Chris Cooper reviews the fourteenth episode of Star Wars Rebels season 2…
This week’s episode of Rebels manages to balance things really well. Well enough to make the fact that its story is paper-thin a non-issue.
I’m going to go off on a slight tangent now. Hera calls out A-Wings by name! We rarely hear the names of ships in the show, let alone models; it’s just nice to have it fully confirmed by characters in the show, even if we knew already. For anyone who has wondered why we’ve seen A and B-Wings in the show, when we didn’t see them until Return of the Jedi in the films, the explanation I’ve heard is that different Rebel cells used different ships. Phoenix Squadron have A’s and B’s, whilst the bigger cell we meet in A New Hope has Y’s and X’s. Then for the final attack on the Death Star II they all come together. Makes sense to me.
Maybe we’ll see the introduction of X-Wings in Rebels? Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Anyway, we get a lot ship action in this episode, and that’s always a good thing. Possibly more important is that we get another insight into Hera’s past, and what makes her tick. She sorely needed it, and the writers seem to have a much better handle on her than they do Sabine. It turns out that Hera inherits a lot from her Father, and as we see through out the episode, those similarities have moved them down seemingly concurrent paths in life.
It’s only as I write this little piece that I realise how much I learnt in Homecoming. A line there, a mention of something here; it all comes together to further flesh out not only the Ghost’s Captain, but also those around her to a lesser extent. What’s good is that the story doesn’t feel as though it has an agenda. I know it wanted to introduce us to certain things, and it wants a certain conclusion, but it all stems organically from the starting point. None of it feels forced.
I would have like to see some of Ryloth, and perhaps we could if this wasn’t a 20 minute long show. It’s something that would have given the story another dimension, but I understand it’s exclusion.
Homecoming is a stronger episode than last week’s. That might not be tricky, but it’s good to see some more development for Hera and Phoenix Squadron.
One question. What are the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister up to?
Chris Cooper is a Flickering Myth Staff Writer, and owner of the blog Super Duper Stuff. Follow him on Twitter @SDCCooper or visit the blog’s Facebook page.
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published February 18, 2016. Updated November 7, 2019.
