Rebels: "A Fool's Hope" (Ep. 4.14)

-- "That would be no problem for me."

Ezra sees a window to get Lothal out from under the thumb of the Empire; the problem is that rebel command has written Lothal off as a planet that can't be helped. Which is totally understandable considering the fact that they lost their entire attack fleet (mostly fighters) when they went after the TIE Defender program. Every last ship. The cost of Lothal is just too high.

But in many ways, Ezra is the last Jedi -- Sure, Ahsoka is out there, and so are Yoda and Obi-Wan, but they've all retreated into hiding, which only leaves Ezra out in the world. Alone. -- and he has a plan.

Most of this episode is battle sequences, including a duel between Ezra and Rukh. Exciting stuff.

The episode is also fairly typical, story-wise, which is fine. It's an exciting episode. However, there is, for me, a major flaw with the story, one which is too spoilery for me to talk about. I'll just say that it would have been a much more interesting story if they'd gone the other way with it rather than sticking to what is stereotypical for these kinds of things. Maybe there would have been too much involved in doing that in a series that's winding down; I don't know.

But the episode has Hondo, so I can't complain too much, even if they did have him throw himself all in with the rebels. I get it. They have to tie up all of the loose threads, and Hondo needs an honest-to-goodness happy ending, kind of like Han in Jedi.

"He talks a lot for a smuggler."

"For that boy, there is nothing I would not do." -- Hondo

"This is the risk you take when you are a pirate."

Rebels: "Wolves and a Door" (Ep. 4.12)

-- "Hold tight."

So...

So...

Okay, honestly, I don't know what to say about this episode.

Remember back in the Clone Wars when Obi-Wan and Anakin end up on that planet with the family who were incarnations of the Force? You know, the father was the balance (I think), and the daughter was the Light, and the son was the Dark. They wanted Anakin to become the incarnation of the balance. Or something. Man, I need to go back and watch those again.
Anyway...

This episode takes us back to that story line. I'm not sure how, yet, but Palpatine makes a rare appearance in this episode wanting to get his hands on some gateway on Lothal, but Kanan's death has thrown everything out of whack for him.

Way to go Kanan! I guess.

Not a lot of hi-jinks in this episode, which you can probably tell by the lack of amusing quotes.

I'm just going to guess that this last arc of Rebels is going to be a truly important one.

"I'm just glad they're on our side."

Rebels: "The Occupation" (Ep. 4.05)

-- "Everyone is suffering."

You know how they say you can't go home again? Maybe that should just be that you don't want to go home again. At least, not after the Empire has occupied it.

Ezra and company go back to Lothal to find that the Empire has turned much of Lothal into a wasteland. They have a mission, but Ezra is just busy coping with what's happened to his homeland. Well, you know, as much as they allow that to be a thing in a 20 minute cartoon, meaning Ezra gets about three minutes to deal with what's happened.

Most of the episode is them running through sewers.
Very clean sewers.

"I'm going home to help my people."

"Apparently, there's something wrong with my face."

"Don't make me paint you again."

Rebels: "An Inside Man" (Ep. 3.10)

-- "I'm thinking fast thoughts; nothing's happening!"

Remember Fulcrum? Fulcrum was Ahsoka. But Fulcrum is also like 007, just a code name that gets passed around. So there's been a new Fulcrum since Ahsoka's... let's just call it a disappearance. We never did see the body, after all.

Generally speaking, Fulcrum is just a name that gets tossed out upon occasion as a reason for a particular mission. At least, that's how it's been since Ahsoka. But, this episode, our heroes come face to face with Fulcrum and, let's just say, it's a big surprise.

But I'm not going to tell you who it is.

Let's just say that this episode is a good example of tying in past events.

The only problem? Thrawn may already be onto Fulcrum. But we'll just have to see how that plays out.

Boy, that Thrawn just shows up at the most inconvenient of times!

"Do you have any manufacturing experience?"

"Not really."

"Then you'll fit right in."

"Your droid trusts me."

"Yeah, that's not a good thing."

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: "Rebel Resolve" (Ep. 1.13)

"I want a full sweep. Those rebels must be found."


As you can tell from the picture, Kanan has been captured. That's a backwards spoiler to the last episode. It's not my fault if you haven't watched it yet. Tarkin wants to know if Kanan really is a Jedi, because he hasn't bought into the hype and, just as in A New Hope, he's skeptical. He also wants to know how the rebel cell on Lothal is connected to other groups. Basically, he wants to know it all.

Of course, our merry band of rebels is hot to rescue Kanan and are trying to figure out where he's being held. The only problem is that, due to them, the Imperial communications network is down, so they're having difficulties accessing the information. Which delays their pursuit just long enough for them to get word from the mysterious Fulcrum to abandon Kanan for the greater good.

Wait, what?

We don't really know anything about Fulcrum other than that it's some person Hera is sporadically in contact with and from whom they occasionally receive orders. That Fulcrum is a powerful enough character to tell Hera they need to sacrifice Kanan, the last known Jedi, for the greater good is a sudden boggle to the imagination.

And Ezra's just not going for it.

So begins our first prison break episode from Rebels. At least, that's what I'm assuming. We don't really get to that in this episode, but I think that's the direction we're headed.

It's a good episode. Very good, actually. They worked a lot of information into the 22 minute running time. It seems this series is finally geared to really take off.


"The Jedi is no good to me dead."

Rebels: "Call to Action" (Ep. 1.12)

"You're finally getting the hang of this. There's hope for you yet."

After just covering Tarkin's first appearance in Clone Wars, Tarkin makes his first appearance in Rebels. As Grand Moff. The writers make a point of him saying something about how he knew actual Jedi, which makes me glad I just watched the Citadel arc in Clone Wars.

What brings Tarkin to Lothal? Our rebels, of course. Because they have begun to be bothersome enough that a Grand Moff has to make a special trip to deal with them. This means nothing good for the leadership on Lothal nor for the Inquisitor, who has not managed to deal with Kanan and Ezra. Not that Tarkin believes that there's a Jedi involved, but the Inquisitor does, and he hasn't dealt with the issue.

Now, it's not like Tarkin is travelling around stopping on cells of rebel forces; he's not. Mostly, they are disorganized groups of what amount to terrorists. But not the group on Lothal. They're different, which is what draws Tarkin to the planet.

The interesting bit is that it is because of the Empire that our little Lothal band is coming together in an organized manner, Planning and choosing strategic targets. Of course it's because of the Empire, you say. And, yes, of course, because they don't like the Empire. But, specifically, it is because the Empire begins to target them and go after them that they really begin to coalesce as a group that does more than just raid supplies.

And the show really feels like it's coming together at this point with an actual direction and ongoing plot.

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.