family. Rex says that he has “chosen” to fight for the Republic and the episode wisely allows both statements to stand on their own merits.

It’s this interplay between characters — between clones — that is the real heart of the episode. By exploring the clones themselves, by humanizing them, the series becomes much more sophisticated in its overall presentation. Clearly, the clones who fight and die in these episodes are not just mindless drones. And that should make each death all the more poignant (without having to reestablish this point in each installment).

Unfortunately, that is the high point of the episode. Rex and Cut will soon have to fight alongside one another (to repel an attack by commando droids). And the two will gain respect for one another through the shared conflict. But the situation is brought about by the whole “children acting stupidly” plot device. I mean, really, did we *have* to see the children inadvertently reactivate the commando droids? Wouldn’t it have been more straightforward to have the commando droids already active and descending upon the homestead after tracking the clones who carried Rex to safety?

Worse yet, the rest of the episode is pretty much filler material. An inordinate amount of time is spent on Obi-Wan searching … then looking for … then tracking … then hunting … Grievous. The sequences themselves are hardly noteworthy or illuminating, much less entertaining. And when juxtaposed with the much more intriguing and moving story between Rex and Cut, they seem more like ill-timed commercial breaks. At best we have the creepy “deaths” of the battle droids who run out of power, but not even a brief-but-intense firefight between Obi-Wan and his troops and Grievous can save the subplot.

Oh, and Grievous escapes.

In a nice touch, though, the episode ends with Rex making a fateful “choice.” He says, of reporting Cut’s desertion, “I have no choice.” But he makes the decision to conveniently “forget” what happened on the homestead, thereby not quite shirking his duty. It’s a subtle distinction, but it still represents what the story was all about: the power of choice.

Overall Grade: C+

“Deserter” gets a lot of credit for its depiction of the clones. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is entirely forgettable. The result is an installment that is just a “cut” above average, but not quite a classic.

Topics: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, TV Reviews
Filed under: Clone Wars

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