This week on The Clone Wars: We end the Young Jedi story with "A Necessary Bond," which ties together plot points from several previous episodes into a pretty awesome conclusion. Count Dooku takes revenge of Hondo Ohnaka for kidnapping? It's here! Remember a very specific ship that crashed on Florrum a few years ago? It's here too! The episode gets a little weird in spots but hey, at least it isn't boring.

Much like how He-Man and Skeletor would, at times, team up against a common foe we get to see Ahsoka and the Jedi join forces with Hondo Ohnaka against the separatists this week. Hondo's wild mood swings are even brought up in the episode, with the mercurial not-quite-a-villain remaining one of the most consistently enjoyable elements of the show.

Click here for "A Necessary Bond" trailers and videos on YouTube

These episodes are as much about introducing the kids as they are about pointing out that Hondo will do pretty much whatever he feels like depending on the day. It also gets a little creepy in spots. Not like "ooh, that's scary" creepy but more like "why is he so amped up and smiley to get the Jedi kids on his side after trying to kidnap and/or kill them so many times?" And why/how could Ahsoka survive a duel with General Grievous? Well, it's a kid's show, is what I figure. In that context I'm a lot more forgiving, and to be honest, I really have a much better time watching this stuff.

We haven't seen a lot out of Count Dooku for a while, so seeing him return to take some revenge on Hondo's pirate gang was certainly a nice surprise and callback. How could a Sith Lord just let something like kidnapping go? (And really, how could a Sith Lord get kidnapped?) Seeing him bring down the entire power of his army on the pirates was something that really needed to happen, but it seems most of Hondo's crew got captured or somehow got scattered elsewhere in the galaxy. Ah well. Hopefully they'll show up again soon, because it seems Boba Fett might want to track them down to pick up their new pirate ship!

Takeaway from this week:

The Slave I got a new deco that's in between The Empire Strikes Back version and a Pirate flavor. Interesting!
Petro gets to be a bit of a hero and a bit less selfish this week.
Did you notice a not-Lady Luck in the background?

Is there anything better than watching R2-D2 argue with Battle Droids? I submit there is not.
Huyang is back and teases the kids with a story of how Yoda built his lightsaber! Which we will probably never hear.

Four stars **** for bringing us a decent conclusion to an engaging arc. Sure it was aimed at little kids, but it's way more interesting than some of the other fare on this show as of late.

Next Week: R2-D2 and the boyos in "Secret Weapons." I've really been looking forward to this arc, mostly because I think it has the potential for some great exclusive action figures for somebody some day were Hasbro so inclined.

See you then!