Welcome back! Another week, another outing of Star Wars: Rebels to enjoy! This week, the Ghost crew finally come face to face with the one and only, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Also, stuff blows up. A lot of stuff blows up. A Cham Syndulla makes an appearance!
So we’ve got a lot to get through with this episode so let’s just dive straight into our Five Thoughts. As always, there are spoilers ahead.
1. Return To Ryloth
Ryloth is perhaps my favourite planet in all of Star Wars. Sure, pretty much every time I’ve read or watched a story set there it’s followed a Syndulla in some way, but the history of Ryloth that the canon stories has been fascinating. It is, in many ways, a birthplace of rebellion dating back to the Clone Wars. Its people have been forged by their continual fight against oppression from the Separatists to the Empire. Bringing the show back here cemented the episode’s storyline in bringing the rebels face to face with Thrawn by juxtaposing it against a history of a people that have faced oppression for generations. It’s a deep level of history to the setting that matters in the context of the story.
It also allowed the season to reunite Hera with her father, Cham, once more, which is always a good thing.
2. Chopper’s History
We’ve begun to learn a lot more about the Ghost crew over the course of the last two seasons, but there’s one who’s mostly remained a mystery: Chopper. We’ve known that Chopper was a droid that Hera rescued from a crashed Y-Wing during the Clone Wars, but this episode actually shows that same Y-Wing (which Cham has left untouched as a shrine to what Ryloth endured) and Chopper’s reaction to it.
It’s a small moment, but I’ve said previously that Chopper is one of my least favourite characters on the show because he seems really one-dimensional and dickish at times (hey, even R2 has depth), but this helped sway me towards him. Showing Chopper with even a modicum of history and depth would go a long way to help me like him.
3. Face To Face With Thrawn
Thrawn is back! And he’s as evil and unsettling as ever. This episode, I think, does a better job utilising him than ‘Steps Into Shadow’. In that episode, he wasn’t much of a factor into the story beyond being introduced to the audience. Here, he’s… well, he’s still not actively doing much, to be fair, but his psychological warfare game with the rebels is at the forefront of the storytelling. He’s come to the home of one of the most prominent rebel leaders (both in terms of Cham and Hera) to learn about their history and lives in order to glean insight into how they think as warriors.
The show is playing a long game with Thrawn, that’s clear, and it would be east for that long game to make Thrawn seem ineffectual in the short term, but the menacing presence thanks to Lars Mikkelsen’s voice and the way the storytelling shows his methodical insight makes him a fascinating villain to follow. I can’t wait to see even more of him.
4. Battle For Ryloth
I’m really into this season using subplots to show the wider strength of the growing rebellion. Sure, this is Ryloth where there’s been pretty much a constant state of oppression and rebellion dating back to the Clone Wars, but this episode cutting back and forth from Hera and Ezra infiltrating the Imperial base to the rest of the crew’s fight with the Imperial patrol helped round the episode out. Not only did it give the episode a b-plot to cut to that was much more action packed than the rest of the episode, but it once again showed the ingenuity of the guerilla tactics that the rebels employ when facing a larger force.
5. “My Home Is My Crew, My Family”
What I like that this season seems to be doing so far is allowing the different members to take charge of missions, and therefore episodes, without thrusting them solely into the spotlight. Last season eventually dovetailed into the structure of having one or two main plot episodes that would generally focus on the trio of Jedi facing the Inquisitors before the other crew members got their own solo episodes that wouldn’t really build on the larger story at hand. This episode (and last episode, to boot) allowed for characters other than Ezra and Kanan to be put in the spotlight while still keeping a focus on a larger story.
Having the episode explore Hera’s childhood and history was a new place for the show to go, but I loved the fact that the show juxtaposed that with her encountering Thrawn. Thrawn’s study of Hera’s childhood was as much a part of the episode as us getting to see her home and shows a methodical and calculating side to the character that is deeply unsettling. It sets up a very personal rivalry that I hope they continue.
