The Antilles Extraction gave us some new canon on history on everyone’s second-favorite
Rebel pilot, Wedge Antilles!
The episode starts with the Rebels receiving some information on Imperial pilot trainees
that wish to defect.
This news comes from Fulcrum, which we learn is a codename used by any secret informant.
I don’t think this particular Fulcrum is doing a very good job at hiding their identity,
but I’ll come back to that.
With Sabine’s history as an Imperial cadet, she’s sent undercover Skystrike Academy
to find and extract the Rebel sympathizers.
All these pilots are training to become elite Imperial pilots, destined to fly TIE Interceptors,
which I believe get their earliest canon appearance here.
These elite Interceptors are marked with red, which could very well be a nod to Soontir
Fel and the 181st Imperial Fighter Wing from Legends.
I was really hoping their flight instructor would be named Fel, but instead he’s a new
character named Skerris.
This symbol might also be a nod to something, but I can’t place it.
It might just be a symbol of a trainee.
Something I kind of miss about Legends is the sense of progression and escalation we
got in starfighter technology.
Both the Empire and the Rebellion added to their fleet as the war raged on in the old
EU, but now we’re learning that pretty much both sides had all their ships from before
the Battle of Yavin.
Not a big deal.
We are still slowly seeing how the Rebels are building their fleet in the show, it just
happens on smaller timeline.
Sabine’s first interaction with Wedge is as his wingman in a simulator which was designed
specifically as a training mission against the Ghost and a squadron of Y-Wings.
Looks like they’re not only specifically targeting that cell, but the inclusion of
the Y-Wings means their intelligence is well up to date.
I really like the look of the training pods too.
After the simulation, Sabine vets Wedge and we learn a little bit of his history, which
is slightly different from Legends, but not so far off that some similarities couldn’t
be found later.
Wedge reveals the other defectors to be none other than Hobbie and a redshirt named Rake.
I was not expecting to get some backstory for Hobbie in this episode as well, so that
was a pleasant surprise!
He makes a very brief appearance in the Empire Strikes Back, and I’m excited to hopefully
see more of him in Rebels.
The last quarter of the episode felt a little rushed to me.
Sabine and the others make a failed escape attempt, and Rake is killed.
I like how threatening the Empire was this episode.
They take out a transport, they spring a trap and Pryce is even somewhat capable at hand
to hand combat.
Pryce’s execution of Rake was pretty shocking.
Earlier seasons the Empire was shown to be kind of goofy and bumbling, but they are becoming
better villains with every episode.
Sabine, Wedge, and Hobbie are briefly detained and almost tortured, but get out of their
cells and try to escape again, this time with a little help from Kallus.
He claims to be repaying a debt to Zeb after he saved his life back in season two, but
I don’t buy it.
Again, I’m gonna talk about Kallus in a minute.
While it was a little rushed, the final scenes felt very reminiscent of the Force Awakens.
Sabine and Wedge have kind of a Finn/Rey dynamic.
And when asked if he can fly a TIE Bomber, Wedge claims he can fly anything, an exact
line from Poe.
The three of them escape and Wedge and Hobbie officially join the Rebel Alliance.
Okay let’s take a step back and talk about Fulcrum.
There’s no way that’s not Kallus, right?
He’s got a barely disguised british accent.
He’s tasked with finding the Rebel defectors and he finds nothing.
Then he actively helps them at the end using that weak excuse of repaying a debt.
And he had some massive shade thrown at him by Governor Pryce.
Kallus is definitely growing more disenfranchised with the Empire, and I would be really excited
to see him eventually join the crew of the Ghost.
So let’s talk a little bit about what we might see in future episodes.
Thanks to Aftermath we know that one of Wedge’s first Rebel missions was from Fulcrum.
We know that mission ends with him crashing his A-Wing on a volcano and breaking his leg,
and that during his recovery he worked on a Rebel freighter.
We have a Fulcrum and we have A-Wings.
I bet we’ll see that mission, and I think it’s very possible the Ghost could be the
freighter in question.
If that’s the case, we could be seeing Wedge as a recurring character for the rest of the
series.
What little we saw of Ezra this episode seemed to show that he still has some feelings for
Sabine.
I could see a rivalry developing between him and Wedge.
Here’s a thought that probably won’t happen, but what if Ezra goes a little extra dark
side and sabotages Wedge’s A-Wing to make him crash?
I think that’s a little too far for the show and would make Ezra very unsympathetic,
but it’s fun trying to connect these dots before they happen.
But let’s keep pulling on this thread.
In another line from Aftermath, Wedge tells Rae Sloane the Empire hurt people close to
him, and specifically says they hurt a girl he once loved.
Could that girl be Sabine?
Or did all of this happen before he joined Skystrike Academy?
His actions in the episode seem to point towards him having no ill will towards the Empire
until recruitment.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I could see Kallus killing Grand Admiral Thrawn at
the end of the season.
In Legends, Thrawn was betrayed and killed by his bodyguard.
Since we don’t have that character, Kallus would be an adequate substitute.
This episode continues to cement that theory for me.
I’ve been wrapping up these videos with stray thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere
else in the video, and I only have one this week.
Apparently Imperial technology is based on Nintendo game cartridges.
If an ID card doesn’t work, just blow on it.
Works every time.
What did you guys think of the episode?
Do you think Kallus will defect?
What do you want to see from Wedge?
Did you have any questions you’d like me to try to answer?
Let me know all that in the comments!
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As always, thank you for watching and may the Force be with you!