The Republic is hounded by the Separatist fleet at every turn and they are spread thin.  Around a particular system, Anakin and three Republic cruisers are defending a strategic location as Grievous attacks.  Obi-wan had suggested a retreat but Anakin says they can win the battle.  The three cruisers lure the larger Separatists past an asteroid field, once clear the Republic springs its trap with some AT-TE walkers sitting on the asteroids.  The Separatist fleet, being out flanked, begins retreating but Grievous escapes (again) and Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter is damaged and blows up.  He’s rescued and brought back but tells Obi-wan he lost R2 and wasn’t able to wipe his memory.  The Republics plans and strategies are in there so Ahsoka and Anakin go track the droid down.  They also have the help of a new R3 series astromech droid who Ashoka calls Goldie (because he’s gold and black) and Anakin calls Stubby.  The nick name thing is really getting old people.

They track Artoo to a debris scavenger who says he doesn’t have it, but Anakin and Ahsoka look anyway.  They’re jumped by early model assassin droids (the IG-88 bounty hunter is an assassin droid) and they escape without R2 and without much help from R3.  In fact, R3 seems to be doing everything in its power to make Anakin’s life harder.  The scavenger sends a message to General Grievous saying he has the R2 unit.  Anakin continues to search for R2 and when R3 turns on his ship’s homing beacon, the Separatists arrive to take him out.  R3 also won’t turn the engines on after Anakin makes a breaking move to shoot down a bunch of droid fighter, leaving him a sitting duck.  Luckily Rex and a squadron of V-Wing fighters is there to save him.

Throughout the episode is the idea that the Separatists are somehow ahead of the Republic at every step and they believe there’s a spy or mole in their midst.  That coupled with the R3 unit constantly trying to kill Anakin and I felt like I was watching Phantom Menace where people were trying to figure out who Darth Sidious was even though Senator Palpetine was right there.  There’s a bit of obviousness to this episode that makes me wonder why no one else sees the obvious – the droid is the leak, and trying to get Anakin killed.  They make us believe that Artoo has a personality but that no other astromech droid does.  It’s highly likely Goldie/Stubby is a plant meant to wreck havoc and I have a feeling in the next episode, Artoo and R3 will “fight.”  And that will be…interesting.

As much as I like Artoo and Threepio, this show really needs to start working more on the humanity of this war.  The conflict is fought between identical clone soldiers and scads of droids, interspersed with just a handful of magic wielding warriors.  I’m sure this conflict impacts different planets and it would be interesting to see more aliens.  Working in a computer palette really shouldn’t limit the imagination but we keep seeing the same clones and the same robots over and over.

There was a moment of “Downfall of a Droid” that really struck a chord with me and cemented the idea that LFL is trying to cutsify war.  The scene after Ahsoka and Anakin debate the nickname of a new droid, they’re flying the Twilight through the debris field and the ship runs into a dead body floating in space.  It’s a quick shot and you might miss it, but it’s constant little things like that which show me that SOMEONE is trying to write a good story about the grisliness of war but keeps running into the Imperial hand of Lucas.  At this point, the best I can say is that Clone Wars is a cross between Saving Private Ryan and Care Bears.

I rolled my eyes a few times during this episode, but the battle scenes were pretty cool.  Also, seeing assassin droids was pretty cool.  Doesn’t save the fact that these Jedi generals are pretty dense.  I’ll give “Downfall” two and a half green lightsabers.