Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 4 "Plan of Dissent"

Another episode full of clones, it just never gets old! This one was especially good in that department, with lots of Clone development throughout the episode. Even Dogma, the only one I so far haven't liked in this arc, was developed and was better than in the last two episodes. But as always, Hardcase beats the rest! More will be revealed on Hardcase later...

This was a really funny scene in the episode. Hardcase is preparing for the rogue mission by testing his piloting skills (lack of). Hardcase ends up making a mess of the piloting, and damages lots of equipment, before blowing the door of the hangar open with a missile. Hardcase and Fives then pretend to Krell that there was an Umbaran booby trap, and Hardcase saved the clones from something worse. I also found it funny when Fives caught a Clone trying to alert Krell to what was going on during Hardcase's piloting, but Fives caught the Clone and took over. I loved Jesse's sarcasm to Hardcase "I thought the plan was to destroy the enemy ship with the fighters, not blow up our own hangar!" Fives, Jesse & Hardcase played a critical role in this episode, seeing as they are the ones to go rogue with the danger of severe consequences on them.

Dogma was terrible the  last two episodes, and what we heard of him being a "rule follower" just didn't match up in the last two episodes. However, in this one, Dogma was definitly portrayed better, though he still isn't among my liked clones. When Dogma realizes what Fives, Jesse & Hardcase are doing, he tries to do things by the rules, and tell Krell of those three disobeying orders, but Rex stops him. Leaving Dogma to leave, without doing his rule following. I liked that scene between Rex and Dogma, quite reminded me of "Brain Invaders" in season 2 for some reason...

I really liked the space battle in this episode. Okay, it was shorter than I hoped and it mainly focused on just Jesse, Fives & Hardcase rather than the space battle as a whole, but it was still pretty epic. The amount of ships in some of the shots was amazing. I liked the reference to TPM (The Phantom Menace) in the way Fives, Jesse & Hardcase entered the Separatist supply ship. Instead of blowing it up from the outside, they took the riskier option of blowing it up from inside. The entrance into the ship was quite funny, as one battle droid is giving orders when Fives's ship sends the droid flying. The tactical droid was pretty stupid and uneccessary, making a comment about the odds of clones being on their ship.

And here we come to the best scene of the episode, and the sacrifice of my favourite Clone. R.I.P Hardcase. When ray shields are put up, preventing the three clones from taking out the reactor. Hardcase does the noble thing Fives & Jesse would not do. Spotting an opening, Hardcase grabs a Umbaran missile, and drags it towards the reactor. As Fives & Jesse leave the ship, Hardcase thrusts the missile towards the reactor, and dies as it explodes, proving a honourable sacrifice and one that could lead to the winning off the Battle of Umbara. Hardcase was by far the best character in this episode, and had a lot of character development. Hardcase's sacrifice is among the best scenes in this show, and it suited the character entirely. His quotes during it made it an even more emotional death (I'll post the quotes after the review).

Having arrived back on Umbara. Fives & Jesse are forced to go to Krell. This is a dark moment in the series, as Krell is disgusted that any clones would disobey his orders. Krell tells Fives & Jesse that they will be court marshalled, found guilty, and be executed for their crime. Krell tells them "Make no mistake, for crossing me. You, will pay the price." Very un-Jedi like, but that's what I like so much about Krell. He isn't you're usual Jedi that is compassionte and all that nice stuff, Krell is going to push his clones to their best, and they could die, which could happen under any Jedi anyway. It's going to be epic to see Krell wield his double-bladed lightsabers next week for a "good" reason, not to take out some animals. Krell adds a really darker side to the whole plot of Umbara, and that is why the character is so awesome.

My verdict: This was another excellent episode! The whole development of the clones, especially Hardcase, was excellent to see! Hardcase's sacrifice was totally epic, and makes me love the character even more! Kudos to whoever wrote this episode! The space battle was a sight to see. My only problem would be the first half of the episode had pretty much no action, but it did have a lot of cool Clone scenes. Rating: 9.5/10

Hardcase's epic quotes:
"HAHA! I'm just doing it for fun!"
"This is for the 501st! Don't wait for me!"
 ‎"Live to fight another day, boys. Live to fight another day!" *before being exploded*