Quite a few surprises in that one, so here's a brief list of things I didn't seem coming going into these episodes: -
- Senator Chuchi not just returning (appropriately aged up), but getting two whole episodes centred squarely on her.
- Senator Pamlo showing up in animation at all, ever (and still played by the same actress no less!)
- Both the Banking Clan and (maybe?) the Commerce Guild still having senate representation.
- The "Mysterious Sniper" NOT turning out to be Crosshair.
- Echo leaves to Batch to join Rex* (though I kinda did by about the half-way point.)
- Rampart being given the push so early in the season (I assumed that would come much later.)
- Palpatine turning the whole thing around and getting his way, no matter the outcome (but I really should have by this point, so that's on me!)
Also some unanswered questions that one hopes gets expanded upon in the rest of the season like: what the hell is Crosshair going to do now? With Rampart out, and the Empire going full on with the Stormtrooper program, he's in an even more tenuous position than ever. Will he return to the fold, or go full Death Trooper in a desperate bid for relevance?
Speaking of; I'm presuming what we're seeing with the Clone assassin is the beginning of the Death Troopers; fanatically loyal and cybernetically enhanced to the point where they're half-way to being droids. (I also presume that both this and the Dark Trooper program all fall under the 'War Mantle' project, since apparently it's still a thing decades later.)
What's going to become of Chuchi? We know the Clones end up decommissioned and abandoned, so that doesn't go well. Plus we never see her later as part of the Alliance. Not saying she's 100% going to get "disappeared", but there's a fairly good chance. I mean it's not like the ISB (if it exists yet) are going to take long to draw a direct line between the colossal breach of security at the shipyards, and Chuchi presenting evidence that could only have been obtained from Rampart's ship, mere minutes after some mysterious mercenary group took it for a tiny joy-ride. Whether she can be directly implicated or not, Imperial internal security is going to be all up in her business.
I'm not certain but did the dialogue verify it had been a year since the destruction of the cities on Kamino?
Not exactly. If anything the dialogue only proves that it can't have been more than a year ago.
All that's said is that the funding intended for the cloning program had been siphoned off over the past year, and that said funds began being diverted "months" in advance of the destruction of Kamino.
That could mean two months in advance, or six, or ten. So the chronology is as ever, still fairly vague.