Trust is the greatest gift, but it must be earned.
Having fully infiltrated the Separatist conspiracy, Obi-Wan Kenobi contacts the Jedi to give them every piece of information they need to protect Chancellor Palpatine from Separatist attack during his visit to Naboo. The Jedi are confident in their security team, but Count Dooku's bounty hunters manage to destroy the force field around the Chancellor and allow Cad Bane to grab him in the resulting chaos. Initially confused by the bounty hunters' use of holograms, Obi-Wan blows his cover to fight Cad Bane and keep him occupied long enough for the Jedi to apprehend him and secure the Chancellor, seemingly ending the conflict.
Bane and the bounty hunters are returned to prison as the Jedi security team is disbanded, with the threat to the Chancellor now over. Anakin goes to bring the Chancellor to a dinner in celebration of his survival as Obi-Wan investigates the absence of Count Dooku from the actual kidnapping, only to deduce the Count bugged him, heard Obi-Wan's plan to sabotage the scheme, and waited until Cad Bane was arrested to strike again. Right on cue, the Chancellor and Anakin enter the dining hall to find none other than Dooku, who has his droids drag the Chancellor to the Count's spaceship while he duels Anakin through the palace's corridors. Dooku almost gets away with the Chancellor, but Obi-Wan comes in at the last second to save Palpatine as Anakin pushes Dooku into the rising spaceship, forcing the villain to escape empty-handed.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: We never really learn why Palpatine engineered the kidnapping plot. The ending duel between Anakin and Dooku implies that Palpatine did it to drive a wedge between Anakin and the Jedi, furthering his goal of corrupting the young man, but it's never made clear.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Averted with Bane, who fails in his hired plot to kidnap the Chancellor... but played straight with Palpatine, who gets everything he wanted. A wedge between Anakin and Obi-Wan and the Jedi Council has been shoved in thanks to Anakin taking Obi-Wan's deception poorly. Anakin's rage in the aftermath of the discovery proves sufficient enough that Dooku is put on the backfoot for a good chunk of the duel, and this means that his prospective apprentice is coming along nicely.
- Baddie Flattery: Just before his escape, Count Dooku commends Obi-Wan for his skill in infiltrating his kidnapping conspiracy and taking it down from the inside. In Dooku's eyes, this proves Obi-Wan is a great Jedi, unlike Anakin Skywalker, who Dooku reprimands for his poor form.
- Bait the Dog:Palpatine: One shudders to think where the galaxy might be without the Jedi.
- Call-Forward:
- The entire scene where Anakin and Palpatine enter the banquet hall only for Dooku to stand up from the far end of the table. Anakin himself will later pull something just like it.
- The ensuing duel is a massive one to the beginning of Revenge of the Sith; it's clearly designed with a similar purpose in mind. Anakin also comes damn close to winning in the same manner; his strength overpowers Dooku's. Unfortunately, choking Dooku instead of what he'd do later gives Dooku the time to electrocute Anakin off.
- "As long as I live no harm will ever come to you, Your Excellency," is a double whammy:
- It's one to Anakin's protection of Palpatine against Windu.
- And also an ironic reference to the fact that Anakin dies killing Palpatine in Return of the Jedi.
- Chase Fight: Dooku and his MagnaGuards grab the Chancellor and apply enough offensive pressure on Anakin in their duel to push the fight through Naboo's palace and straight into Dooku's getaway ship. Unfortunately for him, Obi-Wan pulls the Chancellor away at the last second as Anakin reverses positions with Dooku and pushes the Count into his spaceship.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The first half of this episode deals with Cad Bane's attempt to kidnap the head of the Republic and everything seems to wrap up once Bane's conspirators are captured. The second half presents Count Dooku, the series' main villain, launch a second kidnapping attempt, knowing the extra security had been dismissed once the Jedi felt confident Cad Bane's plot was the entirety of the conspiracy they were tracking.
