Sunday, 20 November 2016

Star Wars Rebels S03E08 "Iron Squadron"

Synopsis

"The Rebels team up to tame a young rogue hotshot pilot and his crew who recklessly risk their lives in a fight to defend their homeworld from Imperial occupation."

What I thought

Continuing on from a number of underwhelming episodes since the opener of Series 3, this week is yet another filler of sorts that seems to only exist for … well, I’m not really sure what the point was of this episode really. I can’t imagine the “children” of the Iron Squadron will ever appear in the show again. The only plot plus I can possibly see in this episode which develops or reveals anything meaningful, is to do with Thrawn and Fulcrum. Not only do we see more manipulation and pondering thoughts by Thrawn this week but we also get an ever clearer indication that Fulcrum is Kallus. At least to me it seems highly likely. I’m also wondering if Thrawn already realises this? Certainly Thrawn knew about who the Iron Squadron were and that by letting them get their way for a while it might drawn in Jun Sato, which eventually it did. Was it me, or did it seem like Sato and Thrawn knew each other? There seemed to be familiarity between them in their brief conversation.

Aside from Sato and Fulcrum, this was a bog standard run-of-the-mill episode with nothing really spectacular or gripping to really drag it up from being simply watchable for half hour. It felt like we’ve seen this kind of episode in about 101 different variations since Rebels began. You know the drill, Ghost Crew heading to planet having Empire trouble, find someone in trouble, save them but something goes a little wrong, and the Rebels return to fix what went wrong and also get away from the Empire again. Yup, it’s that kind of thing. Thankfully, the actual kids of the Iron Squadron didn’t get too much dialogue and weren’t too annoying although there was nothing much particular intriguing about them. Not sure why it was three kids and a droid leading any resistance at all to the impending Empire assault and not a few more adults at least. Chopper once again saved the episode with a few memorable moments with the Iron Squadron’s droid where they battled over fixing the hyper drive, and then when he pushed the nervous droid out of the airlock - Classic Chopper. Kanan once again showed that a blind Jedi using the force is almost as good as one with sight, as he manned the controls of the Ghost and took out a few TIE-fighters. This is all hard to grasp, only because he seems to have mastered it all in no time at all. As said before, I can believe he’d get to this level of expertise, but not this quickly and easily. I suppose he is already a trained Jedi so maybe it’s not such a big step when one actually accepts the situation and embraces the force? I dunno.

This was a feel good episode, a victory of sorts for the Rebels, whilst the only thing missing from the closing scene were some trumpets and the awarding of medals as the Iron Squadron kids celebrate, Sato hugs his nephew, and everyone is happy. Just a shame there wasn’t a scene after that which threw a spanner in the works, as that wold have made up for the entire episode.

What I liked = More Thrawn strategy and pondering. Chopper’s antics, Fulcrum intrigue. Does Sato know Thrawn? Zeb had enough sense to leave the Iron Squadron to Hera & Co.


What I didn’t like = Another variation of a typical standard Rebel’s episode, nothing much really happened of any note.

Rating 5/10 (Ok)

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