The Rebellion continues! Welcome back to another instalment of our Five Thoughts on the second season of Star Wars: Rebels. This episode, we get an adventure solely about Ezra and his frustration over being torn between duties as a pirate, a soldier and a Jedi.
So read on to find out what we thought of the episode! But, be warned, there are spoilers a-plenty!
1. Introducing Ezra Bridger’s Hit Song ‘I’m Not A Soldier, Not Yet A Jedi’
This episode is the first one in a long while that I’ve found myself not hating Ezra. I’ve always kind of held it against the character that Filoni and the Rebels writers have made him this sort of proto-Luke Skywalker kid, but in this episode they thankfully gave him a bit more depth. The episode’s opening scene, with Ezra being torn between blaster training with Rex and Jedi training and even ship maintenance with Hera made the feeling that the character was trying to be too many things at one time an actual plot point, making him feel frustrated that he was being pulled in too many different directions.
It’s a good narrative arc for the character in this episode and I think the events of the episode allowed him to solidify each different aspect of his personality in this season into something a bit more unique going forward instead of just being a Luke clone. Like Hondo said, he should just become a pirate Jedi.
2. Swapping Out One Crime Lord For Another, Or The Return Of Jim Cummings
Speaking of Hondo, and continuing this season’s streak of bringing back elements from The Clone Wars, this episode sees the return of everyone’s favourite Jim Cummings-voiced Star Wars pirate, Hondo Ohnaka. Or, at least, my favourite Jim Cummings-voiced Star Wars. Hondo’s episodes were always some of my favourite in The Clone Wars and I’m really glad to see him back, mostly for the assurance that he’s essentially the same character after all these years and he’s pulling all the same swindles.
It was also nice seeing him interact with and try to con Vizago, who was something of a similar character in the first season of Rebels, and Azmorigan, who briefly showed up in the first season too, but more on him later.
3. Off On An Adventure!
Something that struck me about this episode was how it felt, initially, like Luke and R2’s journey to Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back. Something about the dialogue and the way Ezra and Chopper interacted when leaving Garel reminded of Luke and R2’s whole “no, we’re not going back to the rest of the fleet” scene from Empire. While I admittedly get on Rebels‘ case for making Ezra into too much of a Luke proxy at times, I did appreciate this scene as a nice little nod.
It helped too that it was only a nod as the rest of the episode focused on what made Ezra really unique compared to Luke: the fact that he’s a pirate more than a Jedi. He’s able to con and swindle Ohnaka just as much as Ohnaka or Azmorigan or even Vizago think they can swindle him and it was a really cool thing to see him show those skills off too. Plus, seeing the blaster practice scene come to fruition during the superb action scene in the hanger was a really nice sequence that allowed the show to show off different aspects of Ezra’s character and make me appreciate him a little more.
4. Calling Back To The First Season
I told you there’d be more about Azmorigan. Something I liked about this episode was that it was pretty much the second half to a story set up in the ‘Idiot’s Array’ episode of the first season. That was the one that introduced Lando Calrissian to the show as well as Azmorigan and many of the plot points from that episode are followed up on here. It’s no coincidence that Ezra just happened to pick Lando as the fake name to give to Hondo when Hondo’s supposed to be meeting Azmorigan, who got conned by Ezra and Lando in the first season.
Continued belowThis is a great way for the show to maintain a sense of continuity in that the actions of the Ghost crew have consequences and the writers of the show are able to follow up on them without just having retreads of previous episodes. All in all, this was a pretty solid, exciting episodes.
5. Hondo Ohnaka, Jedi Sympathiser
This is a quick thought as there’s not much else to say about this episode, but I loved the moment of having Hondo admit to being friends with a Jedi. I’m pretty sure he’s referencing Obi-Wan more than Anakin here, but it was a nice moment to solidify that the events of The Clone Wars did mean something to the characters that experienced them and it wasn’t just a series of stuff happening. Like I said, a quick thought, but one that I really appreciated.
