The following contains spoilers, do not read if you havent seen the episode yet:

Well this season starts bloody awful. Three episodes in a row with Padme and Jar Jar. OK I get it that Naboo is the homeworld for both of these characters but why oh why is it always Padme who is sent to negotiate/get-in-trouble/see wtf is going on and not anyone else? Is it just a plan by Palpatine trying to get her killed or what? dang, like theres no other senators that could be sent to these situations.

So apparently the Gungans are rumoured to be allied with the separists and they plan on attacking Theed. Well of course the gungan boss has been manipulated by an eeeeevul gungan and naturally Anakin, Padme and Jar Jar are there to solve this matter. What is strange to me, why would the confederacy want to attack Naboo? What would they gain from capturing this planet?

The Droid army on Naboo is lead by someone who I thought was bloody damn time to make some screentime at last, General Grievous. The episode became far better all of a sudden, dont you think?

Despite my ranting of the character set-up, I think this was a better episode than the MonCal episodes. I kinda liked the grim feeling of it in the very certain moment when we lose a character we see for the first time in the series and for the first time ever since TPM.

Episode got better towards the end, I admit. Altho I must also admit I did not think that the prisoner exchange would have happened within the same episode. I think that there could have been an interesting scenario in which both sides send their specialists to rescue their own from the clutches of the other. But why waste an episode or two to an interesting (yet somewhat done) scenario when you can have more Padme episodes instead?

Just watched this myself, pretty cracking episode, nice mood to it, interesting plot etc, agree with pretty much everything that has already been said, could easily have gone on to be a two parter, I'd have rather the opening Mon Cal story had been a two parter and that arc's third episode could have been donated to this one. Also like how it was a little like Return of the Jedi in that an underated species ends up getting the better of a far superior foe, really good action sequence that, and the Anakin take down was pretty good too, but agree it was perhaps a little too easy in both cases for these heroes of both factions to be taken down. That said Anakin was facing off against numerous Magna Guard droids which were supposed to be designed specifically to take down Jedi, so if anyone could take Anakin it would be Dooku and a pack of those guys. Also as you mention, Jar Jar was really well written for in this episode, not coming off as annoying at all which is a feat in itself. Jar Jar sitting across from General Grevious over a conference table, the chair schtick, all of it was genius. This was a really good episode, and I hope the rest of the season follows this path.