- Dramatic Irony: In keeping with the series' tradition, it's quite clear that the real reason these events went down is because Palpatine wanted to test Anakin against Dooku once again, and drive a wedge between Anakin and Obi-Wan.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Played With. When Anakin rants at Obi-Wan for his blind trust in the Jedi Council, Obi-Wan's response is to start investigating if Bane's plot was the entirety of the conspiracy. While this is a valid concern, Obi-Wan more or less blowing off Anakin's rant means he's neglecting to mend the growing divide between Anakin and the Jedi, as well as neglecting to consider if the Jedi are wrong - both cases of dithering will ultimately cost the Jedi dearly in the long run.
- Foreshadowing:
- Anakin's duel with Dooku possesses similarities to their final confrontation during Revenge of the Sith.
- Palpatine takes significant interest in Anakin's more aggressive moves during the aforementioned duel, hinting at how he plans to replace Dooku with him.
- Glamour Failure: The Holographic Disguise Matrix frequently glitches out, allowing others to spot it.
- Holographic Disguise: The Holographic Disguise Matrix, an invention of Bounty Hunter Sinrich, is introduced in this episode. Cad Bane, Twazzi, Derrown, and Embo use it to disguise themselves as Senate Guards during their attempt to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine. They also throw the Jedi off their trail by disguising Palpatine as an unconscious guard while another member of the team takes on Palpatine's form.
- Hypocrite: While Anakin's reaction to discovering Obi-Wan's mission is understandable, him taking it personally isn't, since he's secretly married, and also once disregarded his Jedi vows even earlier than that, by killing an entire village of Tuskens as revenge for his mother's death. Furthermore, Obi-Wan's deception is ultimately a mission for the benefit of the Republic war effort, whereas both of Skywalker's secrets are completely self-serving.
- I Did What I Had to Do: This is Obi-Wan's justification for keeping his plan secret from Anakin. Anakin doesn't accept it.
- IKEA Weaponry: As part of his undercover infiltration of a kidnapping attempt, Obi-Wan is given a box with the components for a sniper rifle. Obi-Wan puts the sniper rifle together while transmitting intel on the mission to his Jedi overseers just before the mission, unknowingly blowing his cover to Count Dooku, who placed a bug in the rifle's box.
- I Knew There Was Something About You: Cad Bane says this when "Rako Hardeen" is revealed to be Obi-Wan.
- Innocuously Important Episode: The entire arc revolving around a failed attempt on the Chancellor could've easily been just another Story Arc, but the last third of the episode reveals that this was all just Palpatine's game to personally witness how Anakin fares against Dooku in a status check of his growing power and vulnerability to the Dark Side. And as noted in Xanatos Gambit, if Anakin had triumphed in killing Dooku, it's quite possible that Palpatine would’ve gotten his new apprentice far earlier than anticipated and with it, executed Order 66.
- Psychotic Smirk: Palpatine can be seen smirking while watching the fight between Anakin and Dooku a few times.
- Radar Is Useless: Count Dooku parks a Separatist transport shuttle directly above Naboo’s Royal Palace, where Chancellor Palpatine is staying, mere hours after he was kidnapped. Although, this can probably be excused due to the strong implications that Palpatine set the whole thing up to test Dooku against Anakin.
- Traitor Shot: During Anakin and Dooku's duel, Palpatine has a huge smirk on his face as he pretends to be in danger.
- Worthy Opponent: Just before his escape, Dooku praises Obi-Wan as a worthy adversary after he cleverly thwarted his attempt to kidnap Palpatine.
- Xanatos Gambit: Regardless of whether or not he as the Chancellor gets captured by Dooku, Palpatine has seen the wedge between Anakin and the Jedi grow significantly with this arc and that's what he really wanted. If Anakin killed Dooku, he might've had his new apprentice earlier than anticipated, though Anakin's failure to kill Dooku means he carries on with his plans as usual and gets more time to consolidate more power.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: When Dooku learns that Hardeen is actually Obi-Wan, he abandons Cad Bane and the other bounty hunters to their fates and improvises a new plan involving inviting the Chancellor to a fake banquet.
