Let's Talk About THE CLONE WARS Season 7 Episode 5 - "Gone with a Trace"
I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed in the latest episode of The Clone Wars, “Gone with a Trace.” I’ll get into it in a bit, but if you haven’t seen the episode yet, this is your warning that we’re going to get into spoilers for the episode, so stop reading. You can catch new episodes of The Clone Wars every Friday on Disney+.
OK, so “Gone with a Trace” is the return of Ahsoka Tano. I love Ahsoka and was very excited for this episode. We see her being an ordinary citizen getting used to the lower levels of Coruscant when her speeder bike dies on her and she meets a mechanic Trace. Now, Trace is super eager to get Ahsoka as a customer as well as a friend and it’s off-putting to me how awkward the whole interaction is.
Well, some thugs come to collect some money that Rafa, Trace’s sister, owes them. Ahsoka helps Trace fight off the thugs, quickly solidifying their friendship. They then go to meet Rafa and we get the very used storyline of the older sibling keeps doing shady jobs in hopes of making things better for their younger sibling. Meanwhile, the younger sibling goes along with everything begrudgingly and even does what they can to help the older sibling while the friend looks on in horror. This is a story we’ve seen a thousand times in television and film. This really disappointed me though. Not because it’s not an original story, but because I felt like they didn’t do anything with it. Usually, The Clone Wars is good about taking these trope-filled stories and playing with them a little to create unique spins or interesting moments. There was none of that in this episode. There was one interesting moment after they meet Rafa and it had nothing to do with the sisters. I was hoping for more than just a cookie cutter story.
So, what did I find interesting? The Twi’lek child that sees Ahsoka use the Force. I’m really curious to see if they play a bigger role in things down the line. Are they going to rat Ahsoka out or maybe it’s a red herring.
I know that this episode is starting a story, but this start felt very lackluster to me. What did you think of “Gone with a Trace?”