What They Say:
Fire Across the Galaxy – A daring rescue by the Rebels causes an increase in Imperial activity, forcing the crew to call for help.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we hit the season finale for Star Wars Rebels, it really feels like a big surprise even knowing that the show was set with a far too short run. With so much of the season focused on simple stories with some minor character building and establishment of locales, it hit the notes in a perfunctory way but without the kind of deep resonance we needed to really feel it, particularly with the planet of Lothal considering what’s going on there. That said, the last two episodes have been the strongest of the season so far with it bringing in Tarkin and showing some of the earliest movements of the rebellion, but I keep hoping that there’s a larger organization at work out there that the crew can connect with rather than this being the foundations. It’s hard to imagine that in the fifteen or so years since the end of the third movie in the timeline that they’re only now just getting organized considering the overall level of oppression out there and those that fled with a good deal of knowledge of just how bad things were done in the shift to power.
The cold open here has the team going for a big play with Sabine distracting a number of Stormtroopers so Ezra and Zeb can swipe an Imperial transport so they can go after where Kanan is being held. It has a decent feeling to it overall, though the explosion side of it all feels more cartoonish than it should, as we get the team being proactive and making a bigger than usual play in order to work their mission. The ship is an important part of the plan since they have to go to Mustafar and there’s a lot of Imperial ships there, including a number of Star Destroyers as well, which they need in order to accomplish their goal by sneaking into. The amusing part is that the only way to do it is to get inside through the use of a TIE Fighter, which they actually do have one of after they had snuck off with one before. A few threads are being tugged from previous episodes to bring all of this together, which is good to see, but it’s the bigger material that’s really the appeal here.
That area is intriguing as the Inquisitor is making quite the event of torturing Kanan at Mustafar as he wants to know more about the larger Rebellion and about Fulcrum as well. The Inquisitor has some choice words to use that takes us back to the Order 66 moment, something that has likely haunted Kanan for years, and the Inquisitor certainly knows how to twist words in order to inspire a whole lot of fear. What gives him some hope is when he feels the presence of Ezra when the crew shows up there to rescue him with a pretty well done plan overall that provides for an immense distraction. But it’s also good to see that the Inquisitor expected this to happen, having dealt with these kinds of players before, so it’s not like it’s just a smooth and easy rescue. But when has it ever been that way in Star Wars? The nice part is that we get a good blending of both franchise in the rescue attempt with familiar echoes throughout it.
While they do get Kanan rather easily all told, the escaping with Kanan aspect is the hard part since the Inquisitor is waiting for that so he can have the fight he wants. It’s got the echoes from THe PHantom Menace with the Duel of Fates angle to it, but it has a creative approach with Kanan using Ezra’s lightsaber and showing a neat trick or two to it that even Ezra hadn’t thought of. What reinforces the echo here though is that Ezra grabs the other lightsaber and tries to help out, so we get the two on one fight with a very skilled player here in the Inquisitor. It’s good to see how Kanan finally gets himself on the right page to fight here, with an expected gimmick used to do it in the end, and you really wish the whole episode could have dealt with the fight sequence.
Sadly, as excellent as the fight goes, it ends with the expected uncertainty of what the real impact is because unless you see a body, there’s no confirmed death. This has a hint of something bigger coming, which is nice, and it segues well into everyone fleeing the Star Destroyer since the whole thing is going to blow based on how events played out. This gives us a really welcome space battle, something we’ve had little of in the show and didn’t realize how much it was missed, but it also just gives us the fun kind of escape angle against impossible odds that’s just enjoyable to watch. Even more so when it plays big in the final minutes with the arrival of Chopper in the stolen transport along with a number of allies to save the day. What I do like is that while we get the welcome reunion aspect, with a touch of humor as well, we also get the reveal of Fulcrum being a part of the rescue with some mysterious allies. Though it was spoiled online elsewhere, we do get Bail Organa making an appearance here for a moment, but also that Ahsoka is revealed to be who Fulcrum was. It’s interesting to see her older here, and the more formal establishment of the Rebellion here with this cell now connected to the larger world of events, as well as the first introduction of Darth Vader into the series at the end to deal with this newly enhanced threat.
In Summary:
As I’ve said for the last couple of episodes, where has this show been all this time? While a large chunk of this season is weak and it didn’t make it engaging enough in the larger context, it put down the building blocks in the simplest of ways. Which is really hard to get into with the expansive way that the Clone Wars series ran. But now that we get these episodes that has really set us on the larger path, it hits great notes throughout and really makes it feel like things are going to mean something new. Of course, this is the end of the season and it’s going to feel like forever until we get more of it, but at least the potential is there for it to really achieve something. It’s unfortunate that aspects of this were spoiled, but if we get the Fulcrum character taking on a bigger role in the next season and more time spent in the galaxy and not just Lothal, Rebels has a chance at becoming a solid entry in the larger Star Wars universe.
Grade: A
