The Clone Wars season 4 episode 10 review: Carnage Of Krell

This review contains spoilers.

4.10 Carnage Of Krell

This incredibly shocking finale brings the excellent Umbaran arc to an end. And the surprises began quickly too, as the “defective” Clones (the words of Jedi Master General Pong Krell) are sentenced to death.

Krell has been a figure of hate in these past few episodes, and here he firmly takes centre stage as he orders the execution of Fives and Jesse – the soldiers who bravely saved the day last week. As the defiant couple is lined up, still wisecracking, there’s a real sense of doom followed by a gasp as the shots are fired. Lead by the rule-obsessed, Jedi-following Clone, Dogma, it’s nasty, with a deeply unpleasant tone.

But, without spoiling it for you, all does not go to plan.

The unnerving atmosphere is exacerbated in a horrific scene featuring Rex and his Clones as they are instructed to hunt down some Umbarans (who we never really get to see up close throughout this whole arc, incidentally). But there’s a problem – the enemy have acquired some Clone uniforms. And again, without spoiling it for you, all is not what it seems.

General Krell has been portrayed as a villain during the Umbaran story and, rather surprisingly, he is simply that. The Jedi is confronted by “his” men in a moment recalling Palpatine’s treason scene in Revenge Of The Sith. It is then his true motives are revealed.

The idea of a Jedi gone “bad” shouldn’t really be so shocking, as the whole Star Wars saga is about Darth Vader, but it still seems wrong to see a Jedi admit that the Dark Side is the “better” of the two.

There’s more, however. If fallen Jedi aren’t enough for you, the coda asks another question – or rather the Clones ask it. What happens to them after the war is over? What purpose do they serve then? And whom do they serve?

Carnage Of Krell is a wonderfully thoughtful end to an arc which brought the Clones, and the issues contained therein to the fore, along with the notions of what it means to be a Jedi; what it means to have free thought and what it means to do what your moral compass guides you to.

The Clone Wars, yet again, demonstrates that power of the show lies in the moral complexities it can address.

Read our review of last week’s episode here.

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