REVIEW: ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars,’ Season 7, Episode 4 – “Unfinished Business”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is back this week with episode 4, “Unfinished Business.” The previous episode saw Rex, the Bad Batch, and Echo escaping Skako Minor by the skin of their teeth all due to Echo’s inherent connection with the droid army. Now, in “Unfinished Business,” Echo wants to use this connection to finally bring about a win for the Republic.

Echo brings up a plan to bring down the Separatist assembly complex on Anaxes. While Windu leads a team of troopers to retake the assembly complex, the Bad Batch escorts Echo and Rex into Separatist General Trench’s new communication vault. This also happens to be on a Separatist Dreadnought orbiting Anaxes. Echo plans to hack into the communications and feed Trench incorrect strategies so the Republic will finally have a win in the war on Anaxes. But first, they must get on the ship and Echo has a brilliant idea on how to do just that.

“Unfinished Business” brings a close to the plotline that started in the first episode of this season. The episode ties up most loose strings succinctly and without the plot holes I usually expect of a cartoon series. But I’m left wondering what this arc was really all about. I’m always interested and supportive when I see this series bringing the clones into a better light and expanding on their humanity, but these past four episodes really don’t seem to be that important in the grand scheme of things. Sure, we get to see some closure on Echo and Rex’s part, and Anakin beginning to turn away from the Jedi way, but these episodes don’t strike me as a required watch in this series. Perhaps this will be proven erroneous in the future, but, for now, these last four episodes were at least entertaining.

We get some great scenes where we see Anakin becoming more and more unhinged and purposefully turning his back on the ways of the Jedi. These scenes are really bringing us closer to the Anakin we see in Revenge of the Sith. In one scene, when a door slides open and all you see is Anakin’s face contorted in rage and eyes filled with such a deep-set hatred, you’re left to ruminate on what this means for the future. The animation is amazing here; these scenes show just how much Anakin is allowing his hate to control him. Anakin, your Vader is showing.

Past episodes have really excelled in the fight sequences, but there’s a distinct lack here. We get a few fight scenes, but they’re a bit lackluster and just not as dynamic. We do get to see Crosshair do some cool sharpshooting with mirrors which may almost make up for it. The lack of fight choreography is understandable since the main mission in this episode is a stealth one, but it’s a bit of a let-down when you’ve come to expect some amazing fight animation concerning the Bad Bath.

“Unfinished Business” doesn’t suffer from the previous episode’s errant pacing; the pacing is consistent throughout. This episode also does well in making the audience question Echo’s intentions. There’s something slightly off about Echo and this is consistent through the episode. The audience is left questioning if Rex’s trust in Echo is errant until the very end.

The animation and voice acting never fails to astound me in this series. The animation has evolved over the years, and season 7 brings with it great body language and facial expressions that really breed empathy in the audience. Between the snarling voice of Anakin (Matt Lanter), and the multitude of clones voice-acted by Dee Bradley Baker, the acting is always exemplary and moving. Baker has a talent for making each and every clone have his own voice despite them all technically having the same voice. This is really brought home with the acting done for the members of the Bad Batch.

Overall, “Unfinished Business” does well and finds a decent ending to the plot started in episode 1 of the season. With a lack of action, what carries this episode is its focus on Anakin’s devolving mental state and the clones themselves as they question Echo’s motives every step of the way. The episode was entertaining enough and the acting and animation excellent as usual, but I’m left with a question of what the point of this arc was with so few episodes left.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars “Unfinished Business” is exclusively on Disney+ now.