Katooni not being able to complete her lightsaber got a pretty weak/easy payoff, when just a few quick words of encouragement from Huyang had her getting it to work on the spot. Instead, we learn that Hondo has repaired and is in possession of the ship… something we know is not going to be the case forever, which deftly sets up a Hondo/Boba alliance and/or confrontation at some point. A natural fan assumption was to expect the next time we’d see the ship, it would be with Boba Fett himself having reclaimed it. What a cool moment it was when Slave-1 was revealed! It makes total sense of course, given the ship was last seen going down in a big explosion on Florrum in Season 2’s ”Lethal Trackdown”. It’s just unfortunate that episode took him to such a weird, extreme place, especially since seeing Hondo team with the Jedi this week was really great, even after the Hondo/Obi-Wan team-up in the season premiere (which, again, was produced and takes place after this episode). But in “A Test of Strength,” he was actually so cool with killing them, his own men were taken aback. In this episode, Hondo was morally wary of bringing these children into battle, yet he had no qualms about murdering these same kids! Yes, Ahsoka calls out that he recently “attacked” them, but I can buy Hondo stealing from kids. The culmination of this entire arc is Hondo deciding to team up with Ahsoka and the younglings for their mutual benefit (and escape), and that being the case, I have to once more bring up how much Hondo’s behavior in “A Test of Strength” sticks out like a sore thumb.

Clone wars a test of strength