Rebels: "The Siege of Lothal -- Part 2" (Ep. 2.02)

"We're going to have to smuggle ourselves off Lothal for a change."

Ezra meets Vader...

It doesn't go well.

It doesn't go well for anyone. 

Vader takes on a whole rebel fleet in his special TIE fighter, and we see why he's so feared as a pilot. Seriously, the stuff he does with his TIE is so far beyond anything we've seen from him, and we saw Anakin do a lot of impressive flying during Clone Wars.

The take away, though, and this is spoilery, is that Vader discovers his old apprentice is still alive.

Really, that's all I'm going to say about all of this (almost). It was a great start to season two and bringing Vader and Ahsoka together has me fully invested in where this is going to go.

All that and Lando makes an appearance.

And the Emperor.

Rebels: "Empire Day" (Ep. 1.7)

Empire Day is exactly what it sounds like, the equivalent of Independence Day. Except I guess you could call this Loss-of-Independence Day. As it turns out, it's also Ezra's birthday. Yeah, not a good day for Ezra since, as it turns out, the Empire is responsible for whatever happened to Ezra's parents. Ezra's parents who ran an underground radio speaking out against the Empire.

The episode centers around the unveiling of the new TIE Fighter Advance during the Empire Day celebrations on the planet Lothal, Ezra's home planet. Kanan and crew have special plans for the new ship. But there's a Rodian on the loose, and the Empire is after him. Of course, the crew of The Ghost end up involved. As does the Inquisitor.

This is actually a two-part episode, so I'm reserving judgement until I watch the next one but, so far, this is an interesting story. I do realize that I might have sounded complainy in my review of the previous episode in dealing with the back stories of the male characters, but I'm not complaining about back story, just the lack of it for the female characters. Ezra, though, as the protagonist, should have a more full back story. Basically, I'm all for more and more inclusive back-story telling.

Rebels: "Fighter Flight" (Ep. 1.3)

"You did all this for fruit?"

The title of the episode is possibly the most amusing thing about it. Well, that gives the wrong impression, I suppose, if you don't find the title amusing or if it leads you to believe that the episode isn't amusing. It is, albeit a bit silly. The episode, not the title. But, then, I'm really beginning to believe that the target audience for this series is the 7-10 age group. Or somewhere around there.

Ezra and Zeb don't get along. They don't get along in much the way that siblings don't get along. They probably like each other but bicker and fight all the time, both of them continually claiming anything that happens was the other one's fault. My problem with this dynamic is Zeb. While Ezra is just a kid and his behavior may be appropriate, Zeb is supposed to be some kind of honor guard or something for his (nearly extinct) people. But, you know, whatever. Maybe Zeb is actually very representative of his race's behavior.

At any rate, the scuffle at the beginning of "Fighter Flight" gets Zeb and Ezra kicked off the ship to run an impossible errand, to retrieve some sort of fruit for Hera that doesn't grow on the planet they're on. Not that they know that. But they manage to find it anyway... in the hands of the Empire. Of course.

Hi-jinks ensue.

Hi-jinks which include stealing a TIE fighter.

I think TIE fighters must be set up to be the easiest things in the galaxy to fly because, really, Zeb figures it out pretty quickly, and he's not really a pilot. What I'm saying is that, all things considered, it seems that anyone can steal a TIE fighter and fly away in it.

Anyway... It's an amusing episode, but there's not much to it other than that it's amusing. It lacks the kind of philosophical tone that nearly every episode of Clone Wars had. Still, I'm not that far into the series, so I'm not making any final judgements yet.